Noctropolis
Noctropolis
Game
Game2014
BloodNet
Developer MicroProse Software, Inc
BloodNet is a cyberpunk-themed role-playing video game developed by MicroProse Greensburg and published by MicroProse for MS-DOS in 1993. An Amiga port was released in 1994 by Catfish and Teeny Weeny Games. An emulated version for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux was released in 2014. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
59 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy) · newest Oct 30, 2026 · last updated Oct 30, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
54
Mixed
19 positive · 16 negative
95% range 38–70%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 19 | 16 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 7 | 2 | 11 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 4 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mixed
20 of 39 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
54% recommend · 19 yes, 16 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 35 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mixed (31 of 58 positive).
Many reviewers find the interface and combat clunky, dated, and frustrating. [1][2][3] Some players note the game requires patience and a manual to enjoy. [4][5][6]
Liked
Representative posts
- [1]
This is the worst game I've ever played in my life. It has some shlock value, but everything about it causes agony. The interface is terrible and makes no sense. The dialogue is terrible and makes no sense. The story is terrible and makes no sense. The character names are terrible and make no sense. I bought this by accident (wasn't paying attention, my fault there), and tried to play it for laughs to make it worth …
- [3]
It would be easy for me to talk about how time has been harsh to Bloodnet. The game’s original release was all the way back in 1993, and over two decades of advancement would conspire to make almost any game not called X-Com struggle for relevance. But it would be a kind-hearted ruse of sorts; even at its time of release, Bloodnet was insanely awkward, counter-productive and suspiciously confusing. It’s as if …
- [8]
Bloodnet is the single most influential game I've ever played. The characters are very rich, all with unique portraits and voice over dialogs, hundreds of them. There are also lots of recruitable characters, I'd say about 25, each with their own body graphics. The music is awesome and original, the script and dialog are amazing work of fiction, the whole making the game very immersive. But it's old, it's extremely …
- [10]
This is an extremely underrated game. The storyline, characters, world, and especially the dialogue, are brilliant. The game's unfortunate downside is that it attempts to be an RPG... and the action completely fails at being compelling or enjoyable. That said, if you can get past the terrible RPG elements (I'm sure there must be some way to at least hack the game to make the fights less annoying) you have a rather …
- [4]
it is required to read the manual before playing, if you cannot read then i do not suggest
Summarised from 34 of the 57 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 13, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
54% of the 35 Steam reviewers we collected recommend BloodNet. The complaint that keeps coming up: terrible, unintuitive interface. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Computer Gaming World in February 1994 approved of BloodNet combining vampires and cyberpunk, non-linear gameplay, "interesting" characters and storyline, and streamlined interface. However, the reviewer said that "the game as a whole left me vaguely dissatisfied", citing a lack of direction in the story and pacing, not enough detail in Cyberspace, "confusing and frustrating" combat, and an unavoidable repeating random encounter. He concluded that BloodNet was "a gem without polish". Dragon gave the game 3 out of 5 stars. Pelit rated BloodNet 82% in the February 1994 issue, with the summary of "beautiful graphics, great atmosphere, but almost everything could have done better". BloodNet was…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
59 of 59 · most liked firstYou can play the 1988 Neuromancer video game for free in your web browser at the Internet Archive. I honestly thought I had already posted this here but I guess not. If anyone ever wanted to play the point-and-click Neuromancer video game from 1988, you can play it for free right in your web browser. The Internet Archive has quite a few games you can play for free in your web browser. I also found [Bloodnet](https://archive.org/details/msdos_Bloodnet_1993), the cyberpunk/vampire…
neutral · AI labelView post →Don't mind the hours spent in the game. After refunding it, I ended up buying it on GOG to give it another try. I first want to preface this review by saying I went in totally blind. I have no nostalgia attached to it, and I come from a background of loving point-and-clicks. I also seek out any game of the cyberpunk genre I can get my hands on. That said, I wanted to like this game, but it felt impossible to. I saw it and I thought it was some kind of miracle I hadn't played it already. Even…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a true Microprose masterpiece from the good old days! As a teenager I`ve been playing it for weeks, trying to figure out all the puzzles and quests, find every recruitable NPC with unique items\ inventory graphics, installing every possible cutting-edge cyberware, jury-rigging protective suits (about 12 of them) and weapons from junk and spare components. Background artwork is simply beautiful, music is haunting and atmospheric. Combat is complex and intense - in some situations it is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fred Gambino, BloodNet: The Cyberpunk Vampire Game UK box art for Microprose (DOS), 1993
neutral · AI labelView post →Bloodnet is the single most influential game I've ever played. The characters are very rich, all with unique portraits and voice over dialogs, hundreds of them. There are also lots of recruitable characters, I'd say about 25, each with their own body graphics. The music is awesome and original, the script and dialog are amazing work of fiction, the whole making the game very immersive. But it's old, it's extremely non-linear, and some features are buggy. My favorite game of all time. Heck, my…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After about 20 years, being reacquainted with this good ole cyberpunk game is something nostalgic, this was one of the few games i played back then when i first had a computer. I used to play that in a time where i was not much into games as i am now, and as such perhaps i was never hard on it and liked it for what it was. If you never played it however you might find it extremely hard to understand, some might say it didn't age well. They would be right. This is not for the typical gamer of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is the worst game I've ever played in my life. It has some shlock value, but everything about it causes agony. The interface is terrible and makes no sense. The dialogue is terrible and makes no sense. The story is terrible and makes no sense. The character names are terrible and make no sense. I bought this by accident (wasn't paying attention, my fault there), and tried to play it for laughs to make it worth it, and GOOD GOD it isn't. The combat is nonsense. Total garbage. It's like…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What's your favorite cyberpunk horror?. Including any movies, video games, books, anime, etc. What's your favorite cyberpunk horror? I'm thinking maybe movies like [Hardware](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7zprC0OtZU) or video games like [Observer](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1386900/Observer_System_Redux/), [BloodNet](https://store.steampowered.com/app/327920/BloodNet/), or maybe [System Shock](https://store.steampowered.com/app/482400/System_Shock/). I should admit I haven't seen…
neutral · AI labelView post →Bottom line (conveniently at the top): Avoid at any cost (that Steam will charge you) I bought this game out of nostalgia, because I originally played it as a kid when it first came out. I couldn't finish it as kid and I figured that with my greater mental capabilities and the experience of an adult gamer I would be able to finish it now and get some closure. I was wrong. The gameplay is simply awful and counterintuitive. The design is basic and confusing (Hey, let's make every weapon and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'll start just by saying that it is my favourite adventure (although it is much more) game. Bloodnet mixes elements of adventure and rpg. Among solving puzzles you command your small squad of friends and mercenaries in fights. There's a lot of character statistics influencing combat, decking (travelling through cyberspace), crafting etc... Bloodnet tells a story of Ransom Stark, who is trying to lift a curse of vampirism. It is dark, mature and really sucks in. Ransom will meet a lot of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wanted to like this game; it has vampiers, cyberpunk, and that quirky 90's PC game vibe. Being a big fan of all the above, i was eager to play it...two big problems that really soured it for me: the controls and the lack of direction. First off the controls are not intuitive at all, over complex, and after two hours i still hadn't figuerd them out. And the lack of direction...i get that you've got a limited time to free yourself of the vampier curse before it's permanent, but how one…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don't bother. The premise sounds interesting, but it's really just a tedious and old game that hasn't aged well. It runs at a resolution of 320x200 and has painfully bad midi music. The control scheme is completely unintuitive, and reading the manual (bundled with the game as a PDF) before playing is pretty much necessary. I barely got past the intro before I just couldn't take it anymore.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It would be easy for me to talk about how time has been harsh to Bloodnet. The game’s original release was all the way back in 1993, and over two decades of advancement would conspire to make almost any game not called X-Com struggle for relevance. But it would be a kind-hearted ruse of sorts; even at its time of release, Bloodnet was insanely awkward, counter-productive and suspiciously confusing. It’s as if someone went out to tenaciously create the most infuriatingly obtuse interface…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i love this game even if its stupid and cantankerous. i did all the paths because i love to suffer the past. cybervampires
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →[Question] What are the best *retro* cyberpunk video games (20+ years old)?. What would you say are the best old-school cyberpunk video games? Note that I don't actually care if it's the "best", I'm just looking for some fun older games to play. So give me something better than [Raid 2020](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_2020) and I'll call it a win. I'm thinking things like: - [Snatcher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snatcher_(video_game)) (1988) - [Blade…
neutral · AI labelView post →Hey, you don't look so good. You know cyberpunk? Yeah? And you know vampires? That sounds like an absolutely kickass combination. And it seems to be. It's just a shame that the interface for this 1993 game, and the music, is absolutely awful. I wandered into a bar. A seedy place, by looks. Then, the low, repetitive electronic beat plays. Over. And Over. And Over. I recruit a half-cyborg guy called NIMROD-1. He seems cool. I go to try out the fight system in the game. So I pick on some random…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bloodnet tries to be a lot of things and fails at it quite miserably, it wants to be a roleplaying game, but it also wants to be a point and click adventure game. its combat is some of the worst I've seen in an RPG, It's bloated and over-complicated and at times it's even hard to tell what's happening. it has a ton of character traits and stats for your character, most of them never or sparingly used. Bloodnet is the video game equivalent of a jumbled mess of different wires. But I still like…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ever wanted to trip balls on every drug known to man and then wash it down with an 8ball of c0ca!ne while simultaneasuly eating your best friends flesh and watching Nosferatu on HIIIIGGGGHHH DEFINITIOOOOON!!!?!???!?! Then play this game because thats what a stroke feels like.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Got it in a bundle with other games. Not really recommended for concurrent PCs. Really old school but good enough game for the hardcore players. I remember it back in the 90s when I used to play it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"BloodNet," a cyberpunk adventure gem from '93, still stands tall in the hearts of genre fans. This DOS classic, with its point-and-click gameplay, takes you on a wild ride through a dystopian future where vampires, hackers, and corporate intrigue rule the streets. The narrative is the star here, plunging you into a complex and atmospheric world. You step into the shoes of Ransom Stark, a former corporate programmer turned vampire, navigating the gritty New York City streets. The game serves…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →WTF was that !!!! o_O
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →> The newly added games are: > > - Mortal Kombat 4 > > - Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers > > - BloodNet > > - Personal Nightmare > > - Weird Dreams
neutral · AI labelView post →This is an extremely underrated game. The storyline, characters, world, and especially the dialogue, are brilliant. The game's unfortunate downside is that it attempts to be an RPG... and the action completely fails at being compelling or enjoyable. That said, if you can get past the terrible RPG elements (I'm sure there must be some way to at least hack the game to make the fights less annoying) you have a rather wonderful, well written, engrossing game that's brimming with clever ideas and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Tags: Adventure - P&C - Point&Click Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library TLDR: Learning curve is high. Initial turn off is high. Character is not to scale with environment. Production values are not consistent. Interactivity feels off. This does not obey conventions of the genre. Dashes in RPG elements such as character creation. You will be locked out of valid options based on your stars. You receive little guidance on what to do. The sprite for the character looks…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love MicroProse's BloodNet (1993) for the juicy dialogue and NPCs, but there are combat sequences in the game so poorly designed that they unintentionally block most character builds from finishing the game. (Wasn't the Nouvelle vague also built on loving *certain* parts of terrible films?)
neutral · AI labelView post →Bloodnet was relatively well received though not without acknowledgement of its faults. CGW's review in their February '94 issue by Douglas Seacat praised the worldbuilding and adventure aspects, though in the end, noted that "game as a whole" left him "vaguely dissatisfied" with this "uncut gem".
neutral · AI labelView post →https://youtu.be/tZn5LLUJx2o After nearly two decades, the setting and themes are still very strong but the gameplay and controls show that age in the harshest of ways almost rendering the title unplayable by modern standards.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it is required to read the manual before playing, if you cannot read then i do not suggest
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've given this game a chance at three different points in life. It just sucks. Plain and simple.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →BloodNet. In the streaming age, if you could learn to play that game well enough to make it look unbroken, it's this accidental slice of shoegaze Cronenberg.
positive · AI labelView post →I'll definitely keep an eye out for that. They make me think of all sorts of Cyberpunk goodness: Bloodnet, Dark City, Beneath a Steel Sky, and the original Netrunner card game.
neutral · AI labelView post →Retro Game Review #207 Bloodnet (Gametek) Commodore Amiga Amiga Format issue 72: 82% Amiga Power issue 50: 89% The One for Amiga Games issue 76: 84% #randomgamereview #commodoreamiga
neutral · AI labelView post →BloodNet (1993) | RPG | PC platforms | MicroProse Software
neutral · AI labelView post →Just a huge thumbs up for retro games esp ones like these PLEASE make a darn Crusader No remorse/ No regret game! Seriously if you are old school get this game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cyberpunk bloodlust and aliens come to play to. Guns sword and biting. Id give this one a 6/7. On 7/14. Grate one to be sure to check it out on gog games steampowered or old cd rom floppy disc Mite need a trackball
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game sounds amazing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BloodNet
positive · AI labelView post →BloodNet is a surreal cyberpunk-vampire fever dream: dated, obtuse, and oddly irresistible. It’s one of the strangest hybrids the ’90s ever produced, blending a grim, dystopian metropolis with classic vampire mythology (yes, there’s even a Van Helsing) into something that feels as bizarre as it is memorable. The gameplay is clunky and often irritatingly opaque, a reminder of just how labyrinthine early PC RPGs could be. But if you have a taste for retro oddities, this absolutely scratches that…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →impressive scope and AV but game and interface design is unplayable
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good soundtracks get me every time. BloodNet has a cool soundtrack. Did you play Alone in the Dark and the original X-Com (it was called UFO: Enemy Unknown here) game?
neutral · AI labelView post →The game BloodNet tried it but didn't do it very well
negative · AI labelView post →BloodNet is an extremely 90s PC game. Been fun to revisit it.
positive · AI labelView post →Remembering with anger, the cyberpunk vampire video game Bloodnet. It offered 3 ways to play: hack, stealth or fight. I picked hack and stealth and the end of the game was 3 fights in a row relying on skills/attributes I hadn't levelled up. Woof.
negative · AI labelView post →MicroProse <3 NightDive
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good old-school cyberpunk role playing game. Even though the graphics are poor by today's standards (were goo in the 90's), the game more than makes up with a deep story line and dialogues. Old favourite fantasy. If it were able to play this on Android phone, I would get into it in spare time.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The height of creativity.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just AWESOME buy it but it looks like a game from 93 keep this in mind
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bloodnet is a funny game because you watch the long intro, then fill out a personality quiz to make your character, spend bonus points on your stats, and then finally after like 20 minutes you get to play, where you immediately put yourself in a dead man walking state by loitering in cyberspace
positive · AI labelView post →This week's schedule, with all times in CT! It's well past Halloween, but we're still going to check out one more horror-themed game before the end of the year with Bloodnet, a weird adventure game/RPG hybrid. Other than that, we're continuing with our usuals! See You Next Trip!
neutral · AI labelView post →More BloodNet! The Hot Profile Pic Game! LIVE NOW! www.twitch.tv/mrcoddleshire youtube.com/live/hYUzqps...
neutral · AI labelView post →I want to like this game and hope to, but given the lack of guidance and guides, I've spent an hour trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. To certain people it could be recommended don't get me wrong but this kind of on start up headache isn't what gaming is supposed to be about.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this game when it came out. I thought the idea of cyberpunk vampires was cool.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Concept didn't click with me, sorry.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hells yeah! I didn't know they brought back Bloodnet! Great game, amazing story, and jank as all hell!
positive · AI labelView post →I misread this as Bloodnet, the extremely edgy 90s What-If-Cyberpunk-But-Vampires game, and I got very briefly excited.
positive · AI labelView post →I need to play BloodNet: A Cyberpunk Gothic. fucking LOOK AT THIS GAME
positive · AI labelView post →Hi James! The above image is not mine, it is a screenshot from the old DOS game BloodNet by Microprose. That aside, I also haven't done artwork on commission in a while but if it's an artistically interesting prospect I've always got ears :)
neutral · AI labelView post →Bloodnet: A Potatopunk Gothic Source: Game Players PC Entertainment 6.4 (July/August 1993) Scan Source: RetroMags #retrogaming #dosgaming
neutral · AI labelView post →I bought it again to try and finally finish it after getting far when i was a teen. I dont want to give this a bad review but... I cant play it. Its just too old and dated. BUT so much of it is brilliant. The design, aesthetics, attempt at making a great turn based rpg alas...The combat is a letdown and convoluted direction and UI. Your character is weak 2 Very weak no matter your options in the weird Create Character questions. . Theres no levelling up too. BUT underneath there is a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As a Cyberpunk fanboy who would buy used underwear just because it has the Street Samurai sybol on it, I really hate this game. I thought for awhile I just sucked at it and I didn't have enough brain to know what was going on. But after some digging, I come to find out its just an all around bad game from the mouths of people decades ago to now. The combat system makes no sense, and the cyberspace area (which I knew I would like even if it was terrible) was terrible and I didn't like it. But…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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