First three maps follow the promising concept of city based scenarios, which was hinted in the two first maps of the original game’s third episode. While not being mindblowing, they succeed at being fun enough.

Map 4 is the one i liked the least, and apparently it’s pretty infamous among Blood fans. Really confusing map layer design (which is going to be a common thing for the next maps) but mostly, a terrible enemy placement. That rotating cabin could have been better at giving some Myst/Riven vibes.

Maps 5 and 6 suffer from the same flaw: The level can be finished just by chance, getting casually to the exit, while ignoring big parts of the maps. Like, these maps could be easily finished up with just a 60% of completion, and the other 40% of unexplored areas are not truly rewarding: they don’t offer big bonuses, interesting encounters, or worthy secrets. I consider that to be a big flaw. And even if they aren’t really bad maps, they feel just bland.

Map 7 is in my opinion the best of this pack. It feels like a Hexen map but actually done good. The beginning of this level resembles a hub with three different doors. This doors are open by solving a very simple puzzle, and they lead to different isolated sections, at the end of which there’s some kind of lever. This sequence of three levers must be completed in order to open a fourth door, which leads to the exit and the boss fight. If that isn’t Hexen-like enough for you, well, Caleb even says “wow, what the hell did that do” once he pushes one of the switches, which was basically a way of resume the experience of playing Hexen, so i’ll definitely take a guess about this being the mindset for the designers of this level.

Overall, i think the main problem with Post Mortem is how lazy they went when it comes to level textures. I mean, at some point every map just starts looking all the same. Everything is so grey and rockish. And that’s kind of a let down considering how impressive the original Blood’s work was when it comes to textures. One could think that developers decided to focus on gameplay rather than aesthetics, but the truth that gameplay-wise, this pack offers little to be remembered. And also, underrating the aesthetic design of a level is like discarding a crucial point for a good gaming experience, which is the sense of novelty throughout the progression.

Still, a must play if you’re a hardcore Blood fan.

Favourite map: M7. The Dungeon
Worst map: M4. Aqueducts

As much as I love Blood, the version of it that you can buy these days has one glaring weakness, and that's the extra episode Post Mortem. While Post Mortem adds some interesting new enemies to the game, its levels are not particularly well-designed, and it's quite difficult for all the wrong reasons. The final boss level in particular is quite a slog - you fight several copies of the same new enemy, who can basically one-shot you with an AoE attack that has unclear range. They also have a ton of health, so I hope you brought Tesla Cannon ammo. It's not a bad pack of levels, but it's definitely the worst content in the game, hence this rating. If you love the first four episodes, check it out, but otherwise check out Death Wish instead.

When I played Blood last year, I ended up not being able to get around to its expansion packs, so I figured I'd start doing so now, and started with Post Mortem. It's more Blood, but slightly more cruel and unusual punishment than usual! It's still Blood, which means its still a tor de force masterclass of FPS design but it gets a BIT more cruel than I'd like from time to time in its enemy placement, and the boss level at the end kinda fuckin sucks. Otherwise still worth a playthrough. Now on to Cryptic Passage.