Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / BloodRayne

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/igra_vampir_11728.jpg

BloodRayne is an Action-Adventure video game series initially developed by Terminal Reality and published by Majesco.

The protagonist, Rayne, is a half human-half vampire — also called a dhampyr. She works for the Brimstone Society, an organization seeking to rid the world of vampires (besides Rayne herself, since she also hates vampires).

Outside of the two first games, there's also a 2D action-platformer spin-off, a series of mostly one-shot comic books, and a movie and two sequels that went direct to DVD.

The games in the series includes:

The PC ports of the first two games in the series are also available through Steam and GOG.com; both games were also available OnLive until the service was shut down in 2015. BloodRayne: Betrayal is also available on Steam and GOG.com.

Updated Re-releases of BloodRayne and BloodRayne 2 (allowing them to run on modern systems without requiring fan mods) were announced at the end of 2020 by Ziggurat Interactive, the franchises' current owners, and was released on November 20, 2020; these versions are called the "Terminal Cut". A PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch port of the Terminal Cut re-release of the first two games, dubbed "ReVamped", was released in Fall 2021. A 4K remastered version of BloodRayne: Betrayal was announced during E3 2021, featuring full voice-acting with the series' original cast reprising their role for this remaster, and a new rebalanced difficulty mode while keeping the brutal challenges of the original as an option; this version, dubbed "Fresh Bites", was released on September 9, 2021 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC through Steam and GOG.com.


The BloodRayne series features examples of:

  • Action Girl: Rayne of course. She single handily stops the Nazi plot in the first game, and destroys the Cult of Kagan by herself.
  • Archnemesis Dad: Kagan is this to Rayne. Being a Child by Rape from a complete bastard of a vampire will do that to you.
  • Artificial Stupidity: Mooks getting stuck in corners and vampires slowly dying by standing in daylight.
  • Artistic License – History:
    • The Nazi base in Argentina actually has a temple dedicated to Thule Society, with a high priest in charge of it, who is one of the most important staff members out there. This is very, very strange, since the real Thule fell into decline even before Hitler's rise to power and was decisively dissolved in thirties when all such organizations were outright banned — and for a reason, too. It's not that Hitler openly disagreed with them (or thought they're either too radical or too soft to his liking), he just wanted to remain the ultimate authority when it came to ideological matters, so he did not like the idea of any independent societies that could give people any ideas of their own.
    • The armament of German soldiers both in Argentina and in Castle Gaustadt includes firearms that actually did exist, but hadn't even entered production in 1938. The most jarring examples are Panzerfaust and Panzerschrek — which were not introduced until 1942 and 1943 respectively — and the Sturmgewehr, which entered production in 1944 and was actually a complete novelty at the time (nobody even thought about guns which we currently know as "assault rifles" before). Moreover, the majority of Nazi soldiers are armed with rapid fire weapons such as submachine guns and only a few use traditional repeating rifles — quite opposite to real life, where rapid fire weaponry was still quite rare at the beginning of the war.
  • Audible Sharpness: Rayne's blades typically make metallic 'shing' noises as she swings them, and in the second game, also make the noise when she deploys them in her lock-on/block stance.
  • Aura Vision: It helps Rayne find her objective's location and conveniently shows how much health the non-boss enemies have (bosses have their own life meter).
  • Back from the Dead: This is Mynce's specialty, pulling it off no less than three times.
  • Badass Boast: Half her quotes throughout the series, but her boast to Hedrox is especially epic.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Rayne, despite being capable of some really violent gorn she never comes out with a drop of blood on her. Not even when she complains there is bowel in her hair after destroying a massive vampire boss from the inside out.
  • Black-and-Grey Morality: Rayne is a vicious and sadistic vampire who slaughters her enemies without mercy, but the Nazis and her father are far worse then she ever could be.
  • Blade Below the Shoulder: Rayne's handy dandy arm blades!
  • Boss-Arena Idiocy: A few of the tougher mini-boss fights can be ended by just luring them into a death trap.
  • Broken Bird: Rayne. She's an embittered, snarky, highly misanthropic loner who thinks nothing of cutting through waves of human mooks the way regular people would kill ants, but at the same time is willing to risk her own life to save people and prevent the vampires from gaining more power.
  • Bulletproof Human Shield: One of the heroine's special moves is to grasp a nearby goon, bite down on their neck, and while wrapped around them, she can turn them around to block enemy shots, using them as a human shield and gaining health at the same time.
  • Bullet Time: One of Rayne's powers and part of the gameplay of the first two games is the option to use this technique, representing her heightened reaction times and senses. Unlike most games with a similar mechanic, it's completely unlimited, but it's not practical to use it all the time as it slows the pace of the game to a crawl, and is generally unneeded against the lower end cannon fodder Mooks.
  • Cain and Abel: Rayne has been hunting and killing her half-siblings for decades, especially those who support Kagan's plan for world domination. Ephemera, Ferril, and Xerx all try to kill one another at some point.
  • Cannot Cross Running Water: Being half-vampire, Rayne suffers from this weakness, which translates in gameplay as "take damage when touching water".
  • Chain Pain: Rayne's harpoon. In the first game, she uses it to pull humanoid foes towards her (which would make Scorpion proud) so she can feed off them; in the second game, she can also hurl foes like ragdolls with it.
  • Child by Rape: Rayne's origin, and more than a few of her siblings as well.
  • Combat Stilettos: And they're actual stilettos.
  • Cutscene: The first two games use FMV sequences in some parts of the game's story.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Rayne was born from her mother's rape, and the human side of her family was all killed by her father. And she spends her formative years on the run and being cautious to the people who she comes to care for, since she knows that her father would hunt them down to spite her further. She ends up becoming an acerbic, foul-mouthed, and bloodthirsty sadist she is in the first game where she debuted.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Rayne. Although she's a half-vampire with an unpleasant personality and vampires are considered evil in the games' universe, Rayne hunts down and kills monsters on a regular basis as well as killing many Nazi soldiers and her twisted family members. Compared to the opposition, especially against her father and her half-siblings, she makes her humanity quite clear.
  • Die, Chair, Die!: Oh yes! Chairs, statues, and even pianos aren't safe from Rayne's arm blades or superhumanly powerful kicks.
  • Disposable Sex Worker: Well, more like recyclable, street people are drained of blood to create the Shroud.
  • Dhampyr: Our anti-heroine, as well as Mynce and a few of the Old Language speaking foes in the second game.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Carpathian Dragons are mystical guns powered by blood, and they attach themselves to Rayne by jamming tubes into her arms. Her cries of pain sound a bit... orgasmic. Rayne herself hangs a lampshade on it:
    Severin: [listening to her screams over the radio] Are you all right, Rayne?
    Rayne: Yeah. It's just... the Dragons. They're so beautiful.
  • Dull Surprise: Rayne for most of the first game talks in a monotone, just displaying enough emotion that you know what's going through her mind. Nothing really seems to shake her (as she said at the start of the game, "I'm just confident in my abilities,") with few exceptions. Then Wulf kills off Mynce. Then she flies into an Unstoppable Rage. The sequel has much less of this, as Rayne does a lot more wise-cracking and occasionally expressing real horror when she realizes what the plan of the Kagan Cult is.
  • Epunymous Title: The series title plays on gallons of blood you'll be spilling with the games' titular character.
  • Expy: Originally, Rayne was supposed to be one to Svetlana Lupescu of Nocturne fame, but this was scrapped.
  • Eye Scream: When Rayne finds the Eye of Beliar and it forcibly implants itself in her head. Sure, it gives her telescoping vision, but it looks like it really hurt.
  • Fanservice:
    • Rayne was one of the first video game characters to pose nude in Playboy. There are also a few fan mods to the PC version that make her nude. She's frequently listed among the "hottest female video game characters".
    • She even made her appearance at MTV's Video Mods in a few episodes, one of them with Evanescence's "Everybody's Fool".
  • Fantastic Racism: Most of Rayne's family has this towards dhampyrs and humans. Kagan refers to dhampyrs as "mongrels", "tainted" and continually refers to Rayne as "it". This doesn't stop him from raping human women and using his dhampyr offspring in his army. Ferril believes that any full-blooded vampire should be able to best a dhampyr, even if it's Rayne and Ephemera expresses mild disappointment that their adversary isn't "at least full-blood".
  • Flipping the Bird: Rayne does this enough to make one think she's channeling "Stone Cold" Steve Austin: she does it at least four times during the first game's ending, before flipping off her handler at the start of the second game.
  • Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Scratch the friendly part: she is working to wipe out Nazis and cults, but she's very much an anti-hero, doing it for her own ends rather than any "good" benefit for others.
  • Game Mod: Besides the nude ones, there's a fan-made HD mod for the second game's PC version that enhances the textures with high-resolution ones, as well as allow the game to run on resolutions higher than the default ones. It also features a lot of pictures of Kristanna Loken as Rayne replacing many photos and painting in the game, for some reason.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: In cutscenes, a vampire who is killed by sunlight turns to ashes (and the process is virtually instant). In gameplay, sunlight drains the health of vampiric minibosses rather slowly, and when killed by it, they simply collapse.
  • Giant Mecha: She fights them in the first game, and practically squeals with joy at getting to drive one. The giant pink things Rayne fights in the second game are organic ones.
  • Gorn: A huge part of the game's appeal, and why it has the name it has. BloodRayne stands out as maybe the only franchise of its time where dismemberment is not done solely through canned animations, or through bodies having specific points where they can be cut; enemies are dismembered exactly where you hit them. Even then, there are examples that stand out, such as the Blood Bomb weapon which causes enemies to shatter into blood and body parts, and a move Rayne can do in BloodRayne 2 while feeding that leaves her foe as nothing but a torso. It's even a gameplay mechanic in BloodRayne 2; the player frequently encounters sequences where they need to throw a number of enemies into something painful (a helicopter rotor, a vat of chemicals, etc.) to progress.
  • Gotta Kill Them All: In the first game, Rayne's missions at Argentina and Germany has her to eliminate vital members of the G.G.G. lead by Jurgen Wulf, an organization whose goal is to further Hitler's power by supernatural means. On the second game, in addition of aiming at her father's head, she is also on her trail to kill his children who are part of his cult.
  • Guns Are Worthless: Despite the wide variety of firearms available in the first game, guns are only really effective against common Mooks (and even then, it takes a good 10 or so SMG rounds to put down a single basic Nazi soldier). Some tougher enemies and bosses take very little (if any) damage from bullets, or are difficult to hit in the first place (especially Daemites). Compounding this problem is the fact that guns don't hold much ammo and can't be reloaded; Rayne discards a weapon upon emptying the magazine, and must pick up another to replace it. On top of all this, Rayne's blades and harpoon are generally more efficient weapons, and it's entirely possible to play through most of the game without firing a shot. Averted in BloodRayne 2, as the Carpathian Dragons have virtually unlimited ammo (providing you 'reload' them with blood) and several very useful modes. And in Betrayal Rayne's magnum is quite powerful, able to knock most mooks off their feet.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Rayne and other dhampyrs.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: Rayne can bisect mooks horizontally as the finisher move. Vertically too in the second game.
  • High-Pressure Blood: Oh lordy.... Decapitated mooks fountain more blood than the actual blood fountains Rayne comes across.
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: Only in the first game; Rayne finds a pair of mystical blood-powered guns in the second. The first game does have a cheat that displays the weapons; however, it's interesting how the lot stays strapped to her back.
  • "It" Is Dehumanizing: The mooks in the first game while Rayne holds them and slurps their blood. "Get it off me! Get... it... off..."
  • Jiggle Physics: There is a cheat code in both games that allows you to increase both Rayne's bust size and the jiggliness. Disturbingly, the jiggle physics in the first game tends to turn on and off quite routinely, leading to a case of uncanny cleavage when Rayne is speaking.
  • The Joys of Torturing Mooks: Some of the finishers used to kill enemies while draining them often veers into Mortal Kombat territory and certain puzzles in the second game can only be solved by using your harpoon to throw your enemies into deadly hazards.
  • Lesbian Vampire: Rayne can suck the blood of female enemies and she sounds like she enjoys it just as much as she loves sucking the blood of male enemies.
  • Ludicrous Gibs: In the third-person shooter games, even more so in the second game.
  • Massive Numbered Siblings: Kagan has sired many offspring with many women, mostly without consent.
  • Most Common Super Power: All of the women in the games could put Kate Upton to shame.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Rayne (arguably more so in the sequel), Ephemera, and Ferril. Rayne was even featured in Playboy as a pinup.
  • Navel-Deep Neckline: Believe it or not, Rayne's outfit from the first game and the majority of the second is one of her more modest outfits. She wears an evening gown in the second game's first mission (and there are a variety of them as unlockable outfits) which plays it totally straight.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Rayne gets overly excited about things other people would rather stay away from, such as the Carpathian Dragons, vampiric guns that use alchemically treated blood as ammo, either by draining directly from the user, or using it's needles to drain it from others, and her dialogue whilst slicing enemies to ribbons is... suspect to say the least.
  • No Swastikas: The PC and PAL Xbox versions removed all swastikas and other Third Reich symbolism, though they left in the Iron Cross.
  • Off with His Head!: All three games you can slice enemies heads right off, resulting in a geyser of blood.
  • Our Vampires Are Different:
    • Vampires seem to be an actual biological sub-species of human and not Dracula-style "undead" beings. They require blood for nutrition and can be harmed or killed by sunlight and water, but reproduce sexually with both each other and humans. Their powers and abilities vary widely: examples include Ephemera, an Intangible Girl who can teleport through shadows; Hedrox, a bestial creature with a Doppelgänger Attack; and Slezz, an ancient and monstrously inhuman "Babylonian Winged Shakkab" described as a "born vampire". The only two vampires who seem to match the usual profile are Zerenski and Kagan.
    • Dhampyr have advantages of both parents. Water and sunlight can kill them, but the process is considerably slower than for full vampires. They can heal their wounds by drinking blood, and apparently having the grace of a Cirque de Soleil performer and the body of a lingerie model is the norm for dhampyr women.
  • Painted-On Pants: Rayne's default outfit.
  • Parental Substitute: Trumain seems to have been this to Rayne.
  • Power Tattoo:
    • Ferril's body is covered in moving tattoos.
    • The Dark Rayne outfit you get as a bonus gives Rayne some nice tribal tats as well.
  • Puzzle Boss: This sets apart the bosses from the Elite Mooks; the bosses have some other condition before you can beat them down.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: Subverted with Rayne. Her outfit is red and black, but she's one of the good guys. The dhamphir she faces in the second game on the other hand....
  • Shout-Out: Rayne's harpoon bares more than a few similarities to Scorpion's spear, such as being a "kunai with chain" that's given the name of a completely different throwing weapon, and the first game even has Rayne using it in a similar fashion to pull enemies closer.
  • Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Rayne of course.
  • Spikes of Villainy: Belhair is almost nothing but spikes. The Shadow Legion from the second game have some on their gauntlets.
  • Sociopathic Hero: Subverted by Rayne. She has no qualms about slicing someone in half, but she actually makes a point of trying to emphasize her humanity, like her freak-out when Mynce died.
  • Statuesque Stunner: According to the first game's lore, the very attractive Rayne stands 6 feet tall barefoot, and wears 6-inch heels most of the time, making her 6'6". She seems to have been scaled down to around 5'8" or 5'9" in BloodRayne 2, as whenever they're together in cutscenes, Severin is visibly half a head taller.
  • Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Actual jetpack Nazis in the first game.
  • Synchronization: The twins Simon and Sigmund Krieger, where if you hit one, the other feels it. They even admit they if they were mad at the other, they'd punch themselves. Alas for them, if one dies, the other goes with him.
  • Thicker Than Water: Massively averted. Rayne absolutely hates her family, with good reason and she strongly emphasizes that Kagan's offspring are half siblings.
  • Third-Person Person: Hedrox.
  • Third-Person Seductress: Rayne in the first two games, provides some eye candy while slicing her enemies into ribbons.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: The first game is a fixed-camera, Max Payne / Jedi Outcast style third-person shooter which incorporates melee combat. The second game is a free-floating-camera, Final Fight-style Beat 'em Up which incorporates platforming and auto-lock shooting. It's a moderate but significant shift. The third game is a 2D hybrid of Castlevania platforming and Devil May Cry combat. Compared to the first two, it's a REALLY significant shift.
  • Unscrupulous Heroine: Rayne doesn't mind making huge bloody messes. She frequently Pays Evil Unto Evil against Nazis and members of a vicious Cult. While she doesn't like humans, Rayne has none of her family's Fantastic Racism against them—and she hates vampires.
  • Updated Re-release: BloodRayne and its sequel received a Terminal Cut re-release in 2020 on GOG.com and Steam, which features improved rendering and 4K resolutions, upscaled FMVs, higher resolution uncompressed textures (though the textures themselves are still the same as the old games), and native XInput controller support. Betrayal also received an updated re-release, Fresh Bites, with technical improvements and full voice acting for all dialogue.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Rayne's sunlight weakness is kind of expected, being half-vampire, but water? Seriously? In BloodRayne 2, you can get killed by a sprinkler system. This is probably a nod to the common vampiric Cannot Cross Running Water trope.
  • White Sheep: Rayne is the only (relatively) decent individual among a family of monsters. It helps that she wasn't raised by Kagan. Kagan alludes to Trumain raising other offspring of his in addition to Rayne, but they do not appear in the story. In the first game, Mynce also alludes to a half-sister of Rayne's who also works with Brimstone, likely a reference to Svetlana from Nocturne (1999).
  • You Killed My Mother and My Family: Why Rayne hates Kagan so much and what motivates her to kill him and the rest of his family.

Top