Blood Stained: Retribution

"No one's Above the Law"

- Official Game Tagline

Blood Stained: Retribution is an open world, western action-adventure video game developed by Axcero and published by AlphaPrime. It was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles in February 2018. The game, set in Australia during the end of the second industrial revolution in 1908, follows Nate Croshaw, a gunslinger framed for a crime he didn`t commit and became hunted by the law. With no other option, Nate is forced to find the man that framed him and prove his innocence.

Blood Stained: Retribution is played from a third-person perspective in an open world environment, allowing the player to interact with the game world at their pleasure. The player can travel the land, a fictionalized version of the Australian outback, primarily traversed by horseback, foot and early motorized machinery. An online multiplayer mode is included with the game, allowing up to 24 players to engage in both co-operative and competitive gameplay in a recreation of the single-player setting.

Gameplay
With the advanced game engine, Retribution has a fully intractable weather system that can lightly or heavily affect how one plays. During a thunder storm, for example, the high winds can make the player run slower and decrease the accuracy of their weapon or a dust storm would severely lower visibility and cause small damage over time due to suffocation.

Combat
In the game, gunfights are the majority of combat throughout many violent encounters. Featuring a cover system, one is able to duck and weave throughout cover in order to shoot in safe locations. The game's Engine allows for realistic bullet effects, such as shooting an enemy in the arm will cause them to shoot with the other hand or incapacitate their ability to fire a firearm. As the protagonist gets shot, small bullet hole cracks will appear on the screen along with visible streaks of blood until they either regens or die. The game features a big group of weapons ranging from the standard shotguns, revolvers, or rifles, to a more unorthodox and unusual weapons like a Crossbow. Throughout the story, the player will learn different techniques for use in their weapons, such as how to Fan the Hammer, duel wield revolvers and other handguns, or the Load Two method for rifles and shotguns.

The game also features a Reputation system that works in conjunction with the Posse mechanic. By helping or harming NPCs or choosing bad decisions during random events, the Reputation bar will slowly grow or shrink. Depending on how high or low the bar is, you will be able to recruit gunslingers in your service to form a posse. Depending on you reputation level, either Criminals or Lawmen will join you, each group with their own skills.

Setting
Blood Stained: Retribution is set in Australia, 1908 towards the end of the diminishing of the second industrial revolution and during the frontier wars; the conflict between English settlers and the native inhabitants. The game takes place on the Australian outback, a reminiscence of the American Frontier. The map is split into three different regions; the two fictional states of New Melbourne and Queensland, and the neighboring Eastern part of the Territory of Tasmania, Capernick Valley

Single Player
The story follows Nate Croshaw, an American who fled from Arizona to southern Australia for unknown reasons. Shortly, he is framed for slaughtering an entire town single handedly by Allister Vox and his gang. Getting captured, hung, but managing to escape, Nate Crowshaw is forced to hunt down the man that framed him in order to prove his innocence, all the while being hunted as a criminal from the law.

Comic Tie-in
Months following the release of the game, a comic tie-in was released on the Axcero website that detailed Nate's motivation for escaping the U.S. The revealed Nate's life in Arizona with his wife before an incident that caused him to murder her, motivating him to flee the country.

Through out the story we also learn that Nate's first name is actually Oliver, something that was hinted in the cutscnes of the game.

Trivia

 * Early in development the game was originally supposed to take place in the four corners of the USA. Axcero believed that a western game set in the U.S. was already too common of a theme, so they put the story in Southern Australia to expand the potential.
 * By listening to conversations between NPCs and reading newspapers, one can learn of Nate`s interesting past before going to Australia. They learn that Nate used to reside in Arizona, but after an unknown incident he murdered his wife.
 * It is implied that Nate Croshaw`s first name isn't really Nate but that he chose that name in order to build a new identity after escaping Arizona.
 * This is supported when Sherriff Lukas Windsor looks at Nate`s file and asks him what his name is. When he says Nate, he responds with, "So that's what you go with now,huh?"
 * There are also variouse instances in the game where Nate fails too respond immediately to his name.
 * It was confirmed in the Comic tie-in that his real name is Oliver Croshaw.
 * Throughout the story, he is reffered as Nathan, Nathaniel, Yankee, Cowboy, and Mr. Croshaw.
 * During an interview, a game developer revealed that the game was based around the concept of: If one is to fight a monster, will he himself become a monster.