Blindfire Preview – Who Knows What the Darkness Holds

If there is one genre that needs innovation, it’s the competitive shooter space. Since the arrival of “hero shooters,” there hasn’t been much. Most companies are either offering their own take, following another trend, or simply making the existing experience more varied. So when Double Eleven announced a darkness based shooter, it piqued my curiosity. By changing the entire flow, Blindfire offers a largely unique experience. However, given innovative ideas are not automatically good, especially early iterations, is it a sleeper hit, or will it fade into the darkness?

At the time of posting there is no campaign for Blindfire, nor has Double Eleven mentioned it on a roadmap. Long term this may change, but currently there are just a handful of competitive modes with the option to play as a squad, or by yourself.

The image above shows what Blindfire looks like at the start of a match. It’s hard to describe a uniform experience, as I have an OLED tv, microLED monitor, and a 4K monitor that each look different. The basic gist is a couple areas are illuminated, along with a basic outline of the room being visible.

From there players are given two ways to track down potential threats. One is an “echo,” which shows a brief outline of where lurking threats were at that specific point, or utilizing sound. The latter is why Double Eleven recommends a headset before playing. Not only were things a lot more pronounced than the usual shooter, it was incredibly common for someone to alert others by taking a shot.

A Different Map That is Hopefully Easier to Understand

On a basic level it’s an interesting concept. Instead of relying on being the better shot, or out moving your opponent, it comes down to whomever can figure out where the other is, and land the killing blow. Even if this stuff is interesting, Blindfire adds another twist that turns it into more of a party game.

When someone dies they can clearly see the map, and activate “traps.” Instead of something like BioShock 2‘s rig a vending machine to blow up an unsuspecting fool, they allow watchers to radically change the flow of combat.

I Can Finally See

Upon death I can activate certain obstacles. So if someone is by a car I can set the alarm to go off. Doing this makes them more visible, along with instantly telling the other players where I am. Even if I am put at a disadvantage, it honestly isn’t that extreme.

Maybe two people decide to go after me, one uses echo and notices the other, they kill them, but in doing so alert me of their location. Traps also have the potential to be quite tactical.

Let’s assume I am in a bad position relative to the other person. Someone might activate a nearby trap that breaks my focus. I look to the side, the actual threat pounces, and I take an unfortunate death. Given there are plans for further traps, along with other maps, it will be interesting to see how the concept is fleshed out long term.

All this being said, Blindfire reminds me a lot of the problem I had with, of all things, Nintendo Land. When I first experienced it at E3 2012 it was an absolute blast. Everyone there was locked in, the staff was sure to make things as competitive as possible, and it felt like how marketing tells me Mario Party is supposed to be. In practice, that isn’t how most people will experience the game.

In Blindfire‘s case it simply does not have a large population. According to Steam Charts the average player count is seven, and the absolute peak is 27. Now, there is crossplay, though even the leaderboard reflects low interest.

When I first took an image of it five days ago, it only took eight matches to be in the top 10. From there the absolute peak was just 37. At the time of posting it’s now 21, and 50 respectively. With the most active players averaging around four matches a day, that really doesn’t bode well for Blindfire‘s future.

This is why I ultimately compared it to Nintendo Land. On a theoretical level it has a ton of potential, and could actually be something cool; yet in practice I wasn’t able to play a single match with the maximum amount of players. And while I don’t want this preview to devolve into being an evaluation of player interest, it’s simply an unavoidable element that will unfortunately dictate how successful Blindfire ultimately becomes.

Hopefully this will improve long term as I could easily see this type of experience being a big deal. Especially in the streaming community where watchers can be just as anxious looking for threats.

Editor’s Note: Blindfire was played on PlayStation 5, and an early access copy was provided to us.