BloodRayne: ReVamped

I haven’t thought about the BloodRayne series for quite some time now — probably not since BloodRayne: Betrayal, the side-scrolling third entry in the series that originally released back in 2011. In fact, I didn’t even hear mention of Betrayal getting a re-release of its own as BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites in September of this year. So I was equally surprised to see that BloodRayne and BloodRayne 2 would both be getting remasters of their own in as BloodRayne: ReVamped and BloodRayne 2: ReVamped.

Although these look to mostly just be ports of the PC releases from 2020 (the Terminal Cuts), it’s definitely nice to see Rayne getting a new coat of paint as she steps out to paint the town red. Blood red, that is… Get it?

From what I can gather, these will mostly just be graphical remasters — with no real work done under the hood — rather than full-on remakes, which would have really been awesome. Touching up the controls and overall pacing would have been nice, right? That being said, combat and traversal still seem to hold up fairly well, so a graphical improvement should still go a long ways towards introducing Rayne to a new generation of game enthusiasts, while also presenting that feeling of “This is how I remember these games in my rose-tinted brain” for older fans.

The curious bit is that Ziggurat Interactive, the publishing house that purchased the BloodRayne rights from Majesco Entertainment in 2020, decided to release both games separately instead of as a proper collection. They could’ve even tossed in the Fresh Bites remaster of BloodRayne: Betrayal and had a real complete collection going.

Assuming the price point for the Switch versions — which are currently live on the eShop for $19.99 a piece — will be the same for the PlayStation and Microsoft versions, it really does seem like they could’ve just released all three together for the handsome price of $49.99 even and called it a day. The piecemeal, $20-a-pop release structure just seems like a small cash grab. I’m not trying to condemn or criticize here; this just seems like a miss in the fan-service department. I mean, the remastered release of the Crysis series allowed for you to purchase each individually, or together for a significant discount — each game individually retails for $29.99 (ignoring some release-period discounts on some digital marketplaces), or just $49.99 for the whole shebang. Ziggurat could have taken a lesson from Crytek here. But I digress…

I wouldn’t have thought I would be talking about BloodRayne in 2021, let alone finding myself curious to re-experience all of the blood-soaked action of BloodRayne and BloodRayne 2, but here we are. And who knows? Maybe I’ll even watch the BloodRayne film series to really round out the experience.

You can check out the BloodRayne: ReVamped trailer below:

And while you’re at it, why not check out the trailer for BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites trailer as well?

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