Blood Reaver is doing what COD Zombies hasn’t done in 16 years, and bringing it to the Nintendo Switch 2 is “absolutely something” the devs are considering

There have been plenty of Call of Duty Zombies imitators over the years, but it’s hard to replicate the magic of Treyarch’s touch. Even Treyarch struggles to tap into that zeitgeist these days. Yet, I’m still a fiend for COD Zombies, from its head-scratching lore to the thrill of hearing that iconic Ray Gun sound. But I’ve been checked out lately, looking for that familiar feeling elsewhere. Then comes along Blood Reaver, the debut shooter from Australian indie developer Hell Byte Studios. It’s an absolute blast. After spending time with it, I spoke to the team about the game’s future and whether it has a home on the Nintendo Switch 2.

Whether it’s Sker Ritual or Michael’s Zombies in Roblox, the stronger examples of COD Zombies-inspired FPS games really try to make it their own. Blood Reaver uses the foundations of the mode as a blueprint, skillfully walking the line between tribute and freshness. Where Hell Byte Studios excels is with its art direction, world design, and attention to how the experience should feel. As a game in early access, there are more than a few quirks, but that aside, I honestly think this handles like a spiritual World at War successor.

There’s no omnimovement antics, no massive open-world style maps, or hand-holding. It’s a back-to-basics experience, with claustrophobic corridors and a simple loop to feed you back into the spawn. You can even repair barriers! It’s something we take for granted, as there’s no urgency in modern-day COD Zombies to fortify your surroundings.

Speaking about Call of Duty’s influence on the game, the studio tells me that “we like to wear those influences pretty openly. We’re not trying to shy away from our inspirations or pretend they don’t exist. We want that DNA to be visible so that people can see exactly what we’re trying to do, and to remind ourselves, as well. We still remember the magic from those original COD Zombies games, and Blood Reaver is our earnest attempt to recapture that.”

Hell Byte Studios is a small outfit, emerging from a team of friends with a shared passion. “We basically started as a team of gamedev students who said: ‘Do you think we could make Zombies?’ It seemed like an impossible idea, in the beginning, but then we started to think about how much those games meant to us […] those early Call of Duty titles, from WaW to Black Ops 3, hold a place as some of the greatest experiences we’ve had in gaming,” the developer shares.

When it came to creating Blood Reaver, the team tells me it wanted to shine a light on something different for its world: “We’ve got a range of interests across the team, but on some level, everyone is a nerd for dark fantasy and horror. That’s something we wanted to lean into when building Blood Reaver. We feel like fantasy, and the fantastical are underrepresented in the FPS genre.” It’s all over the game’s visuals, soaking itself in gothic sheen that would make Bloodborne blush. Despite the studio’s small size, it shows me how it conjures up the game’s world.

I’m told about new features it hopes to debut, including Ability Infusions, fresh mechanics for buildcrafting, and more, as outlined in the game’s roadmap. What really sticks with me is that they’re expanding the lore with a lot of care. The studio has “team members dedicated to worldbuilding, but also a lot of ideas just get thrown across the office. The result is that we’re always experimenting with the lore and pushing the world in new directions.”

There’s a lot to love about Blood Reaver, but its audience isn’t exactly massive right now. At the time of publication, it’s not even a month old. It’s also only available on Steam, but if you’ve got a Steam Deck, the good news is that it’s listed as ‘playable’. I’ve been playing on my ROG Ally Z1E, and it’s more than capable of keeping up a smooth experience. I think Blood Reaver would be an excellent fit on the Nintendo Switch 2, a handheld that is begging for some decent shooters to join its library.

On that topic, the studio expresses that “we’ve considered porting to other platforms, and have taken a few of the many steps needed to make that process possible – such as getting controller support working early. We do agree that this is the type of game that needs to be on a console at some point, so it’s absolutely something we’ll be looking towards in the future.” This won’t be “happening anytime soon”, though. I’m told it depends on how Blood Reaver fares in early access, and that console ports would be retained for the game’s full release or later down the line.

In the meantime, making it a fully verified Steam Deck game is a target to meet: “Getting the game fully Steam Deck verified is 100% a goal for us in the long term. We currently don’t have any dev kits for this, which is why we’re not tackling it yet, but once we get our hands on them, we’ll be able to start testing builds. In terms of other large obstacles, performance and overall game stability are always something we can be improving. It’s been great to see how communicative players have been on that front.”

Will you be giving Blood Reaver a try? Let us know what you think in the Pocket Tactics Discord server.