Trivia / Blood (1997)

• Content Leak: One of the employees who worked on Blood leaked the Alpha and its source code to a computer repair shop in 1996, which angered Monolith Productions. Monolith later made it policy that if any employee went to a computer repair shop, one of the staff had to go with them to prevent another leak. Said leaked beta was ultimately the basis for unofficial modern source ports (as Atari refuses to release the source code of the game) as it had the source code intact - albeit nowhere near as complete as the final game's code would be.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The game was initially going to be published by 3D Realms. According to an interview with Jay Wilson, poor communication, a too-small budget, and demands that left the development team confused and scrambling to adapt caused Monolith to split from 3D Realms and partner with GT Interactive to publish the game.
  • Atari did not allow Nightdive Studios access to the original game's source code for the Updated Re-release of the first game, Fresh Supply. This forced Nightdive to hastily rebuild the game's code into their proprietary engine, resulting in a rough launch for Fresh Supply. Atari then pulled the license away from Nightdive after the release of the 2.0 patch, leaving future updates and bug fixes for Fresh Supply in question.
• Shrug of God: It's not 100% clear if Stephan Weyte, Caleb's voice actor, gave also his voice for the Cultists. When he was asked, he replied that he thinks to recognize his own voice in them but he doesn't remember recording their lines.
• Troubled Production: The creation of the game was fraught with difficulties. The development team had a number of inexperienced members and was given only a small budget, which left the team struggling for funding. The Build engine the game was being designed for was still being worked on and left the team working with both a game engine and tools that were incomplete through much of development. Assets and source code from an early build of the game were stolen from a PC left in a computer repair shop and posted online, which led to a lawsuit that Monolith settled out of court. Executive Meddling from and Creative Differences with 3D Realms, who would leave the team to their own devices for months on end before coming in to check on their progress and arbitrarily demand major changes, led to Monolith splitting from them five months before the game would release and signing up with GT Interactive to publish the game. The fact that the game was finished, let alone a success, under such conditions is regarded as an extraordinary accomplishment by the team.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A feature cut late in the game's development was a "Bloodlust" meter that would have transformed Caleb into a Beast after taking severe damage or killing enough enemies, making him faster and doing more melee damage. It was cut after the developers felt it was more tedious than enjoyable due to limiting the weapons the player could use while transformed. Sprites intended for the melee attacks can still be found in the files, and mods exist that allow it to be used in place of the Pitchfork. The concept of the "Beast" would also be revisited for the Plasma Pak's Post Mortem episode, where the final boss, a Priest, transforms into a werewolf-esque creature upon taking enough damage.
  • The leaked alpha build of the game has a vast number of differences compared to the final, such as several weapon sprites having different color schemes or designs, enemies having unused sprites suggesting different attacks or behaviors, and a large amount of unfinished items that would be cut from the final game.
  • Ports for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn were planned but not completed. This was likely due to the complications after the game was sold to GT Interactive.

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