This Might Be the Worst D&D Video Game Ever Made | Iron & Blood - WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE

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Iron and Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft is considered by some to be the worst D&D video game ever made. It's SO bad that it's difficult to review as its flaws are more or less self evident. Instead, I deep dive into the hitherto unknown story of how this Dungeons And Dragons fighting game came to be like this. At long last we finally know - WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?
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[@WilliamSRD]

Install Raid for Free ✅ IOS/ANDROID/PC: clcr.me/WilliamSRD and get a special starter pack 💥 Available only for the next 30 days

[@gladspooky9455]

Nah.

[@BenWard29]

Raid is not even a bad game because it isn't even a game.

[@jic1]

@@BenWard29 It's fine for what it is. Yes, that isn't exactly high praise, because it doesn't really deserve it, but it's a nice little free time waster.

[@zbynektrajer2735]

It always makes me sad, when a good youtuber, starts to push "Raid", "established titles" scam or one of those unsafe VPNs, that don't even inform users of hacks.

[@zintosion]

You know you've made it when Raid sponsored you.

[@LordZylok]

Some odd trivia and tips about the game : Getting magic items in the campaign is not random, it's based on hitting a certain button combo when you hear each stages audio que, in the paladins stage for example, it's the church bells gonging. You can make your character face your enemy by holding block if you get turned around. You can hit a downed enemy by pressing right, left, right, and circle, if you're standing on the left side of the enemy. The diagonals are reversed if you are on the right side of the enemy. Every character in this game has a different victory quote if you win the match with a perfect. The full soundtrack to this game is on youtube, in all of its 90s attitude and glory. Some models of this game were re-used in another game, called "Phantasmogoria : Puzzle of Flesh", during a chess-game minigame, where they represent the board pieces.

[@luzmaria5006]

What!?!? How this could be linked to Phantasmagoria!!! Now that is a interesting fact that was completed unexpected.

[@thatisamazing912]

How extreme is this game? Would you call it radical?

[@thedeadpoolwhochuckles.6852]

​@@thatisamazing912Totally Tubular!

[@JoaoVictor-rg5ix]

The most random set of trivia Like ever. 😂😂😂😂😂

[@CrowePerch]

This was such a wild ride. Thank you for having me on bro!

[@WilliamSRD]

Any time, bird man!

[@hjorgbjorg7240]

That part about the SCA mocap being scrapped is kinda sad. My dad was college mates with the lead dev and brought most of the other SCA fellas in. He always seemed super jazzed to talk about that. I do know that a chunk of the cast is just straight up based off of the head guy's old d&d group. Stellerax, Ignatius Max, Balthazar and (I think) Darius are the ones. Sasha the Werewolf is actually named after his pet dog he owned at the time.

[@hjorgbjorg7240]

While I'm at it, gameplay basically devolves into sweeps and ground attacks while you hold block to let your character slooooowly turn himself around to face the enemy again

[@DustinBarlow8P]

THis is a really great story, but I can't help but feel you should have added to the murder/mystery road this was going down. You know say something like "My dad was friends with the lead and his team. A couple years ago he told me that every person that worked on this game vanished without a trace.... On the day they disappeared, they had breakfast, kissed their wives, dropped the kids off and where never seen agian. Their vehicles never left their workplace. Not sure what all that was about."

[@ulroxvladtepes4023]

I played this a ton on the playstation, and you can add strahd and the bosses with cheat codes, just is a bit tough to do. Use a gamepad. Also as you gain magic, you can use those magic moves as many times as you have it, to a maximum of 3, the paladin can literally become invulnerable for instance. Then there's the ultimate moves, which you can only get one of, for instance, the ranger gets arrow of slaying which takes 80 percent health of the enemy. There's some completely over the too busted moves and artifacts, which is part of why this game is quite a blast

[@mikeaaron2112]

YES!! played the hell out of this on the PS also! So many hours of fun on this believe it or not!

[@LegalKimchi]

I loved this whole thing. I love that the only person to reach back out to you was Matt colville's old boss.

[@WilliamSRD]

And the wildest part was that I mispelled his name in the email and he still replied and was incredibly kind to me 😭

[@nateshandy2070]

That's where I know him from, I heard Phil's name and thought "HOLY SHIT, VALENGUARD!" Made my night.

[@DWrathborne]

Back in the 2e days I made stats and did sort of a 'Where are they now?' for most of the Iron and Blood roster on the Ravenloft Mailing List. Even recreated them in Hero Forge a couple years ago for fun.

[@cyborghobo7847]

The ps1 version was one of the most hated games back in the 90s but it was better than this in every way and fun if you knew the moves.

[@WilliamSRD]

Oh yeah, the differences between the DoS version and the PS1 version were MASSIVE from my testing

[@qwijoma1873]

I had fun with my friends. Nym Pimply was great!

[@chados3999]

Holy cow. I actually saw some of the previews in gaming magazines back before the release, and reached out to the developers. I don't remember if it was Phil, but I told them how excited I was about their upcoming game. After release I was embarrassed that I never did buy the game due to the overwhelming bad reviews. Nice video!

[@stevennicolo6485]

I'm an SCA fighter myself, and I know the two fighters featured here. That was well-chosen footage, the fighter in blue and black is Duke Dag Thorgrimsson, and he's won eight crown tournaments. We aren't just performers, by the way, our fights aren't scripted.

[@belisauriusfish9406]

Y’know, for being a last minute addition, strahd doesn’t look bad. The flying works.

[@moffrofflplock600]

Just wanted to say: Yer Channel has been one of my most pleasant discoveries this year aside from homosexuality and DnD 3.5.

[@WilliamSRD]

I need to frame this comment on my wall

[@EmeraldLavigne]

Homosexuality is absolutely the best thing to discover. 3.5 is pretty good, too...

[@stevenyukabacera160]

Top 3 things of 2022

[@davidburnett5049]

3.5 is great. I consider pathfinder a direct upgrade though. Give it a look. I think you will like it

[@EddieSlabb]

I hate to tell you, homosexuality was not recently discovered...

[@RedSunUnderParadise]

Garbage combat, hideous characters, flanderizing Stradh, being genuinely horrid and unplayable? This game perfectly captures DnD!

[@bm1747]

Mat McMuscles needs you on as a guest to co-host an episode of his Worst Fighting Game Ever series. Like, his #1 worst is from this dev & he's explicitly mentioned not knowing anything about this game.

[@HansAlRachid]

Aaaand there's the obligatory Raid sponsorship done. KZbinrs grow up so fast.

[@polygonvvitch]

Remember in the 90s when game devs thought "Oh yeah, making a fighting game, that shouldn't be hard." Insane times.

[@roofields8468]

The psx one version rocked. It’s meant to be played via controller not keyboard. Definitely a hidden gem.

[@luzmaria5006]

At the PlayStation it was very decent game at the time. It remind a bit of Blood Roar for some reason...

[@reesetorwad8346]

👍 liked, subbed. If the ads said: "Real mocap was captured from SCA actors...," it wasn't even a lie. Also, IF, I say IF, the devs merely watched the mocaps being made, that still would've helped them later in the hand-drawing process.

[@PurpleXVI]

Oh man, I actually had the old PC game box and manual for this until like... I wanna say a year or two ago when I really got around to cleaning out an old closet to make some space. I seem to remember mostly spamming the skeleton and goblin's busted-ass moves when I played this as a kid.

[@KS-PNW]

Why would Lord Soth be on the side of chaos? He was typically Lawful Evil. Granted he didn't necessarily live up to the ideals he championed but it's hard to see him as a chaotic being..

[@LordZylok]

Well, he is pretty prone to extreme bouts of violence that have hair-triggers. His origin story is full of pretty good examples. Also the book where he enters Ravenloft for the first time. He razes an entire Vistani camp to ashes, and kills the elder for simply doing their usual Vistani stuff, speaking in riddles around the actual subject and not giving a straight answer.

[@KS-PNW]

@@LordZylok those are good points. At the same time he seemed to put a lot of emphasis on routine/maintaining at least the facade of his past life. With the skeletons of his old troops still patrolling the castle etc. To me that just doesn't feel chaotic, I dunno, maybe overthinking it..

[@lenkagamine4145]

@@LordZylokisnt that just standard evil stuff though? That doesnt make him chaotic, just... evil.

[@JLT0087]

Soth was the relative newcomer to the Domains of Dread and for a while was rather determined to find a way to break out and return to Krynn, going against the will of the dark powers. This could lead him to siding with chaos, I guess?

[@KS-PNW]

@@JLT0087 that's actually a decent justification. Lol you've officially put more thought into this game then the devs did..

[@matt-dr4fk]

I don't really even play dnd and I watch your videos. Cool stuff you've dug up dude!

[@luisrosado7050]

1:58 screw Raid: shadow legends! if i wanted to pay someone to watch characters do things, id just go to the movies! in fact i could just download something for FREE on the app store! hell i can just _MAKE_ any simulation i want! they charge $30 FOR A FEW PEICES OF ITEMS AND SHARDS! you can buy _MINECRAFT_ with that amount!

[@WardenPlays]

The fact it was one of the guys at Turtle Rock is hilarious to me. MCDM creator, Matt Colville, ALSO worked for Turtle Rock at one time, and even did stuff with Evolve. Y'know, that asymmetrical shooter game where a team of 4 people fight a monster, a game that was horribly shafted by Take 2 to monetize it. Matt Colville is an ardent fan of tabletop and DnD, and his company and channel is dedicated to RPGs. He also talks candidly about running tabletop games for his co-workers in the various places he worked at. I'm not sure if his tenure would have coincided with Phil Rob, but the connection is clandestine.

[@magvel7250]

Phil was a player on The Chain for all of its 27 episodes, and also features in the campaign diaries of early days of the Matt Colville channel

[@sjwarhammer4039]

Yeah if you ever watched Colville's colossal failure video, Phil is the player whose wizard Matt executed in the jail cell.

[@613aristocrat]

Uh, wow. You know, One Must Fall 2097 came out two years before this. Sure it's 2D, but it still looks more advanced than this game.

[@versebuchanan512]

It's like watching Liam fight Woolie in a non-anime fighter.

[@aaronhemme8913]

Strahd's floating animation reassembled Magneto's in X-Men Legends for the PlayStation 2.

[@Monochrome_11]

oh shit now you are an"official" KZbinr cuz you got your Raid Shadow Legends congrats 🤣

[@WilliamSRD]

I HAVE JOINED THE CLUB

[@strangeyoungman]

"Because... Because... Because I can fix her." Very nice. Have a like.

[@orcwarchiefreviews]

Finally others have played this awful game I have said that this is the worst fighting game of all time I've even blamed this for TSR going bankrupt that's how bad this game is now maybe others can inform Matt mcmuscles so this could take it place as worst fighting game of all time

[@CzechAvailabilitie]

So it's a reverse Warcraft? In that Warcraft started out as an an unofficial Warhammer game but when they failed to get the licence they just tweaked a few things and released it as its own thing.

[@kasperv967]

This was great! Thank you for the deep dive into (for me) such an obscure game.

[@snakeplissken111]

Baldur's Gate 3 just doesn't compare. They don't make them like this anymore =(

[@WilliamSRD]

1V1 ME AT IRON AND BLOOD

[@paint4pain]

Strahd can german suplex a 1 armed dwarf?! ...Damn it, i'm in.

[@WilliamSRD]

@@paint4pain that's how it works in table top too. Don't check.

[@neoqwerty]

@@WilliamSRD I can confirm, my DM said that's how you nat 20 a grapple check.

[@Mordakai]

Ok, bring it on :P

[@patriciasmiley9131]

I had the Playstation version back in the day, it absolutely does have the playable bosses. The codes were just a bit tricky to get right. Also the skeleton is absolutely BROKEN if you get one of his "Mystic Power" upgrades that makes him heal about 1/3 of his health every time he connects with a combination, even if it's blocked. my brothers and I had to house rule that nobody is allowed to use that guy on any "Mystic Power" reward matches, just so he would never unlock that ability, because otherwise the chaos player would just steamroll the rest of everything with him.

[@bobbynick5358]

You know what could rebalance and save this game? if they added a system, Every won fight, you earn gold and there's a shop to earn/buy More-Lives, Heal items, Permanent Max Health, Training scrolls/books to gain more moves, and able to buy better equipment's and spells, buy one time uses power ups items for combat, like a lite rpg fighting game.

[@delaorden]

O wow, I remember watching the photos of the 3DO M2 version of that game and recently the demo in Video Game Esoterica channel. Must say that version look impresive in comparison.

[@logans.7932]

A modern COS fighting game would go insanely hard. SPOILERS FOR CURSE OF STRAHD 5E Izek Strasni Ireena Kolyanovich Van Richten Ezmerelda Strahd Strahd’s Brides Ludmilla, Anastrasia, etc. Hell even a polymorphed Argenvost with special moves where he turns back into a Silver Dragon. Imagine prematch shit talk too lmao. “How does it feel knowing you’re going to be replaced by Tatyana, Escher?” “Feels like I just fell into a ravine.” Some of this info might be homemade names/characters from my DM/Table but you get the idea.

[@vincible7023]

Vladimir Horngaard, Baba Lysaga, Rahadin, any of the Martikovs, Emil Toranescu for that werewolf rep. The list of potential characters is long.

[@logans.7932]

@@vincible7023 Rahadin would play exactly like Marth & I hate it

[@Elkantar_Rostorgh231]

I really did wish WotC tackled the fighting game genre again, especially with settings like Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance having plenty of iconic characters to fill a decently sized roster. And with studios with amazing fighting games under their development belt, I believe that a good D&D fighting game can be possible. One can dream...

[@DIEGhostfish]

Strahd, Anhktepot, Soth, Vecna and whoever else and or their chosen champions throwing down would be very fun I think.

[@ThePokeproject]

Such an underrated KZbinr, thank you for the amazing content :)

[@Psistarstormer]

Wow, you got a Raid sponsorship? Really moving up in the world.

[@xaosbob]

What a hilarious disaster, both the game itself and your fascinating journey of discovery. Darkstalkers was always my favorite Ravenloft game anyway.

[@guiobotelho]

Congratulations on getting to 13k Will! You deserve it and more, glad to see you started growing alot faster in these past weeks

[@emiliastarsong202]

Came here because i loved that game back in the Days, one of my favorites xD A Game that i disliked: Raid Shadow Legends lol

[@planescaped]

I never knew Strahd was Drizzt famous.

[@the_brutal_king4314]

Strahd, Drizzt, Lord Soth, Vecna, and Azalin Rex all are on the same par of fame, I would say.

[@Greatfang1319]

I remember playing this on my friends Playstation and spamming nim pimply the goblin since he was a cheese character. I loved ravenloft as a teen then and still love it now as an adult, but man, was this game bad... years later my friends and I in college would drink beers and play this to see who go the longest before rage quitting lol. Ahh good memories

[@r4z0rv1n3]

So I was around when this was in development... and i remember going to the website and it having the D&D stuff a tiny bit before it came out... Were talking early internet... The funny part is I don't remember at all them mentioning it was a fighting game I thought for sure it was going to be a Ravenloft RPG of some sort... It does seem really odd out of all the campaign settings they chose Ravenloft, the story driven horror setting to use as the basis for a fighting game. As a huge Ravenloft fan I really got bamboozled by this game and I really was angry because it I saw it as a huge waste of the Liscence.. I really wish we had gotten something like Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment with the Ravenloft Liscence... But alas it's not to be. Given how WOTC is just horrible at using their old IP's currently I'm not sure I want to see anything that would come out now... The only thing that's even close to interesting is Baldur's Gate 3 which is still in development.

[@drtoothmonkey]

Wow, this game has been living in my head for a few decades now. I obviously played it as a kid and the characters like the one armed dwarf were engrained in my subconscious. But I could never remember where from until I saw this!

[@jonothanthrace1530]

Did anyone else hear Turtle Rock Games and think "hey, that's where Mat Colville worked!"?

[@bigs5078]

God damnit, why didn't they just make it a Darklord fighting game? I wanted Strahd to finally throw hands with Azalin.

[@generic840]

Wheres the link to the gameplay stream

[@lostbutfreesoul]

No wonder it was a 'financial success.' How much do you think they paid the development team?

[@elixwhitetail]

Oh, that appearance of Battlecruiser 3000 AD in the Take 2 corporate filing. It says a lot about that game that Iron & Blood represented more than double the revenue, and didn't list BC3000AD's sales figures. But that's a whole other topic.

[@LtheOriginal]

You KNOW a game is bad when Raid is considered a palate cleanser

[@RyllenKriel]

10:37 should have been the screenshot for this video. Haha!

[@GuiltyKit]

Man I'll admit, it's not a great game, but as a bunch of mega D&D nerds as kids, my friends and I played probably triple digit numbers of matches of this game during sleepovers and such. Then again we played a whole lot of bad games.

[@an3582]

How dare you talk about predatory dlc and bad gameplay and then be sponsored by Raid?

[@neoqwerty]

Does anyone fall for Raid except whales and cryptobros at this point?

[@dethdethdethable]

I have a lot of love for this game. It's not good. I still have my copy from when i was 6. To me, what made me love it was the relatively spooky characters, the music and atmosphere was pretty grim, the box art was cool to me. Even the ps1 manual was like liner notes from a cradle of filth album cover. I didnt really know it was a DnD game until i was older. Still not a DnD player now but this game got me reading a lot about Ravenloft. I still think some of the chaos guys are pretty cool to look at. And yeah the ps1 cheat books definitely said you could use cheats to to get the boss characters, but they never worked for me. In hindsight i guessed it was because the game just sucked at accepting any kind of controller input at all.

[@samflood5631]

Iron and Blood is what happens when Dungeons and Dragons is trying way too hard to be like Soul Calibur but ends up failing hard, like landing the dice on 0.

[@Walican132]

Oh look forward to group neverwinter. Had fun with ddo but didn’t enjoy the game if that makes sense.

[@roberthornibrook6344]

I remember playing the demo of this game on the PS1 back in the day. 2 playable characters we knew it was horrid.

[@nangld]

I expected some Drizzt vs Raistlin mortal kombat style game, but it is just some unrelated game branded as D&D. They can easily sell packets with stale dog feces by putting a D&D label on them, and it will still have more artistic value than this game.

[@ogrim0]

God, the framerate physically hurts me!

[@ryangraff102]

My college girlfriend and I used to play this game all the time. Thanks for the walk down Memory Lane.

[@robertbick986]

It's no Rise of The Robots. Or uhh, what was the other one? Leather and Lace: Attack Of The Robo Babes?

[@hdade5280]

This game! As a kid we bought our ps1 secondhand along with the previous owner's game collection, including this monstrosity. It definitely hit the "so bad it's good" vibes. Me and my brother loved/hated it. The announcer/narration is super repetitive but in a way that is charming/kitsch even at the time lol.

[@biseinerheult78]

Man we played the crap out of that game when we were 19 or 20. It's a bad game, but we loved every second it.

[@dan_kablamo7895]

I remember buying this game at Electronics Boutique for 19.99 thinking I got a bargain. From the game case the graphics looked really good so I took a gamble . Man oh man this game was absolutely terrible 😂

[@UnclePutte]

Ohhh man. I remember buying this game with the first wages from my first summer job ever. I quit both the job and the game the very same day.

[@PoseidonXIII]

Class fomo is exactly why I still haven't finished Elder Scrolls: Oblivion!

[@jaymaxwell8645]

This Brings back so many memories.

[@otaking3582]

If only less people bought this game. Take Two could've been stopped while they were still young!

[@UriYacobiKeller]

You missed what you could have said - "One Ravenloft Game To RUIN (them?) all!"

[@EonEsper-Kriz]

I mean, the Logo... it's SLIGHTLY SIMILAR... but not exactly the same...

[@diamondhamster4320]

Hello my name is Matt MacWilliams and welocome to "What happened DnD Edition"

[@cameronpearce5943]

I want them to remake this so badly

[@morzemus1805]

Without Iron and Blood, there wouldn't be Bioshock

[@LolaliciousSmiley]

This was phenomenal. You could have clickbaited this so easily, but I think the slow reveal of facts helps the video pacing.

[@joeycoe85]

I feel like the industry is past due for another crack at this. It’s a great concept for a FIGHTING game, since it will increase the replayability and campaign length.

[@Mordakai]

This game is like a sponge for bad 3D fighting games. A game designer could probably write a thesis on how to create a good fighting game by thoroughly dissecting it. But also, they really should have at least fixed the auto-camera 🤣

[@Tboysupreme]

I had this for the PlayStation. This was really bad. I mean so bad it was kinda fun again. Especially playing with a friend.

[@marianounzue2016]

Oh man, i remember playing this on my ps1, i still need therapy...

[@EonEsper-Kriz]

The Heroes had no choice but choose the lesser of two evils, lol.

[@TheVampirePredator]

You haven’t played that Dragonlance game on NES or DOS have you?

[@drkpaladin777]

Great video, made me want to play it. Fingers crossed for a sequel on it's 30th anniversary.

[@twistedturns65]

Watching this video felt like I was on this journey with you two. ^.^

[@twistedturns65]

Also, apparently 3 weeks ago I watched this video, and since I don't recall, I strongly suspect I was quite drunk.

[@drgrantboardman2224]

Someone needs to remake this game for the modern day.

[@Awakeandalive1]

I'd never heard of this game. But one of the first CD-ROM games I owned was Bureau-13 and i loved the crap out of it, and I also loved the Revenloft setting, so I probably would have purchased Iron & Blood... Thank goodness I was spared that fate!

[@AllfatherBlack]

i geniunley rented this at the time. it looked awful even at the time and i ran through everything else at blockbuster before i caved and rented this. its as bad as you say and that's not a matter of retrospect it just always was.

[@garysmith4742]

bro, keep playing these old DND games!!

[@Chuchurute]

Congrats on what is probably your first kusoge fighting game

[@thepopemichael]

Was that opening a Final Fantasy X opening parody?

[@robinm1331]

Is... is this basically a worse version of Bushido Blade? The format seems pretty similar, anyway.

[@CaptainRufus]

This is one of the worst PS1 fighting games next to the Star Wars and Dragon Ball GT ones. And I actually kind of sort of enjoy the arcade version of Time Killers. That's how BAD those 3 games are.

[@LordZylok]

COMBINATION!

[@samuelrodriguez9801]

Actually the Goblin Character is from Ravenloft canon not an OC.

[@stevenclark1662]

I love Phill Robb! He was awesome on MCDM's Chain of Acheron.

[@DiktatrSquid]

I mean... conceptually and narratively a I could imagine a Ravenloft fighting game with modern character variety in the setting... Order: Ismark Kolyanovich Ireena Kolyana Ezmerelda D'avenir Rudolph van Richten Urwin Martikov The "Mad Mage" (unlockable, cured from madness, not spoiling his name) Dmitri/Anna Krezkov Szoldar Szoldarovich Father Lucian Father Donavich Godfrey Gwilym Vladimir Horngaard Kasimir Velikov OC adventurer of each class. Chaos: Strahd von Zarovich Rahadin Ludmilla Vilisevic Anastrasya Karelova Volenta Popofski Eschter Fiona Wachter Victor Vallakovich Arrigal Exethanter (unlockable) Morgantha Baba Lysaga Kiril Stoyanovich Svarog (druid leader, don't remember if he was canon) The Abbot Neferon Cyrus Belview Should it be done? Probably not, but I had fun with this hypothetical.

[@loneronin6813]

That LOTR parody intro made me laugh harder than anything else has in a long time XD

[@twistedturns65]

Discussing a terrible game while sponsored by an even worse game, love the irony.