You play as Ryan Marks, a scion of a powerful London crime family, who served in the Special Forces but found it only honed his bloodlust. The story begins with his interrogation by a CIA operative, and then flashes back to the day of his father's funeral, which was when the remaining family was ambushed by a rival gang. This sets Ryan off on a path of bloody vengeance against their upstart leader, Tony Sharp, and his underlings, which stretches through the game's 19 chapters.
Tropes present in Blood & Truth:
- Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: There are a few scenes devoted to quiet interactions with your remaining family members.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Getting enough stars on the levels unlocks new weapon skins.
- Anyone Can Die: In terms of the main characters, the patriarch of the Marks family dies of a heart attack off-screen, Clint is shot dead by Kayla, Keach can either be killed by Ryan or by an armored guard, Anne is shot to death by Kayla, Nick is killed off-screen by either Tony, Kayla, or both, and Tony can either be killed by Ryan or blown up with his plane. By the end of the game the only main characters to survive are Ryan, Carson, Michelle, Deacon and Kayla.
- All for Nothing: When Anne is kidnapped by Tony, she is held in a construction site that is rigged to blow. Ryan successfully rescues her... only for Kayla to roll up out of nowhere and shoot her dead, rendering the entire mission for naught.
- Brave Scot: Deacon, Ryan's hardy brother-in-arms with a strong Glaswegian accent courtesy of Bryan Larkin.
- Bittersweet Ending: Clint, Anne and Nick are all dead and Kayla gets away with the rest of the organization. But Tony and Keach are stopped for good, Michelle takes over the family business in her late mother's place and Ryan, Carson and presumably Deacon decide to go after Kayla and the organization.
- Boom, Headshot!: Played straight. If you are using a silencer, it also allows you to pull off quiet kills.
- Catch and Return: It's possible, albeit difficult, to pick up a grenade tossed by an enemy and throw it straight back at them. If you somehow manage to kill someone with it, you'll earn a trophy.
- Collection Sidequest: Vapes, toys, and VR Worlds statues are scattered around the levels for Ryan to collect. There are also marksman targets hidden around levels to shoot. Since you can never backtrack, you need to keep your eyes open unless you want to replay the whole level.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Climbable ladders in rails are usually painted yellow.
- Cool Shades: If there's a pair of sunglasses in the level, you can put them on just for the hell of it.
- Emote Command: There's a button that makes Ryan flip the bird, give a thumbs-up, make devil horns, or throw a reverse V-sign (the British equivalent of flipping the bird). Some of these are tied to trophies.
- Friendly Fireproof: Averted. Accidentally shooting one of your relatives during a gunfight instantly ends the level in failure.
- Gameplay Grading: Levels are rated with a star system based on your score, as well as on how many collectables you found, and how well you shot the bullseye targets located on each level.
- Gangsta Style: Being ex-military doesn't stop Ryan (or more to the point, you) from showing off in this manner. Then again, he suffers no ill consequences from it either.
- Greater-Scope Villain: It's revealed later on in the game that Tony is actually working for an organisation that is trying to control all aspects of society. One that Carson is hunting.
- Grenade Launcher: You get to wield one a couple of times. Devastating, but limited; Ryan drops it when its magazine is spent.
- Groin Attack: Shooting Tony in the nuts at the end of the game will earn you a trophy.
- Guns Akimbo: Ryan can wield two pistols, sawn-off shotguns or SMGs at once Alternatively, he can mix and match guns, such as having a pistol in one hand, and a heavier gun like a shotgun or an assault rifle in the other.
- Gun Twirling: It's entirely possible to do this with almost any gun for no real reason. It's also tied to a fairly-difficult trophy in the pistol's case.
- Handshake Refusal: When making the deal with Carson, the player can refuse to shake his hand when offered. Whether you do or don't, the plot proceeds, and you get a trophy either way.
- Hollywood Silencer: One of the weapon attachments. Fire and miss with one of these, and enemies who haven't spotted you won't notice at all.
- Ink-Suit Actor: The characters are drawn straight from their relatively well-known actors.
- Laser Sight: A weapon attachment that makes aiming much easier, since there's no aiming reticle. It is present from the get-go on the "Cinematic" difficulty, but will otherwise be the one of the last attachments you unlock.
- Lockpicking Minigame: Present whenever there's a locked door, where two lockpicks must be turned in the right way. This will generally have to be repeated more for the same locks the further in the game you are.
- Meta Multiplayer: Online leaderboards for each level were added in a post-release update.
- New Game Plus: An update allows you to play the story again, but with all of the guns, mods and skins found in the last playthrough carried over.
- The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Just when you make good headway into defeating Tony's gang, the hints about one of these start showing up. Apparently, he was just a smaller cog in a much larger machine.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: You can wield these. Putting a free hand up to the hammer also results in a "fanning
" motion that lets you shoot faster. - Sequel Hook: The game ends with Ryan and Carson deciding to go after Kayla and the rest of the organization that Tony was working for.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: There are occasional heavy enemies with riot shields.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: The traditional double-barrel shotgun certainly has an aesthetic advantage over the more conventional guns, simply because you reload it by manually slotting the shells in and then flicking the barrels back up.
- Slo Mo: Pressing both Move buttons activates "Precision Mode".
- Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: There are no on-screen HUD ammo indicators. Instead, the guns will begin to sound different once they get low on ammo.
- Super Window Jump: Done during some of the action sequences, with Ryan suffering no ill effects.
- Take Cover!: During combat scenarios, movement is strictly from cover to cover. You will also regularly need to blindfire over it.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: There are car chases and stealth sequences to interrupt the straight-up shooting.
- Video Game Setpiece: Practically every non-stealth level features an example. For instance, there's a firefight in a building under construction, where a construction crane suddenly tears through everything in your path.
