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Draft:Intravenous (video game)

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Intravenous is a top-down stealth shooter video game developed by Explosive Squat Games and published by HypeTrain Digital, it was released on Steam for Microsoft Windows on July 26, 2021.[1]. Intravenous follows the story of Steve, who is on a mission of revenge for the murder of his brother. It received mixed reviews upon release. A sequel, Intravenous 2, was released on 16 August 2024 on Steam[2]

Gameplay

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The player, a character known as Steve, sets out to fight armed drug addicts in search of the ones that originally killed his brother Charlie. The gameplay takes the form of a top-down stealth action shooter set within levels full of sprawling, run-down buildings. The enemies are quite numerous and can easily overwhelm the lone character of the player. Most enemies do not have a lot of health and are vulnerable to a myriad of attacks, but so is the player character. Due to the unforgiving odds of the game, the player is best suited to avoiding detection, quietly taking out the enemies one by one, or bypassing conflicts altogether.

Equipment

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At the start of each level, the player is provided with a menu screen to choose which equipment and weapons they can bring, provided by a character known as the Accomplice. The options include a primary weapon, which offers a choice of assault rifles, shotguns, submachine guns, or sniper rifles. The secondary weapon options are a range of different handguns. The three equipment slots can be occupied by various gadgets and handheld devices such as frag grenades, flashbangs, medkits, or various electronic devices to supplement the player’s arsenal. The player also has the option to bring one of three different kinds of body armor, varying in levels of protection, or none at all. In fact, the player has the liberty to bring as much or as little equipment as they like including the freedom to start a level even with just bare hands.

Although bringing more equipment and weapons seems like the most obvious choice, each item influences the noise level and mobility of the player, which is where the nuances of Intravenous shine most.

Noise level

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Fitting with the stealthy nature of the game, noise level is a central mechanic for avoiding detection. The player can see their current noise level at the bottom-left corner of their heads-up-display (HUD), being indicated by a meter next to a sound icon. The yellow bar shows the level of environmental noises around the player, such as rain. The yellow bar serves as a threshold for when the enemies will take notice of the player’s noises.

A player’s noise level is influenced by:

  • All the equipment the player is carrying
  • Attacking an enemy
  • Firing a weapon
  • Making a distraction
  • Movement speed
  • Proning
  • Reloading a weapon
  • The material of the ground or floor
  • Throwing objects

Any of these can factor how much noise the player makes, so it’s important to plan accordingly. As a general rule of thumb, bringing as little equipment as possible will ensure the player makes very little noise. Moving slowly will also ensure that enemies don’t detect you.

Visibility

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In order to be fully detected by an enemy, the player must enter their direct line-of-sight. The visibility of the player is determined by a light meter located at the bottom-left corner of their heads-up-display (HUD), being indicated by a lightbulb icon. The current visibility of where the player is standing determines how quickly or from how far an enemy can see the player. The player can also use this mechanic to gauge the visibility of blood stains, and dead or unconscious bodies at their feet.

A player’s visibility is influenced by:

  • Firing a weapon
  • Movement speed
  • Proning
  • Environmental lights

Within the game’s levels, there are parts of the map that are more or less lit up with lights. Moving through shadowy areas ensures low visibility to avoid detection. Proning will drastically lower the player’s visibility, but at the cost of making more noise when moving. The player can shoot out lightbulbs with their weapon, or disable them with EMP devices. An exception is certain kinds of lights that can only be disabled with breaker boxes and fire barrels that cannot be put out.

Mobility

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The player has five different move stances that they can choose from, ranging from a slow, low crouch up to a full sprint. Each option is balanced between movement speed at the cost of visibility and noise level. The mobility percentage of a player determines the maximal standard speed that they can move at respective to their selected choice of move stance. For example, if a player has a mobility of 96%, they will move at 96% of the maximum possible speed of their current move stance.

Mobility is calculated according to the amount of equipment and weapons they choose to bring. The player can view their mobility level during the equipment select menu screen at the start of each level.

Enemy behavior

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Each level will have a predetermined number of enemies roaming around the map. Enemies can either start relaxed, seen lounging around, or patrolling, gun in hand and moving around the perimeter. When coming close to detection, an enemy will go from their current state to an investigative state as marked by a question mark above their head. Being heard but not seen will only cause them to turn towards your direction and move to investigate. The player can use this to their advantage by creating distractions on purpose to make the enemy move towards a more favorable position.

Regardless of their status, being caught in their line of sight will cause them to become hostile, and immediately start attacking. Even if the player escapes, the enemy will remain in the alert state and actively hunt the player. An enemy will also enter the alert state if they happen to hear a gunshot. All enemies in the alert state will roam around the map searching for the player, while rousing other enemies causing them to enter the alert state as well.

There are specific actions that influence enemy behavior:

  • Enemies who fought the player do not necessarily have a target lock. They will tend to gather around the last known location where they had line of sight before moving elsewhere.
  • Making noise by being loud on purpose or throwing objects such as bottles will make the enemies enter the investigative state and move towards the origin of the noise.
  • Seeing a body on the ground or bloodstains will cause the enemy to enter the alert state.
  • Seeing an open door will cause the enemy to enter the investigative state and move to close the door.
  • Seeing a turned off light in the same building as them will cause the enemy to enter the investigative state and move to turn on the lights.
  • Turning off a light in the same room as them will cause them to enter the investigative state, but not immediately alert unless they manage to see the player while turning.
  • Turning off a light using a breaker box will cause enemies to enter the investigative state, and move towards the breaker box.
  • Turning off a light using an EMP device will not cause an enemy to investigate the light source.

Release

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Intravenous was released for Windows on July 27th, 2021, through Steam. The game has since received continuous updates with version 1.3 releasing custom gameplay mutators and patch 1.3.10 introducing mod support to the game. The current version of the game is version 1.5.1 and fixed some issues with game crashes[3].

Development

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The developer Roman Glebenkov had originally intended for the game to be titled, “Bloodstream,” but had to change it after the virtual reality game “Bloodstream,” came out before it in 2019. The whole direction of the game came from developer Roman Glebenkov’s hopes to release a video game that was dedicated wholly to stealth as he felt that the modern market had lately neglected stealth as a feature. Due to fears of piracy or potential game leakages, the pre-release testing and preview keys of the game were limited. The developer feared that the game could easily be leaked before release causing his work to become redundant, but later admitted that his fears had been unfounded, and if anything, more exposure would have been a good thing[4].

Reception

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Intravenous received “mixed or average” reviews on Metacritic[5]. Reviewers praised the challenging difficulty and focus on stealth-orientated gameplay, but also criticized the game’s difficulty, lack of exponential challenge, and methods to approach the game’s missions[6].

Reception
Aggregate Scores
Aggregator Scores
Metacritic PC: 68/100[7]
Review Scores
Publication Score
KeenGamer 6.5/10 “Fair”[8]

References

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