ABOUT
Blade of Agony is a story-driven FPS. The project is inspired by WWII shooters from the 90's and early 2000's, like Wolfenstein 3D, Medal of Honor, and Call of Duty, but with faster-paced gameplay in the spirit of Doom! The game can be played standalone using the GZDoom engine as a base.
STORY
It's 1942, and the war approaches its peak. The U.S. has joined the Allied forces, and the Soviets are pushing back the front in the east. The tides of war are turning, and Hitler's victory seems more and more beyond his grasp. But the Nazis, refusing to capitulate, have grown obsessed with human experiments and occult artifacts, in which they see a potential escape from their final Doom. The Allied leaders reject this possibility as nonsense; nonetheless, some still fear what the Führer might be up to. The situation is nebulous, however, and little is certain.
You are Cpt. William "B.J." Blazkowicz, an Allied spy, a fearless risk-taker, and the greatest soldier to ever take up arms in World War II. Your role has changed, though; you've retired from active duty, and now you spearhead operations as a systems analyst. You thought it would be the right choice--leading and motivating instead of doing the dirty work--but lately you've grown restless. At least until a few days ago, when you received an encrypted message from your old friend and comrade Cpt. Douglas Blake, calling you back to duty...
FEATURES
Blade of Agony is much more than just a pastiche of the classic shooters that inspired it; the project will offer a unique experience. It also has many features not often seen in source port projects--Blade of Agony truly pushes GZDoom to its limits.
- 30 playable and unique levels in 3 different chapters (plus secret maps)
- Orchestra-quality game music
- Voice acting and ambient soundscapes
- A combination of low-poly models and hi-resolution sprite assets to create the perfect retro feeling
- Devastating armaments from the battlefields of WWII
- Interactive NPCs that support the twisted plot's progress and help you understand the game
- Improved enemy AI for more dynamic and challenging fights
- Beautiful special effects (weather, elements, explosions, etc.)
- Modern post-processing shaders (motion & effect blur, noise, flares, etc.)
- Much, much more!
WHAT OTHERS SAY
"This is basically one of the best DOOM mods I've come across." - John Romero
DISCLAIMER & IMPORTANT NOTE FROM THE DEVELOPERS
Blade of Agony is a fictional scenario based on the alternative narratives of the Wolfenstein game series by id software and Bethesda and the corresponding canon. It does not represent accurate history, our political stance or thinking of the development team. We reject any form of racial hatred, discrimination, (Neo-)Nazism, anti-Semitism or glorification of the Second World War.
Articles
Since the release of v3.1 of "Blade of Agony" we have received numerous messages, comments and emails. Besides positive messages and words of support, we have also received a lot of opposition and disappointment.
"You have given up", "You have given in to the shitstorm", "You have lost my respect".
After more than 6 years of working on a project of the heart, these words of course hurt and disappoint us very much and after we had answered some of the comments on ModDB and by email, we now feel that an official statement is necessary to gain understanding and shed light on the matter.
The changes and mitigations we have implemented for version 3.1 do not stem from cowardice we have shown towards some users of the Doom community. Blade of Agony is a creative, free and artistic interpretation within the Wolfenstein universe. And as long as we are unpaid developers working on such a project in our spare time, it must be ensured that we realise our vision as we see fit. This is exactly the motto we have been working by for the last 6 years, releasing the last 3 chapters. So why the adjustments to v3.0 now?
As some of you know, the team around "Blade of Agony" consists of a colourful bunch from all over the world, including Israel and Germany. Wolfenstein 3D and swastikas have long been banned and punished in Germany in the field of entertainment. Since 2018, these laws have been toned down, but games of this kind are still under the strictest observation by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (FOftPotC).
Although we as developers strictly condemn any form of discrimination, racial hostility, anti-Semitism and glorification of the Second World War, there were concerns on the part of various German gaming sites and news sources about whether we had not crossed a line with some content (including the depiction of a concentration camp, the explicit mention of affected population groups or the World Exhibition in Paris with historical anti-Semitic content). From that point on, it was clear to us that we would have to reconsider the content in order to weigh up possible personal damage (for example a punishment from the FOftPotC if they deem the game unacceptable) from all the developers of the project concerned.
The Second World War was the most horrific conflict in our history, and we as a development team do not want to ignore, censor or even deny these atrocities. However, we have asked ourselves what position we are in as entertainers. Wolfenstein is and always has been a fictional scenario, so we have no duty to educate the people who play our game. We want to tell an exciting story. So our yardstick in toning down the game was "What content is necessary to achieve that and what content can we do without?"
Blade of Agony has been released in several versions before and as we changed, removed and added content from version 1.0 to 2.0 based on experience gained and advice received, this is an organic process that has now also taken place between 3.0 and 3.1.
While we can understand some of the disappointment, we hope players will understand why some changes had to be made and why we can no longer officially support v3.0, and ask that you do not share public links on our ModDB page. Of course, we have no influence on what happens in the private area.
We hope that you continue to have as much fun with Blade of Agony as we had during its development and we still wish you a good time.
Thank you,
Daniel Gimmer
and the entire Blade of Agony development team
Blade of Agony | v3.1 "Achievement Edition" released!
News 36 commentsComerades, it's Friday 9th of July and we hope you are ready to get psyched once again! The new version 3.1 of Blade of Agony has just been unleashed...
Blade of Agony returns! - Release date vor 3.1 announced
News 81 commentsAfter the original v3.0 of Blade of Agony has been taken down one month ago to calm things down, we are proud to announce the release of the updated version...
Blade of Agony | taken down for changes
News 37 commentsDuring the last days and weeks we, the development team behind "Blade of Agony", received a lot of emails, comments and news about the release of the...
You demanded, we deliver | Discord!
NewsThe final release of Blade of Agony has been unleashed more than a month ago now and the feedback has been amazing so far. We are currently working on...
Files
Blade of Agony | Full Release (v3.1, standalone)
Full Version 337 commentsBlade of Agony is a story-driven FPS. The project is inspired by WWII shooters from the 90's and early 2000's, like Wolfenstein 3D, Medal of Honor, and...
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You should at least make the weapon quality uniform. The Weapon quality and sprite work of the weapons is all over the place, shoddy at times. Some weapons are quite good while others seem like zero time was put into them, or stamped as 'okay' with a "that'll do" attitude.
I find your reply to SamVision quite astonishing to say the least. Our feedback is important and valid, that is what a critic does, points out the flaws in hopes that the developers will improve their game.
Your reply to Sam was very off-putting, "...we are happy with how the weapons turned out, and without any more detailed information it will be hard for us to improve them"
I gave you plenty of reasons to improve them in my last reply. Was that simply ignored?
"It's not our goal to bring up a project that hits modern standards of egoshooters and visuals"
'egoshooters', Wow. There should at least be a uniform standard of quality. He was talking about Weapon/Gameplay quality being under-par, of which I totally agree.
"We like what we have, so oh well" is what I got out of that.
The Game looks great, but the core gameplay is lacking. Seems like more time was put into the visuals and the actual gameplay and the feel of the weapons took a backseat. That may not be the case, but it sure looks that way, and plays that way. Hopefully you guys will address these issues and improve. Have a good one.
Thanks for your detailed reply. As James already pointed out, I really didn't want to sound off-putting, I only wanted to say that it is hard for us to find out which weapon is sub-par without having a certain direction or specific feedback on which weapon needs more work :)
It's similar for the gameplay. A sweeping criticism like "the gameplay and weapons took a backseat" makes it hard for us to know what could be improved as long as most of the feedback is rather positive and as long as we invested as much work as possible in this department to make it a pleasing experience from our point of view.
If you get the chance to elaborate your thoughts a bit more, we are eager to read it and to improve it alongside with our imagination and the mod's spirit, that's what I can promise. We'd be happy to see your feedback at the Realm667 > WolfenDoom subforum so we can better track things down.
Once again thanks for your thoughts, it is really appreciated!
Luger pisto - awesome
Walter pistol - very bland, and I don't think game even need this.
MP-40 - awesome, I see this weapon in another doom mods... but without player hand it will look better
Sniper rifle - awesome
G-43 - not good drawed, very big on screen and yep, player hand.
flamer - looks like crappy jpg photo.
Also, I said about that with all that High poly 3d models it looks like just 2005 call of duty with wolf 3d sprites as the enemies, and that redo some model to much low poly or replace them with sprites will make picture much more better, but you already said that don't want do this.
The Walter has a reason for being: It's auto-fire and also necessary thematically as a starting weapon (a Luger doesn't count to the allied standard equipment).
For the player hand in general, why is this a problem exactly?
For the flamer, afaik the original sprite comes from "Dweller in the Depth" or so, we'd be happy to have a better sprite replacement here indeed.
You're right that community feedback is not just valid, but critical. Doubly so for a project this ambitious -- the team is quite eager for feedback. Having done a little bit of peripheral work with the team (I just revised some of the text, didn't actually do any real work =p) and having watched them discuss their work and brainstorm ideas, I can tell you with certainty that gameplay was their primary focus. As an example, in the final weeks of development, 95% of the work was done on getting the gating & flow just right in one of the maps across several iterations.
I can see how you'd interpret Torm's tone that way, but I can tell you for sure it wasn't his intent. He thanked the user for his feedback and quite fairly pointed out that, without specific critiques, it's difficult to improve on anything, especially given that the team as a group are fairly happy with the weapons overall (I had nothing to do with them, but for my part, I'd give them a solid 7/10 -- some are better than others, but none of them were outright bad to me). Of course, that kind of thing is entirely subjective, and if a player genuinely finds all the weapons to be subpar, it's a perfectly legitimate opinion -- just a hard one for the devs to take into consideration without specific feedback.
Contrast that to your previous post that you mentioned; you gave specific feedback (the trench gun's jerkiness), and Torm thanked you for it and said he'd pass it on to the sprite artist. That's not to say SamVision's post was bad in any way, or that his opinion was wrong -- it just doesn't provide as much of a starting point for the devs to assess things.
His suggestion to take a close look at every weapon is helpful in a broad sense, but put yourself in the devs' shoes -- given that they're satisfied with the weapons, what exactly are they supposed to be looking for? That's the only reason why Torm said the team was happy with the weapons -- the benefit of feedback is of course having a neutral perspective that can point out issues overlooked by a work's creators, who lack that outside perspective. They know what the project looks and feels like to them, but not to the player, and so issues must be pointed out specifically. That was the subtext behind Torm's response to SamVision; he certainly wasn't trying to be dismissive of the feedback.
All that aside, I can tell you without a doubt that the team does appreciate the feedback, from you and from SamVision, and of course the whole of the community. Otherwise, we all hope everyone's experience with the mod has been positive overall. Cheers!
All of the weapons could use lots of additional work, both in terms of gameplay, visuals, and audio. I don't want to go through everything here because it would take up a page, but I strongly suggest taking a close look at every weapon and giving them a revision.
Thanks for the feedback. Currently we are happy with how the weapons turned out, and without any more detailed information it will be hard for us to improve them.
Overall: This is a classic/retro mod, that is strongly focusing on Wolf3D and Doom's WolfenDoom mods. It's not our goal to bring up a project that hits modern standards of egoshooters and visuals.
Getting really bad performance with standalone version on amd 8300 gtx 970 and 16gb ram... any ideas?
Really want to play more of this
Try the following
- if you are using the standalone delete the gzdoom.ini and restart
- change the enh. options and lower your settings
- buy new pc components :)
Great! I got only one bug (with skybox on last level) and yeah, key udeground in paris is not obvius.
Hope to see paranormal division and Antarctica UFO in future :)
Can you share screenshots of the issues mentioned?
Sorry, I now far away from computer...
It was just sky texture was only on top of the box. Like square of blue on top of the sky, other sky has no texture.
Please share a screenshot so we can investigate the issues.