Insincerity of Blood: Refreshed Supply

Blood: Refreshed Supply - Reveal Trailer Screenshot. Taken from YouTube.

Just as I was trying to wrap my head around my closer look at Heretic + Hexen and Nightdive Studios' approach to it, the announcement of Blood: Refreshed Supply arrived was quite a distraction. A second re-release six years after Blood: Fresh Supply? It seems rather pointless at first glance like with DOOM + DOOM 2 (around second re-release that came out 5 years after previous one), but there's more to this than that. It's more complex.

In order to properly understand the discontent and annoyance some people (myself included) have regarding Refreshed Supply, it's best to look back at Fresh Supply and that's what I'll do in this post. Talking about its rough release, public's reaction and reasons why it happened. Highlighting the importance of post-release support and questioning the accepted narrative related to it. After all that, it'll be the turn to poke misleading marketing of Refreshed Supply and weirdness of its pre-ordering.

The Bad & Ugly in Heretic + Hexen

Heretic + Hexen Game/Expansion Selection Screen.

The unfortunate nature of re-releases and remasters are that they would never be perfect. After all, perfection isn't something achievable when you really think about it. You'll always have some flaws, inaccuracies or even missing features. While it's not something that would bother newcomers and such due to lack of prior experience, for the die-hard fans these things would be a problem. Some things could be tolerable, but some shouldn't be.

Aside from that, there's a matter of presentation and approach to the project itself. Ideally you would want to have a re-release or remaster done by a group of people with enough love to the original(s) and dedication to preserving essential aspects of game(s) they work on. Even without the first part, you can still achieve the second one with the right focus and handling of its development.

I like Heretic. I love Hexen: Beyond Heretic. Can I recommend Heretic + Hexen? No. After playing it for many hours and looking around to gain more insight into it, I don't think it was handled in a way it should've been. From evidently lazy approach to missing details and outright false advertisement. This re-release was also quite an eye-opener to how Nightdive Studios operates, and it's also something that needs to be addressed.