Blood Message

Setting

Blood Message is set across East and Central Asia during the late Tang dynasty. It centers on a group of people who undertake a journey to deliver a crucial message to Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Empire.

Thematically, the developers aimed to highlight the struggle for survival of ordinary individuals against the backdrop of grand historical events. The perspective of common people rather than emperors or generals is used to show the occurrences of the era.

Historically, Zhang Yichao, whose allegiance was with the Tang, led an uprising against the Tubo that resulted in him reclaiming the regions of Guazhou and Shazhou. Following his seizure of Shazhou, he dispatched ten groups of messengers, who were mostly ordinary people, across vast and hostile territories to relay the news to Chang'an. Adapting these actual events, the game places the player in the role of one such messenger. Pei Changguan, who serves as the player character, is a fictional figure created to evoke the heroes who remain 'nameless' in a historical sense.

Jeff Hu, the senior director of global publishing, commented that "[The hero travels with his son] from the Chinese West to the East to deliver a very important message about their victory to the capital of the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an, so we can use different landscapes and let players experience different elements. We chose a very unique angle in that we chose a nameless soldier itself to tell this story, and also combine that with the emotional bond between father and son."

Plot

Pei Changguan and his son Ning face the turmoil of the Shazhou uprising and embark on a perilous journey across East and Central Asia to deliver a crucial message to Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Empire.