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.

Fresh Supply Aftertaste.

It's known that the release of Blood: Fresh Supply was incredibly problematic. Players faced a huge amount of bugs and inaccuracies that caused a huge uproar in the community. Good and quick example of that would be Civvie11's video on this, but I would also recommend reading discussions in Duke4 forums: a bit in broader Blood thread and the one dedicated fully to Fresh Supply. This will help you catch up not just on a reception from general audience, but more dedicated Blood players.

Fresh Supply page on Blood Wiki proves a good insight into why the release ended up in a way it is. To put it simply, it was a result of improper development approach. Since the source code of Blood was (and still is) legally locked by just Warner Bros. nowadays (nu-Atari only has publishing rights for PC it inherited after buying GT Interactive in 1999 when it was called Infogrames), reverse engineering was the only path forward.

In a retrospective shared on Duke4 forums from (now defunct?) Kex Engine server on Discord, Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal (project's Engine and Game Programmer) reflected:

"...Problem is that I also avoided using any BUILD code at all. That was my mistake. The second mistake was failing to understand the clockrate/tick rate of BUILD. Originally, the logic that I reverse engineered was running at 2x the speed in Kex, so everything had to be scaled down. I should of researched more on that rather than just scaling everything

I hated BUILD's collision code so much that I didn't even think twice about the impact it would cause when I rolled out my own

if I am ever given the chance to revisit FS. I am going to add an option to switch between collision modes"

This is very nice to see developer open to criticize their own work and express desire to make things right in the future if given the chance... Given a chance? Well, after receiving a few updates in 2019, the initial support for the game was handed over to nu-Atari and the only substantial update since then was inclusion of Blood: One Unit Whole running through DOSBox on Steam as an additional game option in November 2023.

While Fresh Supply ended in a better state compared to its initial release version, there was still a lot of differences compared to original Blood listed in this comprehensive Steam Discussion thread that people hoped would be addressed in order to see Fresh Supply become much more faithful to original game. Despite this, you could still see this re-release being occasionally suggested for casual first-time playthrough or as the only legal means to access Blood's game files to use them with existing source ports.

Bloody Distractions.

It was said that "Nightdive is working with Atari to continue to maintain and enhance the game" in "Atari and Nightdive Customer Support" in Fresh Supply's Steam Discussions, but no updates for Fresh Supply followed after that. This resulted in a sentiment by community where nu-Atari didn't allow Nightdive Studios to work and publish any updates to Blood: Fresh Supply. A moment of hope came in a form of nu-Atari's acquisition of Nightdive Studios in May 2023, but all that came as a result is previously mentioned update from November of the same year.

You can still see people cite nu-Atari as the main obstacle for Fresh Supply to fully realize its potential, but the reality appears to be very different. A topic called "Has Blood Fresh Supply Been Fixed?/What Source Port For Blood Is Available?" was created on Doomworld in late October 2021 and its title is very self-explanatory — Zero Denied was wondering about the state of official re-release and Blood's source ports. In a middle of discussion, Edward "Edward850" Richardson (Software & Netcode Engineer from Nightdive Studios) joined in to make to provide this insight into situation surrounding updates for Fresh Supply:

Nightdive's Developer Statement About Patching Blood: Fresh Supply. Taken from Doomworld.

Needless to say, this paints a different picture of this whole thing. The "there hasn't been any good window of time to organise getting that access and patching the game" part be proven if you just look at the release schedule of Nightdive Studios starting with Blood: Fresh Supply. Seriously, just take a look:

• Blood: Fresh Supply — May 9, 2019.

• Strife: Veteran Edition — October 25, 2020 (Nintendo Switch).

• Shadow Man: Remastered — April 15, 2021 (PC), January 13, 2022 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One), January 17, 2022 (Nintendo Switch).

• Quake Enhanced — August 19, 2021 (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch), October 21, 2021 (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5).

• PowerSlave: Exhumed — February 10, 2022.

• Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition — June 23, 2022.

• System Shock (Remake/Reboot) — May 30, 2023 (PC), May 21, 2024 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5), "Coming Soon" (Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2).

• Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition — July 31, 2023 (PC), September 23, 2023 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch).

• Quake 2 Enhanced — August 10, 2023.

• Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered — November 30, 2023.

• Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster — February 28, 2024.

• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream — March 27, 2025 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5).

• PO'ed: Definitive Edition — May 16, 2024.

• DOOM + DOOM 2 — August 8, 2024.

• Killing Time: Resurrected — October 17, 2024.

• The Thing: Remastered — December 5, 2024.

• Turok — February 28, 2025 (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5).

• System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster — June 26, 2025 (PC), July 10, 2025 (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5).

• Heretic + Hexen — August 7, 2025.

• Turok 2: Seeds of Evil — October 31, 2025 (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5).

• Outlaws + Handful of Missions: Remaster — November 20, 2025.

• Blood: Refreshed Supply — December 4, 2025.

That's 18-27 releases in the last six years, which sounds pretty crazy for development nature in current gaming industry where projects takes years to be complete. Clearly, Nightdive's focus during this period was mostly on quantity of releases. With rare exceptions like a sudden DOOM 64 patch(es) in 2022 that did address player's complaints and aforementioned major updates for Turok (update to Kex4, according to patch notes on Steam) & Turok 2 re-releases in 2025. So Nightdive certainly could've switched their focus to Fresh Supply, but they had other ideas for it.

Nonexistent Deceptions.

Similarly to Heretic + Hexen, there's some... vagueness in Refreshed Supply's marketing that I would like to highlight. Its also notable that store pages for it were updated since its initial reveal. Originally I wanted to compare the list of enhancements from Fresh Supply with two variations from Refreshed, but original version of Steam page sadly didn't reach Internet Archive and you can only see replaced images at SteamDB.

It's now a tradition for Nightdive Studios to not be fully honest when it comes to new episodes included in their re-release. Refreshed Supply is planned to include two "new" campaigns — it'll have MARROW at launch and Death Wish should follow some time later. For those unaware, this will feel like them creating these episodes themselves. However, if you have some knowledge about Blood's community creations, you'll be aware that both Death Wish & MARROW are notable examples of it. Nightdive did hire developers of these campaigns to include their work in this re-release, but, like with Heretic + Hexen, they decided not to give them a proper recognition by highlighting these episodes as something made by community members.

Unlike Heretic + Hexen, updates to these campaigns were on the way regardless since their passion projects. Fourth episode for Death Wish was announced in 2022 and episode two for MARROW was teased at the beginning of 2025. While being hired by Nightdive allowed creators of Death Wish and MARROW to dedicate more time thanks to financial security that comes with that, it's still not the main reason why these projects came to be in the first place. It helps get them done earlier, but both updates would've come out eventually. And giving these campaigns shoutout as a community work would've served as a better introduction into the world of Blood's community project for the new audiences.

Undoubtedly, the key element of Refreshed Supply that makes it stand out from Fresh Supply is the use of game's source code. All thanks to Warner Bros. Games' involvement with the project. This fact is at the front of re-release's marketing, and you even have Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal stating that "this isn't a rebrand of Fresh Supply but rather from scratch using the original source code of the game" and that people shouldn't feel obligated to buy it again if Fresh Supply is more than enough for them. By itself, this comment comes across as sincere & honest comment from Nightdive developer about upcoming project. Reality, as you might've suspected, is very different.

Hendricks266, co-founder of Voidpoint, joined beta test of Blood: Refreshed Supply after contributing material from Ken Silverman and 3D Realms' archives for re-release's Vault. Given his expertise with Build Engine (developing EDuke32, working on Ion Fury & Ion Fury: Aftershock and also directing the Shadow Warrior: Deadly Kiss Restoration), Hendricks266's insight into Refreshed Supply would hold a certain weight to it. With this in mind, his comment in "Nightdive Studios: Blood Refreshed Supply - Trailer" topic in Doomworld is very-very-very interesting.

Hendricks266's Statement on Blood Refreshed Supply. Taken from Doomworld.

Based on how Hendricks266 described it, Blood: Refreshed Supply appears to be a direct continuation of Fresh Supply. Its 2.0 version or major overhaul akin to aforementioned updates to the first two Turok games, if you will. This gets more interesting when you look into how people involved with development of Blood: Refreshed Supply comment on this. Hendricks266 also talked about his perspective of this Blood re-release on Nightdive's Discord server and it led to very interesting response from Nightdive developers.

Role of Source Code in Blood: Refreshed Supply Discussion Part 1.
Taken from Nightdive's Discord server (1,2,3).

Role of Source Code in Blood: Refreshed Supply Discussion Part 2.
Taken from Nightdive's Discord server.

Role of Source Code in Blood: Refreshed Supply Discussion Part 3.
Taken from Nightdive's Discord server.

This exchange is different from typical Nightdive developer sightings I've showcased in "The Bad & Ugly in Heretic + Hexen". Despite still being generally defensive, none of the developers or moderators have tried to really challenge Hendricks266's claim. They tried to immediately dismiss it and change the topic of conversation, sure, but it's still a curious turn of events. I find it incredible odd how Edward850 responded to him. At first he tried to word it in a way that won't go against re-release's marketing and make Edward850 sound like he's more correct, which is to be expected of him. But then he goes on to prove that Hendricks266 is actually right in what he said both there and in that Doomworld reply.

It's also very strange of Kaiser to say that "this isn't for purists" when the usage of Blood's source code is the excuse used to justify Refreshed Supply's existence as a separate product, according to the marketing. The one that supposed to reassure people that this time it's faithful to the original game, therefore you kind of need to make this for the purists to reinforce the idea of Refreshed Supply being 100% faithful to Blood's original release. That remark does sound more like an emotional excuse to quickly distance himself from uncomfortable conversation, so it's not surprising that the logic behind it is flawed.

Strangely enough, it's not a self-isolated incident. In "Nick and Dustin Chat About Marrow + Death Wish Expansions on Blood: Refreshed Supply | Deep Dive" video from Nightdive where Nick "Damien_Azrael" Palsmeier and Dustin "Bloatoid" Twilley talked about their creations (MARROW and Death Wish) and Blood itself. One of its segments was dedicated to features of Blood: Refreshed Supply and there was this exchange:

Dustin "Bloatoid" Twilley: "Well, the big thing is that, um... He, uh, Kaiser didn't have access to the source code..."

Locke Vincent: "Right!"

Dustin "Bloatoid" Twilley: "...when he did Fresh Supply..."

Locke Vincent: "Right."

Dustin "Bloatoid" Twilley: "...so there was a lot of guesswork in there. Just a lot of work went into like 'how can we can this really-really close with, you know, the information I have available to me'."

Locke Vincent: "And then did you get it for this one?"

Dustin "Bloatoid" Twilley: "Yes."

Locke Vincent: "Oh!"

Dustin "Bloatoid" Twilley: "Yes."

Locke Vincent: "Nice. Okay, so it's like..."

Dustin "Bloatoid" Twilley: "So, so he just replaced a lot of the stuff where he wasn't a 100% on how XYZ worked and he's referenced the source code to make things accurate this time. Well, more so than before."

Locke Vincent: "Amazing. Um, okay. So, new source code. That's, that's huge. That's awesome. Filling in some of those blanks."

Even in later official material (this podcast episode came out what Hendricks266's comments), people working at/with Nightdive Studios don't shy away from mentioning the fact that Blood's source code was used as merely a reference material for correcting and updating Blood: Fresh Supply. Not a full-on new project "rebuilt from the original source code", as Refreshed Supply's store pages proudly state. Most people who look favorably towards second re-release of Blood do so with the assumption that Refreshed Supply is a new product created from scratch and not an updated version of Fresh Supply.

Before Hendricks266 got involved with Refreshed Supply's development, there was one notable piece of information he shared that I think is worthwhile highlighting. Remember one of the quotes from before where Kaiser expressed his desire to include an option to choose between original & Fresh Supply collisions if he were to work on Blood again? Yeah, it looks like he had a change of heart as seen in these screenshots from some unknown (to me) Discord server. He also talked about why there's no demo compatibility.

Hendricks266 Sharing Kaiser's Replies About Collision Code and Demo Compatibility in Blood: Refreshed Supply.
Taken from 3D Realms' Discord server.

I'll also include this prophetic comment from Hendricks266 that he made before getting into beta testing Blood: Refreshed Supply. He was completely spot back then too! That's just hilarious, this guy is so cool. Go play Ion Fury. You know, it's not surprising that nobody from Nightdive Studios tried to seriously challenge Hendricks266 expertise because they just can't. It would be a guarantee problem for them, so Nightdive may as well be honest about the nature of Refreshed Supply as long as it's not on project's store pages and such.

Nightdive's Co-Founder Talking About Hendricks266's Blood Alpha-Beta Contributions.
Taken from Nightdive's Discord server (1,2,3,4,5).

Aside from that, I guess the leadership at Nightdive Studios also recognized that it would be simply rude to let their problematic developers engage in typical arguing with someone who provided a massive contribution to company's upcoming commercial release. This would be much worse than being rude and disrespectful to anyone else, so of course Nightdive can't let that happen.

Nu-Atari Podcast Source Notes.

Before going any further, there's still more important bits of information about the development of Blood: Refreshed Supply that I think are very important to highlight alongside things I've already mentioned. "Atari Podcast Episode 66 - Let's Play Blood: Refreshed Supply w/ Nightdive Studios" demonstrates the pre-release version of Blood's second re-release while developers from Nightdive Studios talk to nu-Atari's Associate Director of Games about it.

Around halfway through it, Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal joins them and provide more insight into the project. To be more specific, Kaiser offers crucial detail about how Blood's source code was introduced into the development process of Refreshed Supply. He says this:

"Okay. So, for... For the, um, differences... So, about, um, halfway through of development, I, uh, received the, uh, source... uh, the source code from, from Kicker and, um, that had basically blew everything wide open. I, I basically said 'Okay, I am starting pretty much from, from scratch again'. So, all of what I had from, uh, Fresh Supply has been scrapped.

Um, I did, uh, retain the same, uh, modding sys-... uh, modding and scripting system that Fresh Supply had. So, um, going off of that, I, uh, I used that as the foundation for Refreshed Supply and, uh, I've also, uh, brought over the same um-um... the, um, same collision, um, system from, uh, Fresh Supply as well. But everything else, I... Um, I re-... um, reimplemented, but this time using the, the original, uh, source code.

So, a lot of the uh... Um, a lot of the, um, the logic for an enemy AI, the, the, th-... triggering system and all, all... I mean, pretty much everything in Blood has been, um, um, well, pretty much revisited. So everything is, um, is-is re-... is redone from scratch while using this original source code."

"Kicker" is Stephen Kick, the CEO of Nightdive Studios. Based on what Kaiser said, it's apparent that Refreshed Supply literally did start off as an overhaul of Fresh Supply and Blood's source code was introduced only halfway through its development to a point where the entire process basically restarted. Surprisingly, this does line up with Edward850's comment about "there hasn't been any good window of time to organize getting that access and patching the game". Sounds like they did figure this out only to then switch the approach altogether.

It's hard to say whenever Warner Bros. Games got involved with Blood specifically halfway into Refreshed Supply's development or they were part of it since the start. Nightdive switched off to having releases on all major platforms after Blood: Fresh Supply (with Strife: Veteran Edition being another exception) and their recent revisiting of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream with console release and overhaul of PC version does kind of support that, so it wouldn't make sense for them to rework Fresh Supply without being able to push it onto consoles. 

What's certain is that Warner Bros. Games was definitely part of Refreshed Supply when Nightdive Studios gained access to Blood's source code because that's the only way they would've been allowed to legally utilize it in any capacity. This also opened the path for console releases, which is a big plus for nu-Atari and Nightdive as well.

If you don't believe in legitimacy of Kaiser's quote that's been archived on Duke4 forums, here's him admitting to making many mistakes during the development of Blood: Fresh Supply with some details about collision detection in Refreshed Supply:

"Yeah, I, I.. *sign* I really made a lot of mistakes with, uh, Fresh Supply. I thought, uh, I thought maybe, you know, I, I like.. trying to do my own collision system, um, my way. While yes, it worked, but it... but you also have to, have to remember that the game has gone through many years of modding... Uh, like mods and, and stuff like that.

So, a lot of... a, a lot of people have built their mods around the fact that, that the game behaves a certain way and, as a result, some things just did not work. Or, like, some things, uh, broke or, or, you know, it's, it's just... it, it basically won't... Trying to find the right words for it. It, it, it basically doesn't bode well with, with some of the um, um, user maps.

So that was another reason why I kind of... um, stepped... I took a step down and went back to using most of the original, um, code for, for collision detection. While there, there's still some things that, that I-I still ended up keeping, but a lot of things for like, uh, keeping track of your celling and floor heights or the logic to push you out of the wall if you happen to get stuck. All of that is, is now using the, the same logic as, as Build's because the way the Build Engine does it has to be done in a certain way. To the, pretty much, to-to a point of that a lot of maps kind of rely on this sort of behavior.

So that was a lot of things I had to be really, uh, careful about this time to make sure that, um... that the way it acts has to be exactly how, how, you know, what the Build Engine expected. If that makes sense."

Now I can move on to a different topic.

Digging The Grave Deeper.

Weird thing about the pre-orders for Blood: Refreshed Supply was that they were active only on PC platforms (Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store) while consoles only had store pages (Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo) where you could wishlist the re-release. For comparison, Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection that was developed by Digital Eclipse and published by nu-Atari (Warner Bros. owns Mortal Kombat) had pre-orders available for all platforms. So why Blood: Refreshed Supply got a different treatment?

It's important to mention that a couple of Nightdive Studios' projects had issues with console versions that led to sudden delays: both Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition and System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster were delayed for consoles due to certification issues by almost a couple of months and two weeks respectively. There's an argument to be made that Nightdive just wanted to avoid any potential issues and be ready for it. As I've mentioned before though, Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection didn't have such problems.

Warner Bros. Games position here isn't very clear. Why would they be okay with no console pre-orders they have full rights on? Why allow only PC pre-orders where the rights are in the hands of nu-Atari? This gets stranger when you examine the "Fresh Supply discount". Some people view it as a good thing — a favor that nu-Atari managed to negotiate from Warner Bros. for the sake of Blood: Fresh Supply owners.

I'll be using USD prices on Steam for following examinations. Same principles should still imply to GOG (not to Epic Games Store because Fresh Supply was never released there):

• By default, Blood: Refreshed Supply had a 17% discount for its pre-order.

• Owners of Blood: Fresh Supply get an additional 49% discount on top.

With this in mind, let's look at all the options people had available for pre-purchasing Blood: Refreshed Supply throughout the entire of its pre-order period. Price history of Fresh & Refreshed Supply from SteamDB are very helpful here:

• Just buy Refreshed Supply for $24.99.

• Buy Fresh Supply without a discount for $9.99 and pre-order Refreshed Supply for $10.29. Total cost would be $20.28.

• Buy Fresh Supply with a discount for $1.99 (there were two Steam sales) and then pre-order Refreshed Supply for $10.29. Total cost would be $12.28.

I could've been more thorough every discount Fresh Supply had, but you get the idea. The idea is that it's more beneficial for people to have Fresh Supply if they want to get Refreshed Supply. This option is more profitable not only for the players, but nu-Atari and Nightdive as well. Remember, nu-Atari owns PC publishing rights for both existing Blood games. It's very unlikely they would've given that up to Warner Bros. Fresh Supply is still published solely by nu-Atari, so they're getting all the money from its sales. 

Why Warner Bros. Games are okay with this? If their goal is to get as much profit as possible, why not demand an immediate delisting of Fresh Supply from Steam & GOG to keep the number of people benefitting from additional discount as low as possible + open up pre-orders on consoles? Why give Nightdive and nu-Atari the opportunity to get as much value out of Blood: Fresh Supply as possible? I think you can see where this is going.

This points towards companies working out a deal where Nightdive & nu-Atari would be allowed to squeeze the last bits of revenue out of Fresh Supply before delisting it to not compete with Refreshed Supply. Perhaps that's why there were no pre-orders on console either (to pave the way for Fresh Supply). After all, it makes sense: they re-released Blood before, so making it again would be relatively easy. Nightdive & nu-Atari getting favorable deal like that technically does make sense. This would've likely helped ensure that they also get a satisfying cut from console sales of Blood's second re-release.

Would Blood: Fresh Supply be delisted? xScruffyDaSasquatchx, a moderator of Nightdive Studios' Discord server, believes that it will as that's what he answered to a question about changing a name for Blood's channel:

Nightdive's Moderator Teasing Blood: Fresh Supply Delisting. Taken from Nightdive's Discord server.

It's important to mention that it's just a Discord server moderator and (it seems) not an actual member of Nightdive Studios, so it's possible that xScruffyDaSasquatchx is just making an assumption based on Nightdive's delisting preferences. Still, they do love delisting prior versions of games they're re-releases/remastering, so that seems very likely. Blood: Fresh Supply was constantly getting deep discounts for all these years. It being delisted seems very likely, especially if it helps them gain more profit in the long run.

Previously I stated that there's no way to tell whenever Warner Bros. Games was always part of Refreshed Supply's development, but I actually think there're a few clues pointing out that Nightdive wouldn't have revisited Blood without a good reason. Despite his statement from late October 2021, Edward850 made this statement regarding Nightdive working on a Build Engine game almost 9 months later in a "What happened to the ROTT remaster?" topic on Doomworld:

Nightdive's Developer Statement About Working on Build Engine Titles. Taken from Doomworld.

This exchange followed right after:

Nightdive's Developer Being Vaguely Specific About Blood: Fresh Supply.
Taken from Doomworld (1,2).

Kaiser's distaste for Build Engine was mentioned in this "article" before in relation to its collision code, but there's an exchange between him and Bundle85 (Nightdive's Discord server moderator) where Kaiser confirmed that he still doesn't like the engine.

Bundle85 Joking About Kaiser's Opinion of Build Engine.
Taken from Nightdive's Discord server (1,2).

Interesting enough, this conversation happened in August 2025. Blood: Refreshed Supply will get publicly announced a month later. It's possible that Kaiser was still eager to revisit Blood regardless for the sake of fixing his own mistakes. At the same time, the prospects of getting access to consoles and some cut of revenue from them could've been a good enough motivation to overlook his distaste for Build Engine.

That's assuming Kaiser has a good enough influence within Nightdive to decide what projects they would tackle, of course. Nightdive's leadership and/or nu-Atari could've just stated that "we partner with Warner Bros. Games on updated Fresh Supply as a standalone release on all platforms; now get to work". There's one more quote that alludes to console release being the actual main reason for Refreshed Supply's existence, but I need to hold onto it for the next paragraph.

Nightdive's "Preservation" History.

We can estimate the likelihood of Fresh Supply's delisting by looking into a few games whose prior version were fully delisted or tied to Nightdive's re-release/remaster that released around the same time. Starting with a notable mention of first System Shock: its Classic (original) & Enhanced Edition were released as a bundle of sorts, but only Enhanced Edition is available for purchase. Classic is added as a bonus standalone game without a proper store page.

Before Fresh Supply, there was Blood: One Unit Whole Blood — original DOS version of Blood you could purchase before its first re-release. It was delisted as a standalone product after Fresh Supply was released, tied to it on GOG right away and then on Steam some time later through an update I mention earlier.

Unfortunately, there's one game that didn't get such luxury for its original version. Shadow Man was quietly delisted from Steam & GOG after Remastered's release. I'm saying "quietly" because there wasn't much reporting on this: only a warning on GOG forums and reporting by Delisted Games. Nobody really noticed this because Shadow Man's remaster was received positively.

You can't say the same about Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition. Its original version was initially pulled from GOG and replaced by re-release, much to dissatisfaction of players and ScummVM team that worked on original package. Despite what GOG's "How can I access the original Blade Runner game?" page says, you actually can buy original Blade Runner separately on GOG as evident by both dedicated store page and replies in "Why Can't we buy the original version anymore?" thread on GOG forums. Not on Steam though.

It's worth mentioning that nu-Atari acquired Nightdive in May 2023. Everything I've mentioned above occurred before that deal took place. Back when Nightdive Studios was still an independent company. You can argue that the decision about each original game was made by whoever owned it, but the pattern itself is difficult to ignore. Not every re-release/remaster by Nightdive led to the removal of original games, but I'll get there shortly.

The latest example of this is System Shock 2 and it's very noteworthy. Not only because Nightdive owns the IP itself, but since the company itself came to be thanks to System Shock 2. It was their first "barebones re-release" with a fan patch that they used without author's approval because Stephen Kick couldn't reach out to them. Maybe it's just me, but that seems rather rude. Even if Le Corbeau, as far as I could tell, never made any statement about this. People were not happy about this though, to a point where a GOG representative had to apologize for lack of credit. According to "System Shock 2 Headscratchers" page on TV Tropes, Nightdive didn't address the matter publicly.

Stephen Kick Comments on Using NewDark in System Shock 2's Commercial Release.
Taken from Internet Archive.

Anyway, let's focus on recent dubious actions around System Shock 2. Enough with distractions. "System Shock 2 (1999) Delisting Notice" was published on Steam on October 7, 2025, giving people 3 days notice. This was right after Autumn Sale where you could've bought original game with a 40% discount, so that's fun. If you were postponing getting System Shock 2 for cheap (like me), you had to pay full price (I didn't). GOG confirmed delisting on its platform a couple of days after, giving their audience a one-day warning. By that point, System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster was out for around 3 months and, as with first System Shock, original game now comes as a bonus if you have its remaster.

Compared to other situations, this delisting was late and too sudden. It's likely that Nightdive discussed it for a certain period of time before making such decision, so giving people a short notice like this and after System Shock 2's sale ended is not a good look. Here's what Edward850 had to say about this during an argument in a Doomworld topic right before Hendricks266 posted his statement on Refreshed Supply.

Nightdive Developer Talking About Merging Versions of Games & The Point of Refreshed Supply.
Taken from Doomworld.

He refers to this move as "standard practice", indicating that this is a position of Nightdive Studios. That's certainly not a standard for industry as a whole due to a number of games that received remasters with original games staying available separately. Some of those examples include games Nightdive was involved with re-releasing/remastering:

• Rise of the Triad: Dark War (Steam, GOG).

• Kingpin: Life of Crime (Steam, GOG).

• Tomb Raider (Steam,  GOG).

• Tomb Raider 2 (Steam, GOG).

• Tomb Raider 3 (Steam, GOG).

• Star Wars: Dark Forces (Steam, GOG).

• Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (Battle.net; It was delisted from GOG though).

Edward850 also directly states that console release of Blood: Refreshed Supply is "the point of doing it at all". This is pretty much the confirmation that Warner Bros. Games was involved with that project since the start and then later they found Blood's source code somewhere within their own archives or got it from Jace Hall or Matt Saettler, who reportedly had a copy of it (you can learn more on "Blood Source Campaign" page from Blood Wiki) all this time. Alternatively, it could refer to transformation of Fresh Supply's overhaul into a standalone release. This doesn't really match Nightdive's preferred release strategy of recent years though, so that scenario seems unlikely.

Conclusion.

There're two conclusions you can draw from all this. First, Nightdive Studios is just another game developer company that cares more about profit than "the preservation of gaming industry" or whatever. Some people can romanticize and idealize them all they want, but actions speak louder than words. Just too many signs to ignore the obvious. Some people working in Nightdive are likely driven by passion for games they're re-releasing or remastering. Unfortunately, that's evidently not enough to treat these classic titles right.

Secondly, some people want to be fooled. I don't exactly blame those who excuse Refreshed Supply in its current form and say things like "developers deserve to be paid for their hard work". That's totally true. With that being said, Fresh Supply is still in need to fixes that it'll never get now. Players shouldn't be obliged to pay additional price to receive a product they should've replaced in the first place, especially if said product is an updated version of a title they already bought. Even one of moderators in Nightdive's Discord server agrees with this sentiment and say they would've preferred to see Refreshed Supply as a free update on PC.

xScruffyDaSasaquatchx Sharing His Opinion on Blood: Refreshed Supply.
Taken from Nightdive's Discords server.

I kind of see where they're coming from though. Nowadays, it's very easy to be focused on negative side of things (just look at this "article") and that makes you cherish stuff you view positively. Putting that much trust and faith in any gaming company is a mistake by itself that people just can't help but to repeat. Up until the point where company's negative side of things are difficult to ignore. That's just how this cycle goes. They'll get there eventually.

Be that as it may, there's nothing else to say about Blood: Refreshed Supply at this moment. Perhaps I missed something or new details will come up after its release. It'll probably get mostly positive reception with warranted criticism tied to Fresh Supply not affecting it too significantly. In other words, similarly thing to Heretic + Hexen, Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition... Warcraft: Remastered... This is just sad, you know?

Kaiser's Blood: Refreshed Supply Meme. Taken from Nightdive's Discord server.

Well, at least it's kind of amusing to see how blatantly honest developers from Nightdive Studios are about Blood: Refreshed Supply. It's just another testament of their arrogance and it's too tiring at this point. In any case, I can move on from this now. Time to clear up my backlog in Steam or write a more optimistic "article". Just do something nice.