Blackheart: Lucky 7
Blackheart: Lucky 7 is a third person shooter/stealth title published by Ubisoft for the Reality, Virtua, and Nexus. Taking place primarily in the areas in and around Las Vegas, though occasionally seeing its two protagonists fly off to other locales (or including flashback scenes taking place elsewhere), the game continues the story of Sadira Blackheart and Mariska "Messiah" Zobrist, and is in many ways a culmination/climax for the series (though unlike Tales Of The Seven Seas: To The End Of The World, another high profile series that wrapped everything up), it's not a "conclusion", and Ubisoft fully intends to continue the series afterwards. However, it does wrap up many ongoing stories for the series, including a conclusive answer to the "will they or won't they" relationship between Sadira and Messiah that has defined the series for the past 16 years. It sees the series enter a new era, with subsequent entries being more episodic, and also being directed/produced by new personnel within Ubisoft, as the people who have been working on Blackheart choose to move on to other projects (or in some cases, other companies). The gameplay itself is much the same as Blackheart 666, fairly typical of an eighth generation shooter, though with a bit more emphasis on stealth and melee combat than other shooters of its stripe. Sadira and Messiah are controlled for an equal amount of time by the player (who can also choose at certain points in the game which of the two they wish to control). Sadira plays more directly, killing without remorse and using fear to manipulate and intimidate her foes, while Messiah's empathic abilities have fully returned (and are in fact stronger than ever), enabling her to both feel her enemies' emotions and pain and also to project emotions onto others (the same mechanic introduced in Blackheart 666, but expanded upon). Now, more than ever, Sadira and Messiah also project their emotions and tendencies onto one another, and players will get to experience this via the new "Shared Mind" meter, in which Sadira can kill enemies and terrify them to give Messiah a burst of adrenaline off the enemies' fear, while Messiah can show mercy to foes to calm Sadira and give her more focus and accuracy. There's also a meter that swings back and forth depending on the player's approach to battle: cause more pain/death and it swings one way, enhancing the player's attack power, while taking more damage will cause it to swing the other way, increasing the player's survival power. Wild swings of the meter can be used to build up something called a Domination Burst, in which Sadira or Messiah can unleash a special attack, while holding the meter steady can build up a Subjugation Burst, in which Sadira or Messiah can influence enemies on a massive scale. There's also a Lucky mechanic that comes into play, taking certain actions will activate either a card draw, a slot machine, or a roulette wheel, which can provide more bonuses in battle, but can also give debuffs and damage. The player can always choose whether to take this gamble, so this mechanic is optional, but if players are feeling lucky, they'll want to do it. Apart from these special meters, combat is actually fairly realistic, with shooting mechanics comparable to those of a typical third person shooter, and the ability to roll or take cover in battle. Stealth, while often beneficial, is always optional, and the player has more stealth options than ever, allowing for the ability to take almost any approach to combat that the player desires. Lana Parrilla and Grey Delisle return as Sadira and Messiah respectively, while the game features a strong supporting voice cast as well.
The game takes place a few months after the events of Blackheart 666. Messiah now operates as an independent agent after Sadira caused her to get burned by her organization, while Sadira has disappeared into the underworld, now one of the world's most wanted criminals. Messiah is in pursuit of a lead on Sadira's whereabouts, and has followed her to Las Vegas, where she believes Sadira may be in town to assassinate a VIP. Messiah infiltrates a resort packed to the gills with bodyguards and dangerous criminals, and can learn from their emotions that Sadira isn't aiming to assassinate someone, she's the leader of this organization. Messiah makes her way to where she believes Sadira is located, only to fall into a trap and get captured. She's confronted by Sadira herself, but of course, was completely ready for this, and quickly frees herself, engaging in a quick dual/boss fight with Sadira before Sadira mentions someone whose name causes Messiah to stop attacking: Kasey, the former junior agent who Messiah used to work with, is now the leader of Opalescence, which has been rebuilt from the tattered shape that Sadira and Messiah originally left it in. Opalescence has been thwarting Sadira's efforts, but has also proven itself to be a dangerous organization, protecting tyrants and manipulating the world's financial and technological systems. Sadira wants to infiltrate Opalescence, and believes Messiah can do it. Messiah, however, doesn't want to take action against Kasey: even though the two haven't seen each other in a while, they're still good friends, or at the very least, parted on good terms. Opalescence is operating out of Vegas, with a large new casino as a front company, and Sadira plans to infiltrate them, one way or another. As a show of good faith, Sadira puts Messiah in charge of her group, while she goes to investigate a lead herself. This is where we first meet some of the game's interesting new supporting characters, a mix of hackers, criminals, and outsiders whose personalities clash quite a bit with Messiah and who she has some interesting banter with while Sadira goes on a solo mission. Sadira learns that Kasey has been somewhat hardened by her experiences since leaving Messiah's side, and though she's the leader of Opalescence, she isn't the one who reformed it: that "honor" belongs to the organization's old leader, Theus, who Messiah spared at the end of Codename: Messiah. Scarred and restricted to a wheelchair from his injuries, he spent a long time in recovery, but once he was able to go out into the world again, he reached out to Kasey, and began to talk to her the same way he talked to Messiah's older sister Jillian to bring her into the organization more than a decade ago. Opalescence's operatives are a mix of professional soldiers and idealists, and not all of them are evil: in fact, most of them genuinely believe they're doing good, and are much like Messiah herself. This doesn't stop Sadira from killing some of them, though she does spare one, a young woman named Naoko who reports directly back to Kasey and tells her what happened. After these first two solo missions, Sadira and Messiah begin teaming up to sabotage Opalescence's holdings around the world, working together on some missions and apart on others. During this time, Sadira is seen reverting to her old, heartless ways, something that Messiah seems increasingly reluctant to abide, and finally, she confronts Sadira and gives her an ultimatum: do things Messiah's way, or their partnership is over for good. Shortly afterwards, Messiah is confronted by Kasey, and the two speak for the first time since they last parted. There's a long conversation in which Kasey reveals Opalescence's goals for the world: protect everyone and prevent war, primarily by concentrating money in the hands of certain organizations working to produce advanced technology, and killing anyone who they deem as a threat to world peace. Messiah dismisses that idea, telling Kasey that they can't control the world like that, and that concentrating advanced technology in a small number of hands will only lead to those few chosen companies dominating the world. The two begin to argue, but before coming to blows, Kasey is shot by a sniper and seemingly killed. The sniper reveals herself as Sadira, and Messiah is furious with her, only for Sadira to show that Kasey was hit with a sleep bullet, not a lethal bullet, and that the two now have the leader of Opalescence in custody.
Sadira and Messiah then interrogate Kasey. Messiah refuses to hurt her, though when Kasey doesn't talk, Sadira demands to do things her own way, whether Messiah wants to do it or not. Messiah very reluctantly agrees, and Sadira looks like she's going to torture Kasey, but Kasey still doesn't reveal anything... but this still drops her emotional guard enough to allow Messiah to pick up something subtle, and it's revealed that Sadira was never going to torture Kasey and that the two were putting on an act the whole time. Kasey sees something between the two of them, and starts to laugh. Messiah wants to know what's so funny, and this leads to a scene where Messiah's empathic powers begin to go out of control, getting a lot of information out of Kasey but also causing her an incredible amount of pain, and it's Sadira that has to snap Messiah out of her empathic trace. The scene ends with Messiah fleeing as a tearful Kasey says that there's no difference between her and Sadira. Messiah saw a LOT of things in her empathic probe, including a lot of similarities between Theus' training of Jillian and his training of Kasey, which only makes her feel even more guilty, since it's her fault for letting him get away. Messiah leaves, but not before telling Sadira to let Kasey go. When Sadira goes to free Kasey, she's already escaped... and Kasey then ambushes Sadira, leading to an intense boss fight in which Sadira ends up being forced to kill her. After a couple more missions, Sadira comes clean to Messiah about killing Kasey, which sends Messiah into a furious rage, triggering her empathic trance again, which Sadira only manages to snap Messiah out of by telling her that she loves her. This stuns both of them: Sadira thought she was fully incapable of love and has never in her entire life told anyone she loved them, and Messiah can't believe Sadira would tell her this now... but it doesn't change anything, it just makes Messiah even more upset, shouting "HOW DARE YOU TELL ME THAT AFTER YOU KILLED MY BEST FRIEND!" and pointing a gun at Sadira but being unable to fire before leaving to go take down the rest of Opalescence. Sadira decides that in order to prove that she cares about Messiah, she'll take down Opalescence on her own, leading her to engage in a series of extremely brutal and reckless missions before ending up getting captured and tortured brutally. The player then engages in a series of missions with Messiah in which Messiah can feel Sadira's suffering but doesn't realize the source of it or whose suffering it is. Messiah makes her way to Theus, only for the captured Sadira to be revealed, and for Messiah, against every instinct in her body, to realize how much she still cares for Sadira. Messiah goes into yet another emphatic trance, giving Theus an opportunity to kill her, though Sadira is able to free herself and she saves Messiah by taking down several of Theus' men before collapsing. Messiah has to choose between letting Sadira die and letting Theus escape, but we don't see what she chooses until Sadira wakes up in bed, being cared for by Messiah, who has been nursing her back to health... while in the meantime, Opalescence has been furthering its plans. Sadira tries to get Messiah to confess that she loves her, but Messiah, who seems to have had all the empathy drained from her, says she doesn't care about anything anymore and that once she kills Theus and stops Opalescence, she just wants to get away from everyone and everything. Sadira begins taunting Messiah to try and get something out of her, but Messiah just continues to treat Sadira before leaving to go do what she has to do.
Sadira gets out of bed, but is still injured... and won't be able to get back to the city in time. Fortunately, some members of her gang (along with a few Opalescence people, including Naoko, who have switched sides), help her out, and she makes it back to the city. The casino owned by Opalescence is having a massive grand opening ceremony in which Theus and his operatives will carry out a number of assassinations and financial operations, cementing the organization's hold on power. While Messiah attacks from the front, Sadira and her crew plan an Ocean's Eleven-style heist operation to get inside and disrupt Opalescence. The first two segments to the mission are Sadira's infiltration and Messiah's frontal assault, which end in success for Sadira and failure for Messiah, who ends up getting captured. Fortunately, Sadira is able to find and rescue her before anything bad happens to her, though she does do a bit of playful taunting first. After a series of flashbacks and cutscenes, Messiah reveals that she's been trying to suppress her emotions to keep her power from going out of control, while Sadira reveals that it's not easy, since she's been doing it her entire life to try and forget all the messed up stuff she's had to do. Messiah starts to confess her love to Sadira, though Sadira stops her, telling her not to say anything until the mission's over. The two then team up to take down Opalescence, in a mission that culminates in the game's most campy sequence (in a mostly serious game, this is the one bit of classic camp), an insane casino shootout in which the two end up doing a sort of gun dance with each other, ending with a kiss as money falls out of the sky. The two then confront Theus, though first they have to battle his last two operatives: Sadira has to battle a woman from Opalescence who in a lot of ways is Messiah's counterpart: an operative fully devoted to her mission and believing she's doing good, but lacks Messiah's empathy to know what the right thing truly is. Meanwhile, Messiah has to battle one of Sadira's gang members who betrayed the two of them to Opalescence earlier in the game, and she scores a truly satisfying kill on him. After these two fights, which are essentially the game's final bosses, Sadira and Messiah are alone with Theus, who begs for his life. Sadira hesitates (as evil as Theus is, he's still a helpless old man in a wheelchair), but Messiah finishes him off without a second thought, fixing the mistake she made so very long ago. The two then exchange a quick little dialogue in which Sadira tries to get Messiah to say she loves her, only for Messiah to playfully avoid doing so. Sadira threatens to torture it out of her, which mostly just seems to turn Messiah on, much to Sadira's frustration. The two look out over the city, and wonder what they're going to do next. It's implied that Sadira still wants to be a mercenary and assassin, but doesn't want Messiah to leave her behind.... at which point we see a shot of the two of them driving away from the city in a car that has a "JUST MARRIED" banner on it, and dialogue reveals that the two got married at one of the city's drive-thru chapels before leaving. They continue to talk about their future, but it's quite clear that they're both going to keep doing what they do best, together despite their different approaches to violence, in love despite how messed up they both know their relationship is. It's an end for the series, but also a new beginning, changing the status quo for future games forever.
Blackheart: Lucky 7 is another very well reviewed game, enjoying as good as if not slightly better reviews than Blackheart 666. Released on August 30, 2016, the game receives a slew of controversy for its violent content and its portrayal of Sadira and Messiah's toxic relationship. Fans are a bit split on it as well ("her name is Sadira BLACKHEART, she shouldn't be falling in love with anyone, even Messiah"), though others love the game and are overjoyed that "Messira" finally got together. It's one of the year's best shooters, and considered one of the series' best mainline games overall, perhaps the best game in the series since Blackheart 4. It also works to hype fans up for the Metal Gear Black crossover game, though it still hasn't been revealed if this game's events will play into that game at all, or if future games will continue the relationship between the two or whether the games will be prequels that explore Sadira and Messiah before these events. The game launches alongside a webcomic that continues the story, showing the two of them killing bad guys together, so at the very least, there is more to the story in some official form. Blackheart: Lucky 7 is one of the most controversial games of the year, but also one of the more successful ones, proving that fans have always enjoyed the series for its controversy and 16 years later, they still do.