Bloodroots – PAX East Preview

Kill Everyone! That’s the message that screams loud and clear from the moment you boot up the demo for Paper Cult Games’ new ambitious action game – Bloodroots.

The west was a dangerous place where anything and everything could be used as a weapon. You’ll hack, slash, spin, and jump your way through a colorful, yet deadly world. You’ll need the entire arsenal that’s at your disposal in order to make it to the end as alive as you can be after a journey like this. Carrots, barrels, wagons, and planks of wood join traditional weapons like swords and axes as your personal killing machines.

The thing that sets this game apart in a crowded field is the innovation that you’ll find as the game progresses. You won’t just hack and slash through each level until the end, beat a boss and move on. You’ll need to figure out the best path that will allow you to kill all the enemies in the area before you can move on. The most impressive display of this that we saw during our personal demo of the game involved jumping on a wagon until it reached a cliff, at which point, you’d jump onto a barrel avoiding the spikes surrounding it – enabling you to roll around on the barrel free from harm squishing all the enemies in your path. You’ll find moments like this over and over again throughout your play through.

Bloodroots namesake is a flower that the Native Americans used to use as war paint. There is a nice tribute to this throughout the game as flowers will grow in every place that you die. A particularly hard area for you could result in a little garden growing in your stead.

Bloodroots has the potential to be the biggest indie game of the year and we can’t wait to play the full game when it releases later this year on PC, PS4 and Switch.

Ben Smith

Philip is better at buying video games than he is at playing them. He was once told “it must suck to love something so much and be so terrible at it.” As a boy he would write terrible poems about himself and Ross Perot. He enjoys the best and worst of all forms of media, but nothing in the middle. Puyo Puyo Tetris has almost caused unreconcilable differences between him and his wife. He’s never had a hangover, but not from lack of trying.