“Okay, so what is a Wyrd?” you might be asking. Wyrd is old Norse. It’s the etymological root of the English word ‘weird’, it’s the name of the goddess of personal fate or destiny – also known as Urd or Urdr – and the idea of that destiny itself. Magic is also involved. You don’t need to know the full details, just know that the Wyrd in Hellboy Web of Wyrd, refers to the idea of destiny, meaning the title refers to the idea of interlinked destiny, and the idea of ordained fate.
Hellboy, for anyone not familiar, is one of the most popular characters created by Mike Mignola, with a number of comic books, live action and animated movies, and yes, even video games starring him. He’s a demon from hell, but he’s actually a good dude, with a strong sense of justice and even stronger love of pancakes. He usually works for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense ( Or B.P.R.D.) who investigate and try and solve supernatural, extraterrestrial, and just plain strange threats to life on earth.
Web of Wyrd begins with Hellboy being called into a mission to rescue the first agents sent in to an investigation. You are sent immediately into the strange dimension known as the Wyrd, fighting off mooks and commanders and working your way through rooms to rescue the only survivor, and as a result, being cast in the role of the protagonist by an entity known only as Sheherezad, a being capable of influencing, but not controlling the Wyrd. From there it is up to Hellboy, aided by various other members of the B.P.R.D. to explore the occult and non-Euclidian corners of the Butterfly house to enter the ever-shifting layers of the Wyrd, defeat the guardians controlling its various corners, and stop the threat to the world that it poses. What that means for you playing is that you control Hellboy in a rogue-lite action brawler as he bobs, weaves, punches, pulverizes and shoots the various denizens of the Wyrd. In this case rogue-lite means that death is a setback, but not a permanent one.
The first thing I noticed about Web of Wyrd in its first trailer is that it looks like it is drawn by Hellboy‘s creator, Mike Mignola. The art style is clean, striking, simple in places and complex in others and every single screenshot I could show you would not look out of place in a comic book. And despite that, the animation is fluid and responsive. Web of Wyrd does slow down the animation in certain instances, like when you make an especially big hit the game will ratchet down the animation speed to emphasize the impact, but the switch there is extremely fluid both slowing down and ramping back up. So that’s comic book styling, but with proper action game animation and handling.
Hellboy, being the only member of the B.P.R.D. capable of safely existing inside The Wyrd, must go inside and undo the source of its disturbances. As he does so he meets helpful people both inside and outside The Wyrd. Outside are the B.P.R.D. agents who can offer advice, equipment upgrades, hints and keep track of the bestiary and the lore. Inside are Scheherazade who can provide bonuses to damage after being hit, and the Norns, who provide a variety of bonuses like increased resource drops, more bullets for guns or faster recharge, and upgraded toughness and health. Bonuses are all lost upon death or completion of a chapter, while any upgrades bought in the Butterfly House are permanent, but cost a different resource.
One of the big themes of Web of Wyrd is being caught in a twisted story and your helpers, the Norns, are very emblematic of this. While Urdr, Verdandi, and Skuld still represent the past, present, and future, their roles have been twisted up. For example, Skuld was originally the Maiden, but is now the crone dispensing sage wisdom, Urdr was the crone, and is now the youthful maiden, interested only in play. Verdandi is still the mother, but she is neglectful and disinterested. The various boss characters are figures of myth and faerie tale trapped in their own stories. Even Scheherazade is trapped, and their twisted destinies form the web Hellboy must break. The man responsible for this, Deneveux, who designed the Butterfly House itself, is a mad man who designed the place in order to access the Wyrd, seemingly in hopes of bringing back a departed daughter.
Hellboy primarily attacks with his fists, but he also has access to a gun, initially his pistol but you can change that option later on, and there are benefits and drawbacks to each of the guns you can bring into the Wyrd. For example the pistol deals the least damage, but is very good at breaking armor and building stun and has the most shots. The shotgun, by contrast, deals more damage and has spread, but has fewer shots before a reload and builds stun slower. You also have access to defensive, offensive, and situational options in the form of charms. These can do damage to all enemies in a radius, or knock them away, depending on the charm equipped. Both guns and charms have a cooldown after use. Guns you must reload after using up their ammo and Hellboy must remain stationary while he reloads, opening him to attack. Note, you CAN move after starting a reload, but you reset the reload timer when you do. Charms, meanwhile, only have one use before their cooldown but they recharge automatically and Hellboy can move while they recharge. Effective juggling of punches, firearm, and charms, along with dodges and blocks to prevent incoming enemy attacks, is key to keeping Hellboy in the fight and in the Wyrd.
Every enemy – as well as Hellboy – has toughness and health. Toughness is Armor, and will either restore on its own after time, or by collecting toughness shards dropped by mooks in combat. Toughness also regenerates for enemies, meaning that if you back up to regain some, so does your foe, encouraging high risk behavior. Health, however, does not regenerate. The only way to recover health without losing life is to either choose the Norn power up that makes health drop randomly in fights instead of Wyrd currency, or to find a pedestal in the Wyrd with a health refresh on it, some of which also cost currency.
The basic gameplay loop is thus. Hellboy walks into a bell shaped chamber in the Butterfly House – the hub world of the game – and explores it, beating up monsters as he goes, trying to preserve his health as much as he can while defeating enemies, finding powerups, and discovering lore. Hopefully, he makes it to the end of the the Wyrd and can fight and defeat the boss. If he does’t, his progress in that section is lost and he loses most of what he collected in the Wyrd. You’ll also lose any keys you may have happened to find for the Wyrd. What you DO keep however is any lore you’d discovered, any upgrades that were bought at the Butterfly house, and monster remains, which are the second kind of currency and are used to buy the upgrades in the Butterfly House.
If you do beat a boss, you unlock their thematic power as a possible power up and can move onto the next chapter and the next section of the Wyrd. Web of Wyrd is designed to move at a pretty brisk pace. I haven’t needed more than a couple runs through each section of the Wyrd to get strong enough to defeat the chapter boss. That said, levels can get very big and runs can get very long, and one of my biggest pet peeves with games is not letting me put it down and come back later. On this regard I am glad to say – especially as Hellboy is a rogue-lite – you can simply quit halfway through a run through the Wyrd and just… resume where you left off it you want. Take note, all games with rogue-like elements, ESPECIALLY games with permadeath elements, this is what you need to have! Not that this feature will necessarily keep you from spending too much time in a game as I loaded Web of Wyrd to check one thing and wound up playing for another hour. Oops.
Tim Reviewed Hellboy Web of Wyrd on PC with a review code.
