BloodRayne 20th Anniversary: Special Sale and an interview with Terminal Reality CEO

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There are games that made such an incredible impact on the gaming community that require special attention. One of them is 2002’s BloodRayne created by Terminal Reality, which today, on October 31st, celebrates its 20th anniversary! Our love for that series made us prepare something special for the birthday of dhampir Rayne and her awesome adventures within the franchise.

Check out our Special Anniversary Sale where you will find all of the BloodRayne titles released by Ziggurat Interactive with discounts up to 40% off. More specifically:

BloodRayne: Terminal Cut - 2020’s remake of an amazing action-adventure horror shooter and the first entry in the series, introducing us to charismatic protagonist Rayne with a -40% deal for the next 48 hours and a 35% discount available for the rest of the Sale.

BloodRayne 2: Terminal Cut - the same remake of a sequel to BloodRayne which expanded on all the best parts of the original game with even more bloody and awesome content with a 35% off deal.

BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites - 2021’s version of a 2D side-scrolling platform game released in 2011 and set in the original universe with an updated 4K visuals, improved difficulty, and voiced by Laura Bailey and Troy Baker reprising their iconic roles as Rayne and Kagan respectively with a 35% discount.

Offer lasts until November 7th, 2 PM UTC.

And if you want to learn about the series or just reminisce about how awesome they were, make sure to check out our latest blog entry exploring BloodRayne's history.

But that’s not the end of our celebration. Below you’ll find an exclusive Ziggurat Interactive interview with Mark Randel, where he talks about these beloved titles, hindsight of the project, what he is most proud of regarding the games and their legacy.

Behind the Bloodshed: BloodRayne 20th Anniversary

Terminal Reality & the Legacy of Rayne

Mark Randel is the CEO of the well-renowned studio, Terminal Reality, known for titles such as BloodRayne, Terminal Velocity, Nocturne, and many more since their inception in 1994. It was our pleasure to touch base with Mark about his experience creating and revamping the bloody legacy of Rayne over the last 20 years.

What was it like bringing BloodRayne to life in 2002? Did you know you were giving life to one of the sexiest femme fatales in video games?

We did not know at the time, of course, that people would still be playing BloodRayne 20 years later. It is amazing to see the devoted fan base still after all these years.

Did you know you were making a beloved cult classic back in 2002? In hindsight, do you think that would've changed your perspective on the project or decisions you made?

Part of making a cult classic is not knowing you are making a cult classic, you are just making something you like to play. If you have the pressure on you to create art and a certain style of game, say from multiple studio executives (you know who you are), sometimes it doesn't come out as well as it should. When you are free to create art, you get art and something that holds up over time.

Can you talk a little bit about what it was like being able to bring the original BloodRayne project to life? And what were some opportunities you tried to take advantage of when making BloodRayne 2?

BloodRayne built on the success of the Nocturne game, a lot of the same team continued to work together, so the team was used to each other’s styles. For BloodRayne 2, we knew we had a successful game in the original, and that helped us create a larger and more detailed game world than the first one. We were lucky to have a publisher at the time who valued our team and let us take the games in our own creative direction.

What is it like to look back and see the impact of BloodRayne over the last 20 years?

It is pretty incredible to type “BloodRayne” into Reddit or Google and see what comes up. Before we started on the Terminal Cut versions you would always see someone who had a recent playthrough of it or of some cosplay of the game. Now you also see a whole new generation of people who have fallen in love with it too.

With the BloodRayne Franchise and even Nocturne, what is it like for you to see the clamoring for these older titles to make a comeback?

We feel very honored to have been involved with games that have stood the test of time. Most entertainment is disposable nowadays, and to see people still wanting to play our old games after these years is very humbling.

When you look back at BloodRayne or BloodRayne 2, are there moments within those stories that you’re particularly proud of? Whether from a technical, narrative, or dev experience perspective.

Probably the dialog and the fight in Zerenski's bedroom at the end of the first map still gets me after all these years. That was one of the last parts of BloodRayne2 we did, and it came out almost perfect.

The multiple endings of BloodRayne still gets me, it was and still is unique to have your actions earlier on in the game change the final ending. We have a bunch of slightly different paths that you can take to win.

The maps in both BloodRayne1 and BloodRayne2 were well thought out, there are lots of little hidden areas and places to explore if you go off the beaten path.

The voice acting and direction still holds up quite well for both games. After playing both games again and again to release the Terminal Cut, we can really feel the work and love that was put into this part of the game.

With BloodRayne2, we managed to have a fully normal mapped environment and fully normal mapped characters. Since this was a new technology when the game came out, most players did not get to play it this way. Only with the remastered versions this was finally used to its full extent.

What was your experience like returning to BloodRayne in 2020 with the Terminal Cut releases? Did it change or give you a new perspective on your work from 2002?

Obviously the technologies used to write BloodRayne in 2002 were very new. We wrote a whole new game engine for it (Infernal Engine). We improved the engine quite a bit for BloodRayne 2 in 2004, but still were limited by the amount of memory and processing power of the systems in the day – both games were made primarily for the PS2. Now that we have a lot more CPU and GPU power, we were able to go back and re-render all the lighting in both games using more modern techniques by backporting parts of the modern engine. Although we could not change the geometry, it is amazing how the scenery turned out using up-to-date techniques on older art assets and styles.

How do you see your time spent with BloodRayne over the past 20 years impact other titles you are working on?

BloodRayne started the Infernal Engine, which only got better over time; the creation of BloodRayne/BloodRayne 2 affected every title we made at Terminal Reality since then.

What was it like being able to not only be part of the development team bringing BloodRayne to life but also working on the remasters? How did the passage of time and your career affect your perspective of the originals?

Going back and playing both games, you can really see how 3rd person games have evolved since 2002/2004. In 2002, we used fps controls, in 2004 we used 3rd person controls. Both games feel a bit clunky by modern perspectives, but that is how games played in their time. They are great examples of the gameplay styles from their original time period.

How would you describe BloodRayne to a potential new fan of the franchise?

The storyline and universe in both games is very solid, someone who likes horror with a story would still get a lot out of these games. I don't want to give away any part of the story to someone who hasn't played it yet, but you will see elements that we came up first with that have been used in recent movies/TV shows, so we were definitely an influence on them.

We’d like to thank Mark very much for chatting with us about BloodRayne!

Check out more behind the scenes Rayne content on Youtube including a wonderful interview with WayForward about the creation of BloodRayne Betrayal.

For more up to date information, Follow Ziggurat Interactive on Twitter @playziggurat and GOG on @GOGcom.