So in a few days Bloober Team’s Blair Witch will come out on Xbox One and Windows, and it looks like classic Bloober Team fare: exploration and exposition punctuated by truly scary moments extending well past jump scares. But the devs have added an element that makes me both excited and extremely nervous: you get a canine companion.
According to this write up by Vice’s Danielle Riendeau, your pupper, Bullet, can sense the spooks what will harm you before they can get to you, and you can give him pats for a job well done. This is immensely good, and I want to pet the good boi immediately. But the other side of this coin is the possibility that somewhere in the game’s narrative lies the worst decision ever: a moment where Bullet dies.
Does The Dog Die, a crowdsourced site for knowing if a movie, book, TV show or game is going to kill a beloved household pet, lists classics like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Skyrim as featuring moments where dogs, specifically, do not make it to the next scene. Dozens of games are on the list, and when you zoom out to look across pop culture, the prevalence of this very shit media trope is surprisingly widespread.
I really, truly hope that Bloober Team hasn’t added Blair Witch to that list.
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Responses
🤣I’m the complete opposite, an illogical living dog completely breaks the immersion for me. Case in point, the ro ro in Independence Day should have been a goner. So to the dog in Dante’s Peak chilling by a lava flow. That said I do get attached to my digital dogos and pets. Also when you can name them, always makes them more personal.
[…] have fallen into precisely the trap I feared I would fall into. I am rooting for this dog’s whole-ass victory against the Forest, against the Blair Witch, […]