Blackwood Review: Steam Ratings, Reviews and Reception

Critic score

None published in the collected sources

Metacritic value

Not returned by the Steam store API

User reviews recorded

891 (49% positive)

Steam API recommendations

1,137 total

All-time peak players

3,008

24-hour peak

953

Genre placement

Action, Adventure, RPG, Strategy on Steam

Why the user review numbers disagree

Two numbers for the same game cannot both be current, and the sources were collected at different moments. The written data set was assembled on 19 September 2026 and records 891 reviews at a 49% positive rate. The Steam store API was queried later and returned a total of 1,137 recommendations for app 3639070.

That gap is normal for a game in its first week: more players finish the opening act and leave a review every day. The 49% positive figure is the more consequential number, because it puts the game below Steam's "Mixed" threshold in most regional variants of the store page.

Neither figure replaces the other, and neither is a permanent verdict. If you are weighing the game up, the live store page is the only place to read the current split, because the ratio moves with every new review.

What the collected sources say players respond to

The sources used for this wiki are walkthrough writers, not reviewers, so they do not hand out scores. What they do document is where the game resists players and where it rewards them, which is useful context for reading the Steam numbers.

The combat guide is candid about melee. It calls the hand-to-hand and bladed-weapon fighting "a bit janky" and notes it takes getting used to, which lines up with a mixed reception. The same source is much more positive about the shooting, describing gunplay as standard and familiar for a third-person shooter, and it singles out the dive kill and the throw-your-empty-weapon move as standout additions rather than gimmicks.

No published review text was collected, so no summary of what reviewers praised or criticised on balance has been written here.

Player numbers put the review count in context

Concurrent player figures are the other half of reception, and the collected data records a clear launch spike. SteamDB was captured showing roughly 685 players online at the time of collection, a 24-hour peak of 953, and an all-time peak of 3,008. The all-time peak is the launch-day number.

The shape matters more than the individual values. An all-time peak of 3,008 with a 24-hour peak of 953 means the game retained roughly a third of its launch-day high point within the collection window. That is the pattern of a single-player title with a three-act structure and a finite opening chapter, not a live-service game.

For a Steam-only release from a smaller studio, a four-figure all-time peak is a real audience. It also means the review sample is small relative to a mainstream release, which is why a single week of reviews can move the percentage as much as it has.

Why there is no Metacritic score

Metacritic exists on the Steam store API response as a field, and for Blackwood it comes back empty. The research data set likewise records no aggregate critic score, and no outlet scores were collected while assembling this wiki.

That usually means two things: the game has not been submitted for aggregated critic review, or too few outlets have published scored reviews for an aggregate to form. Either way, a "Blackwood review score" in the traditional sense does not exist yet.

Anyone quoting a numeric Blackwood review score right now is quoting either Steam's user percentage or a single outlet's opinion, not a critic aggregate.

What the game is, for anyone reading a review cold

Blackwood is a single-player cinematic third-person action thriller from AttritoM7 Productions, published by IZilla Games and AttritoM7 Productions, and released on 16 September 2026. You play a character running a DVD store in 2012 New York by day and working as a contract killer by night.

The structure is what most reviews would have to grapple with. The game is not open world; missions run in isolated sandboxes, and you can only take one mission per day. A large share of the runtime is store management — restocking racks, suggesting films to customers, tracking four weighted popularity categories — rather than shooting.

Steam lists the game under Action, Adventure, RPG and Strategy, and adds 29 achievements, Steam Cloud, Steam Leaderboards and Family Sharing. Controller support is included, along with subtitle options and adjustable difficulty.

How to read the Steam rating properly

Steam's percentage reflects only players who left a review, not everyone who bought or played the game. A title with a four-figure all-time peak and roughly a thousand reviews has a reasonably representative sample for its size, but it is still a self-selected group.

The most useful habit is to read the split by playtime. Early reviews from players still in Act 1 describe a different experience from reviews written after several in-game weeks of store management and contracts. The collected sources cover Act 1 and the surrounding systems, which is exactly the window most current reviews were written in.