Blade doesn’t really have an iconic villain. There’s nobody on the same level as Spider-Man’s Green Goblin or Batman’s Joker, with his most famous antagonist being none other than Dracula himself. But he isn’t Blade’s rival, he’s the face of the blood-sucking night stalkers as a whole. So when Arkane announced that it’s developing a game based on Marvel’s Daywalker at The Game Awards, my immediate thought was, ‘Who will he be up against?’
Deacon Frost
While punching Dracula in the fangs sounds fun, Deacon Frost is the obvious pick. He appeared opposite Wesley Snipes’ Blade in the first movie, so he’s already got a foothold outside of the comics. As for his story, it’s pretty simple – he’s a scientist desperate to cheat death, injecting people with vampire blood to unravel the reason behind their immortality.
He kidnaps a woman called Isla, but her fiancé finds her. So, the two get into a fight and her fiancé accidentally injects Frost with that same vampire blood. It turns him into a unique spin on the myth, as anyone he bites creates a clone when turned. To make matters worse, he can control their minds and clone their clones. Basically, he can conjure up a vampire army with ease.
Deacon Frost first appeared back in 1973 in Tomb of Dracula #13.
If Arkane is going for the open-world route (details are scarce since development is in its early stages), it’ll run into the same problem as Spider-Man—filling that world with enemies. In Spidey, we get goons for every major villain, like Kraven’s hunters and Venom’s symbiote-infected civilians. Vampires running around Paris in such huge numbers seems unlikely, but if there’s a villainous scientist at the heart of it all creating an army, it checks out.
In the reveal trailer, a presenter states that all citizens must remain sheltered until dark, before something starts banging on the barbershop door. Blade gears up, so it’s probably a vampire. Could it be Frost’s army ready to start their invasion?
Frost is also a likely candidate for a major villain given that he’s responsible for Blade being half-vampire, half-human, biting his mother while he was still in her womb. But superhero games often have foils that lead to bigger bads, like Black Mask and Mr. Negative, so Frost could merely be an appetiser to the main course.
Dracula
Dracula is the obvious pick, and Frost’s whole deal is that he’s trying to usurp him as the Lord of Vampires. But jumping right into the most iconic villain in Blade’s arsenal in one game doesn’t leave much wiggle room for sequels, and as we all know, superhero games love a good sequel.
Dracula could even face Blade early on, but I’d hedge my bets on him being a looming presence instead, the mere idea of his existence an ominous and ever-present threat. It is perfectly possible that factions of different vampires run by different leaders could make their way across Paris, something that would not only give Arkane plenty of fertile narrative ground, but also lend its world a sense of welcome variety.
Legion Of The Unliving
If you need a vampire army dangerous enough to send Paris into lockdown in what sounds like a zombie apocalypse, look no further than the Legion.
One of the many iterations of this group was formed by Dracula’s son Xarus, otherwise known as the Shadow Colonel, under the guise of usurping his father’s throne. In reality, they were hunting vampires to weed out the weak and strengthen their own army. But the civil war bled out beyond the world of the undead, causing a vampiric outbreak.
What makes this an interesting avenue for a Blade game is that it would also naturally weave in henchmen and minibosses for us to face throughout the story such as Baroness Blood, Count Nefario, Necrodamus, and Khufor.
Lilith and her legions of demons could also result in plenty of goons to slice and dice, but we just faced her (with Blade on our side no less) in Midnight Suns.
It’s even the perfect setup for Dracula given that the team is led by his son, leading nicely into an inevitable Blade 2.
With so little to go off, the villain could be anyone, but with ties to his origin story, Frost seems the most likely, and with stereotypical superhero game mechanics in mind, a big group is likely, too.
It’s also entirely possible given Blade is a less-defined character outside of the comics, Arkane will tell a wholly original story. Hell, he’s in France despite being an English hero who spends most of his time in America. But if I had to throw my hat in the ring, I’d go for the Legion.
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