Blindfire Early Access Impressions: Need Friends or a Drink to Have Fun

Being an absolute nerd for FPS games, I have played through almost every kind of shooter throughout 2024. However, with each new title, I started realizing that shooters without a unique offering can quickly get stale. After recently getting blown away by Valve’s Deadlock, my expectations were at an all-time high. And then I heard about the pitch-black arena of Blindfire and its unique concept. As such, I dropped into the Blindfire early access to have a gander in the dark. Here are my first impressions of the same.

Get Ready for Unexpected Outcomes

When I initially launched Blindfire with my friend, we were excited to try out this new approach to a shooter game. However, that excitement went away in seconds when we barely saw anything before killing our enemies. As someone who spent hours in Valorant to master audio cues, Blindfire’s sound stage just doesn’t feel enough in the dark. It took a good amount of matches (three to be exact) to learn how Blindfire actually works.

Interestingly enough, the post-death cameras are cool. Yes, you are more useful after death most of the time. Post dying in the game, you can help guide your friends through the dark with enemy locations as you can finally see everything.

With each round that passed, I was getting killed by a single bullet on my feet or my fingers. So not a lot of headshots here. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting a lot of accurate gunplay either. But sometimes that element of unexpected outcome can be interesting in a world where every shooter feels the same. That is until this unique idea starts to feel stale and repetitive.

While you can use sonic sensors and rely on enemies coming near environmental cues, the game’s title is its own downfall. More often than not, I found myself dying by literal blind fire by enemies. Some matches just felt more like a coin toss rather than a calculated strategy. Not being able to defend myself from a Blindfire dragged down my enthusiasm in the initial games quite a lot.

Blindfire Needs More than Just a Unique Idea

While I agree with the unique idea of a pitch-black environment, the gameplay feels empty. Initially, it took me some time to understand how to detect enemies in the dark before I could Blindfire.

To feel more than just a lobby decoration, I hid behind containers and well, my teammates shot me. When I finally got the echo sensor button, things turned chaotic pretty fast. Unfortunately, not in a good way.

In almost every game I was taking damage from my teammates and that felt pretty annoying when you can’t see who’s actually holding the gun. But that is just the shooting part. You can slow reload to give fewer sound cues but it does not change much because when things get chaotic, the stealth goes away.

Being a lover of hero shooters, I feel that the game needs more abilities. This could be in the form of different types of detection, grenades, glitch bombs, or healing mechanics that could make the empty gunplay more interesting.

Although the detection system feels okay, it is dull compared to many other FPS games in the market. As Blindfore is still in early access, I believe the developers will add more to the gameplay mechanics instead of keeping it as a virtual no-light paintball fest.

Performs Well Visually but Does It Matter?

Despite the lack of innovation in the overall gameplay, Blindfire runs smoothly enough. On my R5 3600 + GTX 1650 Super combo, the gameplay felt crisp and I didn’t face a lot of issues. Running the game on 1080p at medium settings, I received a constant stream of 60+ FPS.

Being an early access game that is a great optimization I must say. However, after a couple of games on amazing resolution and graphics settings I was thinking, do the visual settings matter?

Well, just as I thought, I cranked down the settings and Voila! There was no difference because I could barely see anything anyway. I am a gamer kid who started his shooting games journey with the legendary Duck Hunt.

So, the visuals not being relevant in an FPS in 2024 feel weird to me. You can also play the game on minimum rendering and thanks to the dark lobby, you won’t face any issues.

Verdict: An FPS to Unwind With Friends

While I agree that Blindfire requires more things to fill up the gameplay’s emptiness. I must admit it was a fun time with my friends. If you are on a Discord server with your pals in a pitch-black area, you will of course have a great time right?

As such, I would suggest you gather a couple of friends and try Blindfire as a group. While the concept might get boring after a bit, I can see myself pouring a drink and relaxing with my buddies on Discord as we roam around like headless chickens. To add to that, I feel the developers should add a custom game mode ASAP. That ought to be the cherry on the cake.

Nonetheless, taking a step back and comparing it to other shooters tells me, that Blindfire has a lot of scope for improvement. We already have futuristic gameplay in The Finals, MOBA shooter in Deadlock, and faction wars in XDefiant. And of course, let’s not forget Call of Duty Black Ops 6 releasing this October.

To compete with so many shooters with their unique elements, Blindfire needs more than just a dark arena with an echo sensor button. Remember how Concord got destroyed for lack of unique content? Yes, Blindfire must think beyond that one-dimensional approach.

Have you tried this unique lightless shooter yet? What are your first impressions of the Blindfire early access? Share your thoughts in the comments below.