All Blindfire needs is an audience

Written by Jason Dailey on 11/29/2024 for PS5  

I’ve played a grand total of three matches of Blindfire since receiving it last week. Not because I don’t like it, or because it’s a bad game, or even because it’s a broken game. Nope, instead, it’s because no one is playing Blindfire, and that’s an absolute, crying-out-loud, gosh-damned shame, because this game has “it”. I play a lot of competitive shooters, often for dozens or sometimes hundreds of hours – Battlefield, Call of Duty, The Finals, and on and on I could go. Which is to say that Blindfire is one of the most unique first-person shooters I’ve ever played.

It's a simple premise, really – take the traditional FPS competitive shooter and turn the lights out. Blindfire swaps the emphasis on hand-eye coordination for hand-ear coordination, and it is a brilliant twist on the genre. Listening for enemy player footsteps and trying to locate where they are on the map creates an incredible amount of tension. As their gait becomes louder, you know they are drawing closer, and sometimes they’re right next to you. Then you must decide when to fire off a shot since the muzzle flash from your weapon will most certainly give away your position, as will the sound of gunfire. Unless you have super-human hearing abilities, you’ll most certainly misfire on your opening salvo, and from there a cat-and-mouse, run-and-gun shootout typically ensues.

While Blindfire is mostly pitch black, some ambient light from a flashing mannequin or neon sign will sometimes reveal player locations. There is also a ping feature that can be used after a cooldown to assist you in locating threats as well. Another cool feature is that when you die, while waiting to respawn, you get to view the map with the lights on and activate traps to distract enemy players or reveal their position to teammates, and then head back out into the darkness to do it all over again.

In the few matches I was able to play, Blindfire’s gameplay loop sucked me in. So much so that I was incredibly frustrated when its online matchmaking failed time and time again. I’ve been trying every day for the past week, sometimes sitting in a queue for nearly 10 minutes, and a meager three matches is all I’ve been able to muster. And in those three matches, I played against just four other humans. Suffice it to say that barely anyone is playing Blindfire, and I wish I had a magic wand that could fix that because this game is incredibly slept on.

So let this be a PSA to all competitive shooter fans – try this game. It’s currently in Early Access on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5, with cross-platform matchmaking. It will cost you $8.99, so if you can manage to pack a lunch one day instead of grabbing fast food, you just might discover one of the most unique first-person shooters that you’ve ever played too. Blindfire is a shot in the dark, for better and for worse.