Blood Money: Lethal Eden Review

The game begins with you getting lured into Myanmar in hopes of love, but things go sideways when you are drugged and imprisoned in a compound named Eden. The compound has multiple districts: one for prostitution, one for scamming, and another for dealing with dissidents. Your new job is to scam others via the phone, under threat of cruelty. If you’re smart, you might even survive.

Your choices determine if you live, die, or ascend the ranks. Excess courage might leave you too injured to withstand punishment. Not enough will rob you of allies. Spending money to help others can rule out bribes. Dying is common and just making it to Act 3 can take several attempts. The game tracks multiple stats including wisdom, sin, ambition, and they determine which branching paths are taken. While tricky to successfully navigate the timeline, it is rewarding when a new scene appears.

Brutality and tragedy is prominent at Eden. The game includes torture, suicide, murder, and sexual assault. While there are deaths and violence, the bad parts are off screen. There are first-person sex scenes too, but only implied via the classic fade-to-black. Characters are physically accosted regularly in front of the camera, and the actors do a great job of making it believable.

Romance is secondary to survival, but more than a cameo. Fellow victim and fragile young woman, A Lian, needs protection. The ‘girlfriend’ who scammed you, Hong Ling, is also stuck in the facility. Quiet doctor, Su Xin, faces a test of her oath. Elegant prostitution boss, Xixi, lusts for power. And finally, Bao Xiao is an heiress not ready for the nightmare. There are short romance scenes including embraces, going for walks, and spending time at the bar. While there is only one good ending, the romance is adequate overall and the actresses are fantastic.

The game has some neat mechanics worth mentioning. Sometimes you can look in different directions while people are speaking, which feels like a natural addition to the genre. On recreation days, a map is used to visit locations and buy items, which adds a nice RPG layer.

Video quality is great and audio is all live recorded. The game took 6 hours to get to the first final-act ending, and over 10 hours to see everything. This represents good value, despite the grind to clear some routes. If you only go through games once, or like FMVs to be easy, then it is hard to recommend, but if you are prepared to fight to survive then Lethal Eden is worth a few black eyes.