Hellboy, the comic book series, is a rich source material for a video game. Mike Mignola’s art style has a distinct use of heavy shadows and colour palette that feels perfect for a video game art design. The number of comics and lore are practically begging for a game world to walk through and explore. Let’s not forget the movies that gave Hellboy Ron Perlman’s unforgettable voice; an actor who has lent it to many a video game and added gravitas to an otherwise shallow character.
And yet, there has only been an obscure PC/PS1 game in the early 2000s, and an underwhelming PS3/X360 game in 2008.
Upstream Arcade seemed like the perfect developers to finally give us the Hellboy game fans have deserved. Their previous game, West of Dead, was a Hellboy game in all but name. The same art style and mood, with Ron Perlman voicing the main character. It was a solid title that ironed out some of its roguelite economy problems on full release and I rated it as one of the best games I played that year.
What could go wrong? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be ‘a fair bit’.
Hellboy Web of Wyrd is a third person melee-action game, with roguelite elements. The player takes control of Hellboy and must guide him through a gorgeously rendered world full of swirling colours and stark black outlines. The plot has Hellboy stuck in a place called The Butterfly House alongside some fellow members of his supernatural task force and it is down to him to fight his way through the bosses and piece the mystery of the house together.
The late Lance Reddick voices Hellboy. I wasn’t sold on him initially but about 30 minutes into the game and I had fully accepted his performance. He is funny, dead pan, goofy in the right ways and manages to make the role his own, which is a lot given how mightily Perlman filled those shoes.
Less successful is the combat. There is a punch, hard punch, a ranged attack, a heavy hitting special and a recharging charm ability. Web of Wyrd tries to find a middle ground between an animation heavy Dark Souls and quick responses requirements of Sekiro. It ends up being a frustrating experience because the two schools of thought clash against each other in unrewarding ways.
There are some good ideas in there – the player has to string melee and ranged attacks to whittle down an enemy’s toughness (a recharging armour) and fill their stagger meter so as to administer devastating blows. It is possible to use destructible pillars and walls for extra damage and stagger. For fleeting moments, it can feel really good.
Web of Wyrd has a parry and dodge system that it is keen for the player to use (the parry charges the special and a perfect dodge allows for dealing extra damage) but it does it in a fashion that forces the player to go on elaborate ‘Simon Says’ plays with enemies.
There is little room for creativity, either hit the marks or don’t, and get punished for it. In the beginning taking a few dents and learning the pattern is not too much of a problem, but in later areas a flubbed move means half a health meter will be gone. If each enemy had a roughly the same routine, I could have learned it, but enemy attacks are seemingly random, and it is unclear how to consistently interrupt them. The controls just don’t feel responsive enough to be Sekiro, and the routines not inventive enough to be Dark Souls.
It doesn’t help that there are camera issues. The camera is locked in really close to Hellboy and in heated moments it is possible to get stuck in a corner and not be able to see anything.
Web of Wyrd’s roguelite economy is also unsatisfying. Per-run the player can collect buffs, temporarily increase their toughness and health; as well as collect two types of currency (stuff to spend in levels and another one that is used for permanent stat increases). The problem is that there aren’t many interesting choices to make.
A good roguelite makes a player think about how each of their upgrades are going to synergise, and it will pain them when they don’t get the one they want, or surprise them when they find a new combination that works. In Web of Wyrd, none of this happens, for example: there are keys that can be picked up and used – but the choice is largely between unlocking a ‘chest’ to get a pool of money, or unlocking a room for another, larger, pool of money.
Better roguelites understand that not each run is going to result in success and so formulate ways to make runs feel rewarding. Maybe more meta currency, or an exciting new event. Web of Wyrd, despite its procedurally generated levels, doesn’t have a lot to see that’s different. The layouts are rote with little new to see each run, and I rarely earned enough meta currency to get more than one permanent unlock.
Even with these problems I still played Web of Wyrd for a lot longer than I was expecting, the art style was phenomenal, and the story and collectibles were enough to keep returning (I was happy to see that it was faithful to the Mignola formula of ‘it’s always Nazis’).
And then I hit a bug.
Web of Wyrd disabled saving when I used the Xbox Series’s suspend/resume function. There was no indication that this was happening, and I played through roughly 60% of the game (some 7 hours) and then the game crashed. I lost all of my progress and could not face doing it all again.
I think that if the bugs are fixed and the economy adjusted, Hellboy Web of Wyrd will provide enjoyment for some but even then, I think there are better places to go. Including Upstream’s first game.
Conclusion
A loving rendition of Mike Mignola’s world, with excellent voice work (RIP Lance Reddick), but sadly Web of Wyrd is still not the Hellboy game I was hoping for. The score I provided is due to some debilitating bugs and I’d be happy to revisit if this were ever to get a major overhaul.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
