REVIEW – Once a legend, now a grieving widower: Mehran’s tale sounds like an epic of revenge and redemption on paper, yet developer Permanent Way somehow managed to turn this desert odyssey into a parade of glitches. Drenched in blood, betrayal, and pixel dust, Blood of Mehran aims for mythic tragedy but ends up feeling more like a sandcastle collapsing under its own ambition.

Set amid the crumbling cities of ancient Mesopotamia, the story casts players as Mehran, a warrior broken by loss. The game begins in medias res, during a brutal duel with the king who ordered the murder of Mehran’s wife and child. After this brief yet tense confrontation, the timeline rewinds to show his capture and the abduction of his family—marking the beginning of a grim quest for vengeance that starts in chains and bleeds out into the desert.

The narrative follows a familiar revenge formula but spices it up with touches of Middle Eastern folklore, clearly inspired by the Tales of the Arabian Nights. Sadly, those flashes of mysticism are fleeting, never developed enough to weave the grand legend the premise deserves. The foundations are there, but the storytelling feels unfinished—as if the winds of the desert had scattered the script before it could be completed.

Lost in a Pixel Storm

Technically, Blood of Mehran feels trapped in the past. Mehran’s character model is impressively detailed, but everyone else looks like they escaped from a dusty PS2 memory card. Animations are stiff, cutscenes are unintentionally hilarious, and characters often move as if their joints were coded from wood. Combat looks smoother by comparison, but enemies react with the enthusiasm of statues—absorbing sword blows without so much as a flinch.

Pop-in textures plague every environment, camera movement induces motion sickness, and turning off motion blur does absolutely nothing. Frame rates swing wildly between 15 and 25 FPS, and I encountered several hard crashes—sometimes before reaching the main menu. The soundtrack is the one redeeming element here: moody, melancholic, and beautifully atmospheric. Unfortunately, the voice acting is an absolute disaster. Between melodramatic wailing and emotionless line reads, scenes meant to be tragic often veer straight into comedy.

Blades, Bows, and Breakdown

Gameplay-wise, Blood of Mehran sticks to the traditional action-adventure formula: short linear stages, a few collectibles, and combat that tries to feel cinematic but never quite lands the punch. Mehran wields an arsenal ranging from a single shamshir to twin blades, a sword-and-shield combo, and a bow. Attacks are mapped to the usual R1/R2 setup, and filling the special gauge lets you trigger flashy power moves that look better than they feel. Archery offers some welcome variety but rarely kills in one shot, and once the screen floods with enemies, the dodging system crumbles under the pressure. More than once I found myself stun-locked to death while the AI gleefully spammed unblockable attacks.

The combat pace is fast but rarely satisfying. Filling the Rage Meter unlocks a burst of devastating strikes, yet it feels more like a spectacle than a skill-based reward. Stealth could have provided an alternative, but that too is broken—the same button used for light attacks handles stealth kills, meaning you’ll often whack your target instead of silently dispatching them. The AI borders on comically dumb, ignoring corpses at their feet like they’re part of the scenery. It makes the game easier, sure, but it also drains it of tension and believability.

Blood, Sand, and Broken Dreams

Blood of Mehran is bursting with ambition—and bugs. It occasionally reminds you why indie games can be special: they take risks, they chase vision over polish. But here, that courage collapses under technical failure. Between the unstable performance, wooden animation, and laughable dialogue, the experience ends up more tragicomedy than tragedy. Maybe a massive day-one patch could salvage it into a decent mid-tier adventure, but right now, it’s less of a revenge epic and more of a cautionary tale in need of mercy killing.

-Gergely Herpai “BadSector”-

Developer: Permanent Way
Publisher: Permanent Way
Genre: Action-Adventure
Release Date: June 12, 2025