Fate of the Damned (mod)

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Fate of the Damned
Fate of the Damned

Developer: The Fate of the Damned Team aka Moon Key Productions

Publisher: ModDB

Designer: Matthew "Daedalus" Kallis

Engine: Build Engine (Blood mod; BloodGDX, NBlood, Raze), Kex Engine (Fresh Supply)

Version: 1.1

Released: October 31, 2023

Genre: First Person Shooter

Modes: Single-player, Multiplayer

Platforms: MS-DOS (original executable), Java VM (BloodGDX), Microsoft Windows (NBlood, Raze, Fresh Supply), Unix-like (NBlood, Raze)

UPC/A7: N/A

ISBN-10: N/A

Media: Download


Original logo

"Rage Against The Machine, RATM or simply ‘Rage’, is a combined effort by select members of the Blood community to create a Blood campaign worthy of remembrance and worthy of honouring, and hopefully complementing, the Blood title and its legacy. Rage’s objective is to expand on the Blood universe, adding a little innovation where necessary, while not compromising the spirit of the original title’s unbeatable action, breathtaking atmosphere and overwhelming fun factor. So far, Episode 1 of the campaign has been released, but the rest are coming up. All the Single Player maps included in this campaign are fully optimised and compatible with Bloodbath, Co-operative and Team Mode Play. Difficulty levels are also implemented. Rage Against The Machine has the added bonus of including custom music that fully captures the essence of the original’s soundtrack. The Rage Against The Machine story is told through a series of gripping, live-action cinematics." — Official description

Rage Against the Machine was a fan add-on project to create a commercial quality Blood game; the title is sometimes shortened as Rage or RATM. Episode one was first released on October 31, 2007, before being re-issued as a "New Compact Version" on May 16, 2008, which was the final released portion of Rage Against the Machine.

The add-on includes a new soundtrack and is intended to add many new levels that are compatible with single player, BloodBath and cooperative play.

The story is intended to be played out through "live-action" cutscenes shown at the end of the episodes. It was created by Matthew "Daedalus" Kallis (project leader and mapper), Dimebog (musician), and Filip (oBe) Walgraef (artist and animator). As well as a founder of The Postmortem and later Altar of Stone fan sites, Daedalus was the previous creator of the Sin Campaign mini-episode, which partly utilized assets from BloodLines.

Daedalus essentially killed off the project on May 23, 2008 after finding a lack of time to continue mapping. On October 31, 2022 the mod was revived as Fate of the Damned, with a new version 1.1 released a year later featuring a second episode entitled "The Shadow Out of Time". Fresh Supply is not recommended.

"Fate of the Damned is a meticulously crafted custom campaign for BLOOD which aims to speculate and explore another shadowed path that Caleb might've undertaken. While taking care to never stray far from the gameplay formula that made BLOOD so gripping, the campaign will see Caleb journey through new environments that he has not seen before. Gruesome new discoveries await as he tears through hordes of the undead and nothing is left unscathed in his quest for vengeance." — Official description

Story[edit]

Rage Against the Machine

The game opens with an extended animated cutscene done up in the style of late 1990s pre-rendered opening introductions, which then proceeds to recap Caleb's gun-slinging past in the Old West, his ascension through the Cabal, and finally the betrayal of the Chosen and the murder of his lover Ophelia Price. It then cuts to a scene of Caleb approaching a temple, pitchfork in hand.

Episode 1: Till Death Us Do Part[edit]

In a level featuring no enemies, Caleb gets himself let into the temple, ascends into its inner sanctum, and joins the other Chosen, Tchernobog's beast lieutenants Cheogh, Shial and Cerberus and the dark god himself. Tchernobog demands a sacrifice, and Gabriel is taken away by the spider queen, Ishmael is blasted by the two headed hell hound and Ophelia is taken away by the stone gargoyle.

Stunned, Caleb attempts to run away (FATEE1M1: Last Communion), and falls down into an underground mining tunnel and has to make his way through a shipping area (FATEE1M2: Six Feet Under). He heads out into a nearby forest, wherein he duels with zombies rising up outside nearby cabins and reaches an urban area through a temple complex, filling a basin of blood to get a needed key (FATEE1M3: Forest of Shadows). To further his escape, Caleb stows aboard a train in a wooden shipping crate, before storming out and repeatedly leaping between twin locomotives to reach his objectives (FATEE1M4: Cabal Express)

Crashing his way into the Green Town station, Caleb proceeds to "paint the town red", shooting his way through a gallery and an entire block of stores (FATEE1M5: Green Town). Playing with some alphabet blocks in the toy store can gain Caleb access to a nearby swimming pool, blowing up the boiler to return from whence he came (FATEE1M9: Morningside Springs). Caleb exits into a sewer and pump facility, facing entire legions of undead in the murky waters, and briefly commandeering a wooden boat (FATEE1M6: Knee-Deep in the Undead).

Caleb has now come full circle, and begins to storm through the temple he was first driven out off, intent on seeking his revenge (FATEE1M7: There's No Place Like Home). Caleb returns to the inner sanctum, and meets Tchernobog, seemingly making short work of the dark god. He then collects a nearby key and ascends an adjacent castle to the Altar of Stone and sees Ophelia crucified (FATEE1M8: Epiphany's End).

The end cut-scene shows Caleb express his grief at his lover's demise, before being interrupted by Cheogh, who lunges at him, only to be defeated by Caleb's boom-stick. Caleb then takes out his zippo lighter and gives Ophelia a more respectful cremation.

Episode 2: The Shadow Out Of Time[edit]

Note: In the original version this was listed as "Clods TC" as a presumably tongue-in-cheek place-holder, and selecting this option cut immediately to the game credits. The released cutscene compilation had implied the episode proper would have started with Caleb breaking out of an Alcatraz-style prison in 1964.

In the year 1976, following the defeat of Tchernobog, Caleb has ended up locked up in an island prison. Therein he receives some surprising news in the local paper. The door to Caleb's cell bursts open and he finds himself swarmed with the undead. He fights out of his cell block and out into the courtyard, before triggering an electric execution and breaking into the warden's office, opening a way into the cellar. In a nearby cave he happens upon a motor boat and so leaves his imprisonment behind (FATEE2M1: Waiting for the Worms).

Caleb sails into a pier and battles across the loading docks and several warehouses, before using a crane to create a platform onto a harboured ship, which ultimately allows him to open the main gate out (FATEE2M2: Cape of No Hope). Caleb is nearly run down by a car full of Fanatics whilst crossing a suspension bridge into town, then clears out a hotel and breaks into a back storage area. On top of the building he is ambushed by a Cabal helicopter, dodging machine gun fire and finally a troop led by a team of Zealots attempting a landing. He enters a subway terminal and expunges the robed menaces on the arriving train, and then heads out the other side of the station (FATEE2M3: Streets of Fate).

Back in the city, he shoots up a cafe, clears out another lodging house, finding himself again pursued by helicopter, and climbs up topside. Walking over precarious walkways between structures, he defeats another band of Zealots and a horde of zombies to gain a key on the roof of a cathedral. He then uses a lift truck to gain access to a tower, and is barraged from the helicopter's guns. Ascending up to an even higher set of rooftops, he leaps from building to building, before coming down through a skylight. This leads into a intense firefight on the steps of a light rail station, before taking a ride atop one of the trains. This provides access to several new areas, including the control tower for a lift that raises a shipping container and also an elevator to allow further progress (FATEE2M4: The Night Has a Thousand Eyes).

There is also potentially the final of a series of switches hidden throughout the level to unlock the secret exit accessible from the rooftops. This leads Caleb through a museum that would become familiar to him in a different timeline (FATEE2M9: Memento Mori). Either way, he then arrives at a winding three story hospital, claiming the dagger key at reception, the moon key in radiology, the skull key in the operating theatre, the fire key in the morgue, and the eye key in the basement. He then steals an ambulance and drives out, ultimately crashing to break into a Cabal fortress (FATEE2M5: Undead on Arrival).

Caleb awakens in a haze after being thrown out the car and onto the pavement of an underground car park, over which is a temple complex, the main entrance, and an series of offices and cubicles. The manager's overlook unlocks an unfinished exterior where Caleb has a final duel with the helicopter culminating in a sharing of napalm. A toggle in the foyer then unveils an elevator to the top of the skyscraper, where he sees a jet take off. At the top he finds a switch which unveils a circular slab detailed with monoliths, which he stands amidst to begin his descent (FATEE2M6: Rise and Shrine).

He arrives deep down in the earth, revealing a massive subterranean industrial complex, through which Caleb must not only retrieve keys, but also find and destroy four generators to power down the "golden barrier" to get to the true heart of the facility (FATEE2M7: Welcome to the Machine). The machine's purpose then becomes clear, as the Cabal have invented time travel, which Caleb keys back to his native 1876 after re-routing power to the device. He faces one final obstacle, a gigantic mechanical facsimile of Tchernobog, whose fire he must dodge through three rounds as the monstrosity continually smashes apart the platform Caleb is standing on. The way finally clear, he positions himself atop a pedestal of concentric runes, which rotate into place among a brilliant show of lights (FATEE2M8: Hex Machina).

Caleb is whisked away in time, seeing visions of Ophelia, and as he lands back in the 19th century, he demands the malign forces at work to show themselves.

Episode 3: What Dreams May Come[edit]

In the original version this was listed as "Bloodclots TC" as a presumably tongue-in-cheek place-holder, and selecting this option cut immediately to the game credits.

Episode 4: The Sickness Unto Death[edit]

In the original version this was listed as "Cryptic Sausage" as a presumably tongue-in-cheek place-holder parodying the Sunstorm Interactive expansion pack Cryptic Passage, and selecting this option cut immediately to the game credits.

Critical Reception[edit]

Promotional image

Reception for the add-on was positive, with it holding a score 8.2 out of 10 on ModDB, with many of the reviews stressing the quality of the level design, as well as its conservative approach to Blood styling. The original title, which it shared with the band Rage Against the Machine, caused some consternation and confusion, with the project's authors stressing that it also "happens to be a common saying." The title has also been used by other mods, such as this one for Wolfenstein 3D. The release's manual stresses that the title was chosen for its unique status, as well as noting that it proved prophetic, hailing a number of technical and computer issues during the development of the project.

"The levels are very well done and the action is well paced (with one notable forest encounter genuinely frightening), though very conservative to the original game to the point of lacking a defining architectural character of its own (when compared to Death Wish certainly), which is made up for by its own quite indulgent romp through Blood lore - including opening with a in-game recreation of the Chosen's casting down and a twined repeat of the first episode's famous train level. oBe's opening and closing animations also provide another rich experience for players. Definitely a must-have for any hardened Bloodite, and a sadly incomplete experience."Graham "Gideon" Wilson, Blood Wiki

"This draws on the spirit of Blood, while its not exactly original it does feature some of the best level design. We get to go through a town thats way more impressive than the one featured in the original game episode 3, and the town we saw of vaguely in the beginning of Post Mortem. This one features a art gallery, sewer, cave, swamp & a train level where we have to jump between 2 trains. Its a shame its just one episode but it was a real pleasure to come back to Blood after the years."The Unbeholden

"Very smart level design, I especially liked the spooky sewer level and the surprisingly original train level. I also like how difficulty and gameplay (the way you get weapons) are very progressive throughout the first levels. The musics are moody and fit the levels well. My only problem with this episode is that I played on skill#4 and no way there would have been enough ammo to kill the end boss (I used full ammo set on every weapon avalaible + all the ammo provided in the boss area, and I'm pretty sure I didn't miss a lot). Great episode overall which is true to the original game."NESfag

"A good mod so far, the mapping is fabulous (though I didn't like 'Knee deep in the undead' it was too dark and maze-like). The opening cinematic could be confusing to people who don't know the blood lore very well but it still works. All in all it was a very enjoyable experience." — St.Jimmy23

"I just played through Episode 2: The Shadow Out of Time. [NBlood&Lightly Broiled] It's impressive and I had a lot of fun playing it. Some effects are outstanding and the level design is also very good. E2M5 Undead On Arrival & E2M7 Welcome to the Machine are my favorite levels. The scene in E2M5 with the light switch in the basement is so good. The only criticism I have is that there isn't enough ammunition available in the first six levels. This led to difficulties in balancing at times. Thank you very much for your work, I enjoyed it a lot."Patho

"Surprised by this bold new release and its very climactic ending. Surpasses the first RATM, with consistently good maps throughout, especially once Caleb reaches the city. My favorite was probably the hospital map, Dead on Arrival, with its nice mix of firefights and suspense. The cultist corner camping being less severe than in the first episode was a welcome change, which, combined with more health and armor pickups, opened up more playstyles than just peekaboo shooting around corners. I didn't mind the ammo being scarcer and preferred it over the way most other mapsets, including vanilla Blood, drown the player with ammo. I thought it was balanced perfectly for a continual playthrough, although I haven't tried pitchfork starting all the maps individually yet. One complaint is that many of the areas appeared too barren and colorless, especially compared to maps like Green Town, the star of the first episode."Dead Reckoner

"The second eisode of this addon is simply amazing! The first levels seem to be standard maps but with progress the second episode gets more and more complex im mapping and design. The last levels are superb! The only thing I can critique is the size of the later levels. I got lost a good amount of time and some clear indication of what to do would be helpful. Especially the hospital level could use some indication that there are more than two stories. And FINALLY an addon that does not use Tchernobog as a final boss. The last encounter is simply breathtaking and signifies scipted sequencing in a build enige game at it's finest! I laughed out loud at the secret level with amazement. Just awesome!"Bloody Tom

"Better than 90% of boomer shooters out there, this mod is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. It constantly surprises you with random events and takes you to new, beautifully crafted locations. Enemy and item placement feels great all around, the flow of exploration and combat is perfect. Though I got lost a lot in 2 of the later levels. And to top it all off, it has some very nice atmospheric cutscenes, they really take you back. Thanks a lot for your hard work and dedication!"SasKP

"Just finished the 1.1 release using Raze. No major issues aside from a few small bugs, but nothing that halted progression. The second episode in particular is mindblowing. It's incredible how far some people can push the engine! The level design is superb, and the scripts and triggers are ingeniously crafted! And the final boss... O.O! 10/10 best Blood campaign out there!"Muleke_Trairao

"A new Blood episode (not mine) for Halloween! "Fate of the Damned" Episode 2 (by The Fate of the Damned Team) is now available for anyone who wants to do some spooky oldschool FPS gaming tonight."Dustin "Bloatoid" Twillley

External Links[edit]

Forum Threads[edit]


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