Hellboy: Web of Wyrd Review (Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 & PC)

Contrary to the franchise’s seemingly impenetrable archipelago of media and lore, there aren’t all that many video game adaptations that pay tribute to Dark Horse Comics’ Hellboy. Case in point, the last we really saw of the demonic crimson-sporting hero was in 2008’s Hellboy: The Science of Evil—an action game that was loosely based on the 2004 movie by Guillermo del Toro Gómez. But that was fifteen years ago, so to say Upstream Arcade’s latest iteration, aptly titled Hellboy: Web of Wyrd, was a sight for sore eyes would only be an understatement. And that’s putting it lightly.

In case you missed its arrival earlier this week, Hellboy: Web of Wyrd is an action-adventure game that features an original story by creator Mike Mignola and Dark Horse Comics. Posing as an ever-faithful love letter to the hell-like comic book series, the latest episode features a web of new tales involving the B.P.R.D to unravel, as well as a network of new enemies and NPCs to both chronicle and study. In short, it’s everything fans of the franchise have wanted for the best part of fifteen years — straight up.

Having spent the last dozen or more hours scraping The Butterfly House of all its available dialogue and The Wyrd’s roguelike material to boot, I can just about devise a final verdict for Upstream Arcade’s latest beat ‘em up roguelike. Care to join us for the journey into the depths of the hellish world? Then let’s begin our gradual descent.

Welcome to the B.P.R.D

Hellboy: Web of Wyrd transports you to the center of The Butterfly House, a residential complex that serves as a front for a much darker scene—a portal in which atrocities from an interconnected world known as The Wyrd bleed out through the pores of its hinges. As the pistol-wielding demon, you must take it upon yourself to venture deep into the Wyrd and its five procedurally generated biomes, and, in a roguelike fashion, scrape the corners squeaky clean through the use of brute force and angsty behavioral tiffs.

Aside from The Wyrd—a realm in which the bulk of the action takes place, there’s also The Butterfly House, a communal hub in which NPCs tend to idle inside of and offer out the occasional conversation starter. Unfortunately, none of these conversations, bar a number of convincing lines from Lance Reddick, tend to flow all that well, which leaves a rather tedious and somewhat awkward husk of a dialogue box to have to not only sit through, but painfully endure for the sake of adding context to the situation at hand.

The good news is, if you’re something of a dab hand at settling into the traditional roguelike format, and know the ins and outs of the Hellboy lore, then you’ll no doubt feel right at home here right from the get-go. The bad news is, those who’ve never so much as heard of the B.P.R.D (that’s Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, just to be clear) are more likely to scratch their heads and question just about everything that Web of Wyrd churns out. It doesn’t exactly provide you with a hefty backstory, is what I’m saying — so if the name Dark Horse Comics is somewhat alien to you, then you might struggle to immerse in the ongoing lore.

A to B, to A…to B

Progression in Hellboy: Web of Wyrd is made up by essentially running the same five areas thrice over, with the first time being devoted to a series of corridors and an eventual boss fight, and the latter stages being used as extended versions of the same biomes, only with the additional room to work through. Between these stages, you are effectively able to utilize your accrued assets to obtain new upgrades, thus giving you more firepower to work with in later expeditions into The Wyrd. Simple enough, right? Well, to an extent.

As I came to learn rather early on in the game, combat is more or less the exact same throughout each run, with the only difference being the enemies and bosses you have to sift through. Apart from that, though, it’s mostly the case of either using your clobbering fists, or a nifty pistol—two tools that can whittle down an opponent’s shield and health bar in a matter of seconds. To this end, it’s mostly the case of mashing the same button several times over, and then activating a special finisher to eradicate the target in question. Nothing particularly extraordinary there, all things considered.

While on the subject of combat, Web of Wyrd isn’t all that tough to work through. Matter of fact, most enemies you encounter can be bested in a single hit, which of course doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination. What’s more, as Hellboy doesn’t exactly onboard a great deal of damage from attacks, it does mean you can romp through the stages without the fear of dying. And even then, death is only a minor inconvenience, as losing in battle will only set you back to The Butterfly House, anyway, after which you’re free to boost your abilities and tackle it again.

True to the Source

Visually, Web of Wyrd is pretty much on par with Dark Horse Comics’ cel-shaded comic book counterpart, which makes it all the more enjoyable for those who’ve grown with the series and kept with the style that creator Mike Mignola formulated almost thirty years ago. Sure it’s a little janky at times, and often falls victim to its own ambition with lowered frame rates and what have you, but for the most part, it comes awfully close to matching its original design. To that I say, well played, Upstream Arcade.

In addition to the visuals and general aesthetic of the world in which Web of Wyrd takes place in, there’s also the soundboard—a web unto itself that mostly consists of cliché POP! BANG! POW! effects and a dramatic but equally theme-appropriate heavy metal soundtrack. There’s also Lance Reddick, who delivers a convincing, albeit vastly different performance to OG Ron Perlman. Combined with the faithful presence of the source visuals, Web of Wyrd ticks an enormous amount of boxes, which, rather annoyingly, makes the blow from the rather monotonous gameplay design hit that much harder.

When all’s said and done, it’s really the lack of content or direction that makes Web of Wyrd the disappointment that it is. Sure the visuals and voice talents are great, but in no way are the two elements sufficient enough to make an otherwise average game that much more digestible. All in all, you can see all there is to see and do all there is to do in roughly four hours, give or take. And seeing as there are only the five biomes to work through, all of which must be completed several times over, there isn’t really a whole lot of replay value, either. That is, unless you’re a sucker for repetition.

Verdict

In spite of its best efforts to capture the ruggedness of Dark Horse Comics’ hellish locale and bombastic combat, Web of Wyrd does unfortunately fall short in a lot of other areas, particularly when it comes to spinning a convincing yarn for a story and a figurative web of characters to make the experience seem even remotely worthwhile. On one hand, the visuals are faithful enough to give die-hards of the franchise something to write home about; but as far as gameplay goes, it’s certainly barebones—to the point of it being more of a slog than a genuine romp through the motions.

When it comes to voice talent, it’s hard to shoot the latest beat ‘em up brawler down. With thanks to the likes of the late Lance Reddick fronting the cast—an icon in his own right—Web of Wyrd does have its admirable share of genuine connections, as well as a lot of the signature camaraderie and slapstick one-liners that we’ve come to expect from the demonic hero. To that end, I can’t really fault it. It’s just a darn shame that such talent found itself in the same gene pool as a relatively mediocre gameplay experience.

So, to answer the question: is Hellboy: Web of Wyrd worth picking up? Well, to put it short — yes, though only if you consider yourself something of a lifelong fan of the franchise, otherwise you might struggle to wrap your head around the world in which the latest story takes place in. Due to there being little to no mention of the importance of the hero’s mission, and the pre-existing lore being tucked away behind thirty years’ worth of comics, newcomers will no doubt find Web of Wyrd an unusual place to drop anchor. Swings and roundabouts, really.