Jace Hall proposes free, updated Blood re-release

Jace Hall expressed interest in bringing back Blood, the gore-filled 1997 first-person shooter from Monolith Productions, on the Blood fan site The Postmortem.

Hall is the founder and former chief executive of Monolith Productions.

"I am thinking of bringing the ORIGINAL Blood game back as it was, with functionality alterations/enhancements," Hall explained, adding that his plans include putting the re-release on "all platforms, not just PC." He also pointed out that he would be willing to foot the bill for the project if there were enough interest from fans — in fact, he intends to make it free, since it is "all about gameplay and fun."

Hall is asking for input from Blood fans to help him realize the "very specific vision" he has in mind. He initially explained his plans on the Postmortem site's IRC channel. Ideally, the Blood re-release would "work NATIVELY on current computers (Mac/PC) without any special drivers/mods/etc.," and thanks to "the standard network capability that you would expect in a modern game," users on different platforms would be able to play with each other. "The graphics would remain the same, except higher resolutions would be possible and there would be some enhancement options added (but not required)," Hall added.

His big idea is a persistent Blood database that would track players' in-game actions, such as "frags, # of secrets found, time to complete a level in single play or co-op play, hit/miss shot percentages, battles won, etc.," similar to what modern games like Call of Duty and Battlefield do. The statistics, Hall hopes, would facilitate friendly competition in community tournaments.

"You can rest assured that I have the resources to bring Blood back properly," said Hall, clarifying in a later post that he already "handled" any legal issues the project might run into: "I certainly will be able to and will get all the support I need from all/any parties that may have legal interest in the game. You guys don't have to worry about that. There is no problem there." Hall wrote that while he has the Blood source code, releasing it publicly is "not [his] decision," since "the companies that can make that decision are not inclined to ever do so." According to the listing for Blood on Monolith's website, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, the studio's parent company, currently owns the rights to Blood.

Blood is not the only classic mid-'90s PC shooter being rebooted — a remake of Apogee Software's Rise of the Triad was announced at QuakeCon last week.