There is something immediately appealing about BLACKWOOD. Set in 2012, it puts you in the shoes of Anton Blackwood, an apparently ordinary DVD shop owner who spends his nights working as a contract killer. It’s an unusual combination of nostalgia, mystery and brutal action, and while the game doesn’t always manage to make all of those ingredients work together perfectly, there is enough ambition here to make BLACKWOOD an intriguing experience.
The most obvious draw is the combat. BLACKWOOD clearly wants to capture the cinematic violence of modern gun-fu, combining shooting with close-quarters attacks, environmental takedowns, slides, dives and evasive manoeuvres. When everything clicks, it feels like Max Payne X John Wick, and it can be spectacular. Taking down an enemy at close range before immediately turning your attention to another target creates some wonderfully fluid sequences.
Unfortunately, that same combat can also be where BLACKWOOD’s limitations become most apparent. There are occasions where animations feel stiff, particularly during hand-to-hand encounters, and some interactions don’t respond as smoothly as they should. Cover can occasionally become awkward, with enemies punishing hesitation. The result is a system that sometimes looks more impressive than it feels to control.
It’s frustrating in these moments because the underlying ideas are strong. There are two currencies in the game. Clean and dirty money. Clean money is generated through your DVD business, while dirty money is from your out of hours work. Guns, ammunition and weapon improvements get paid out of the dirty money pot, with items being delivered to you and then applied via a workbench.
Away from the violence, BLACKWOOD’s more unusual ideas begin to shine. Anton’s DVD shop isn’t merely a backdrop; it forms an important part of his daytime existence. Ordering stock, arranging the films by genre, recommending picks to customers, keeping the place tidy and even feeding the store cat all become part of the daily routine. Developing the store provides a welcome contrast to the chaos of his nighttime profession. That double-life concept gives the game a distinctive identity and helps establish its early-2010s setting.
Speaking of the setting, it’s one of BLACKWOOD’s greatest strengths. With a limited scope, the developers have created a convincing version of New York that feels suitably grimy and lived-in. Environmental details help establish the period. The visuals aren’t going to compete with the biggest AAA productions, but the presentation has plenty of atmosphere. Dark interiors, subdued lighting, shadows and earthy tones give the world an appropriately grounded appearance.
The same can be said for the game’s storytelling. BLACKWOOD is at its most interesting when it slows down and allows you to investigate the world around Anton. Conversations, environmental details and scattered information encourage you to look beyond the immediate objective, while the game’s characters and their secrets provide a reason to keep exploring.
There is, however, a noticeable dip in momentum as the experience progresses. Some of the side content feels more like padding than something that meaningfully expands the story. Despite it not always playing out with the intended style though, I loved the combat BLACKWOOD is trying to capture. Certain sections may feel repetitive, but I constantly had that feeling that next time I’d be able to pull off an even more cinematic scene.
It is also worth remembering that the September 16th launch represents only Act One of BLACKWOOD’s planned three-act story. Act Two is scheduled for March 2027 and Act Three for September 2027, with both being delivered at no additional cost to existing owners. That makes the current release feel more like the beginning of a larger story than a completely self-contained adventure, so its ultimate narrative payoff will depend heavily on how those future chapters develop.
BLACKWOOD is an ambitious indie action game with a genuinely interesting identity. Its combination of DVD-store nostalgia, assassin fantasy, investigation and cinematic gunplay is unusual, and its best action sequences demonstrate just how entertaining the concept can be. Yet technical roughness and inconsistent enemy AI prevent it from reaching that next level. I expect a certain level of jank in a game like this, and sometimes it can add to the charm, but here it is going to require a patch or two to bring it up to code.
I’m delighted that this game exists and I love that Indie devs are taking a crack at smaller sized versions of Max Payne, Sleeping Dogs and others that I enjoy. It’s a difficult genre to do well, and for those of us craving more games like this, I think we need to take the rough with the smooth at times. One thing I will stress, and I’m speaking to the developers directly here, is this game needs to be ported to console as soon as possible. There is a market there for a game like this, and the sooner more players can experience it, the better.
Craig 🧐
