Blood Bowl 2 is the sequel to the 2009 game based on the board game by Games Workshop. The basic overview of the Blood Bowl 2 concept is a more violent take on American Football set in the fantasy Warhammer universe where games are just as likely to end in a blood bath as a touchdown.



The presentation of the game is top notch, with the entire game presented as an in universe sports broadcast complete with two hosts, Bob Bifford and Jim Johnson who also commentate on the game and give some comic relief. The game is also a faithful rendition of the board game and includes all of the rules from the latest version of the living rulebook of the Games Workshop version. Cyanide also took note of the common complaints of the original Blood Bowl game and instead of just having a lot of text explaining the rules but instead have created a campaign mode where you take over the Reikland Reavers, an old Championship team who have taken a turn for the worst and have recently replaced all of its players with rookies. Throughout the Campaign you are tasked with bringing the Reavers back to glory with the rules slowly introduced throughout.



The gameplay also has great presentation and continues the theme of a sports broadcast with team introductions and commentary and crowd shots whenever someone scores a touchdown. The game itself is turn based with timed turns, the match is split into two halves with 8 turns per side in each half. Each game hinges on the automated dice rolls as one of the rules causes your turn to end if you make a bad dice roll, for example if your player fumbles the ball or gets knocked down in a tackle. This is where the game can get frustrating as some of the dice rolls can feel very disjointed, for example I have had a few matches where my catcher has fumbled the ball multiple times in a row just to have the AI team run circles around my players dodging every attempt at blocking them only for them to pick up the ball and score a touchdown. In the end it can feel like when playing the AI you are playing with two different rulesets as your players fail dice rolls for basic things a lot more than the AI who very rarely fail in these rolls.



This all changes when playing multiplayer though where the game really shines and feels like the digital version of the board game. The rules which feel unbalanced towards the AI make the multiplayer games always tight edge of the seat affairs which fits in with the sports presentation perfectly and gets you hoping for the opponents to trip when you see them going for a long run or for them to fumble the ball on each pass. The game is especially fun when playing with friends and emulates the feeling of the board game perfectly.



Overall the game is a very good fantasy sports game with great presentation but can be very frustrating with the dice rolls and rules like the Turnover rule feeling very punitive as they can very easily lose you a match through no fault of your own. With this in mind I can only recommend this game to fans of the original board game or if you have a group of friends who want an alternative sports game to play as a group.

7/10