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Hellboy Web of Wyrd - TV Tropes

  • ️Tue Mar 21 2023

Hellboy Web of Wyrd (Video Game)

Hellboy Web of Wyrd is a horror-themed Roguelike Action-Adventure game based upon the Hellboy comics by Mike Mignola. It was developed by Upstream Arcade (West of Dead), published by Good Shepherd Entertainment, and features Lance Reddick in a posthumous role as Hellboy himself.

In an original story conceived in cooperation with Mignola, the game sees Hellboy investigating The Butterfly House - a mysterious estate with a supernatural legacy - after BPRD agent Mike "Lucky" Roberts goes missing within its confines.

The game was released on PC and consoles on October 18, 2023.

Hellboy Web of Wyrd contains examples of the following tropes:

  • All There in the Manual: Collecting lore unlocks more journal sections that color the mythologies of the enemies that Hellboy faces.
  • Anti-Escapism Aesop: Scheherazade's greatest wish is to die seeing a real sunset one last time due to being exhausted from all the symbolic yet ultimately ephemeral grandeur that can be found in the Wyrd.
  • Apocalyptic Log: Both Pasquale Deneveaux's diary entries and his exploratory notes from the same sketch out a soon-to-be inescapable descent into the decaying Wyrd.
  • Argentina Is Nazi Land: The Butterfly House and the entrances to the Wyrd are located in Argentina. So is a remnant faction of the Sonnenrad Society.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: The Dagger charm has Hellboy do a quick close-range strike with it that slices off a small chunk of enemy health while ignoring its toughness.
  • Big Bad: Herman Rudolf von Werner.
  • Call-Forward: A few.
    • One of the major ones has Mads eager to introduce Kate Corrigan to Hellboy for some beers after the mission is over.
    • The Boars and Bristle Boars resemble the pig demons that Gruagach will try to use (and come to resemble) against Hellboy in the future.
  • Cel Shading: The game has a cel-shaded art style that is faithful to the comics.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Hellboy's ability to bring back artifacts and people shown early in the story is crucial to both Werner's scheme and his undoing.
  • Comeback Mechanic: The Retribution Fist special attack, which can be accessed if Hellboy either takes enough hits and/or parries enough enemy light attacks.
  • Death Is Cheap: Getting all his health depleted will knock Hellboy unconscious, and cause his tether to break. This will send him back to the Butterfly House, away from whatever had him at its mercy, but he'll have to do the level all over again from the start. He notes that it works both ways, for however many times he beats down the Wyrd Demesne Champions, they're ready to go another round whenever he intrudes upon their realms.
  • Degraded Boss: The Faithless King's move set is copied wholesale by the Heavy Knight enemy that shows up in subsequent runs of the Craco, Italy level. Likewise, Tsar Vodyanik's tunneling attack goes to a new elite enemy in his stage after his initial defeat.
  • Disc-One Nuke: The pistol will rip through the first stage due to how it can stun most enemies in two hits. In later levels where they actually have toughness, Hellboy will have to erode those first so that the pistol shots can affect their unprotected stun bars again.
  • Experienced Protagonist: Hellboy is in his late 30s with a few decades of BPRD fieldwork already under his belt. Warm and savvy at the game's onset, he's less angsty than he was as a teen, and not as grouchy as he will be come Seed of Destruction.
  • Falling Damage: With a twist. Hellboy is immune to this. His enemies aren't. So knocking them off a ledge will take off respectable chunks of their toughness or health, perhaps even opening them up to being stunned.
  • Fantastic Racism: Tatler, an African-American woman in the 20th Century, admits to Hellboy that part of her dislike of him is rooted in how he looks and where he came from. Rather than call out the hypocrisy, as he can see how uncomfortable and ashamed Tatler is at both admitting to and having such a prejudice, Hellboy says that he understands her fears and doesn't begrudge her for them.
  • Feet of Clay: At the start of the story, Mads is interested in being a BPRD field agent for the excitement of supernatural adventure. Upon realizing how absolutely terrified they were when the base is attacked by Martinez, a single radicalized human woman armed with nothing but regular firearms and explosives, they begin to reconsider with the implication that they might cut ties with the BPRD entirely.
  • Freudian Excuse: Tatler, Hellboy's coordinator for this mission, is implied to be such a hard-ass due to how a burning ghost snuck up on her during her days as a Vietnam War medical officer. While it didn't harm her, it showed Tatler how the supernatural not only exists, but could practically jump you if you weren't paying enough attention.
  • The Gods Must Be Lazy: When they realized that Scheherazade could do their jobs for them, the Norns marooned the storyteller in the Wyrd to do just that. Presently, they each have their own reasons for not doing much to halt the realm's corruption (Urdr is a brat who doesn't want to, Verdandi is bitter about it presently happening, and old Skuld just assumes that it'll all work out) outside of giving Hellboy boons. The man himself isn't a fan of any of their excuses.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • Thanks to a programming oversight, the Grenade Launcher and the Dagger Charm will not unlock even after you clear the third level unless you buy both the Shotgun and the Shield Charm first (and even then, you'll still have to reload the game).
    • Hellboy's Retribution Fist heals him for a bar of health if he uses it to defeat an enemy. This is not mentioned in the Journal.
  • Hair-Raising Hare: One enemy type in the game is a large rabbit-like creature that's about the size of a werewolf. They have very low health, but they dodge a lot, and their dander is poisonous.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight:
    • After beating Erebus, Hellboy is ambushed by a squad of Sonnenrad Society elites. They have no health bars, and they do a lot of damage. It's impossible to overcome them.
    • When you fill Werner's stun bar during Hellboy's first fight with him, he'll gloat about how it's too late to stop him before breaking Hellboy's tether to strand him in the Wyrd.
  • In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: The trailer specifically gives the title of the game as Mike Mignola's Hellboy Web of Wyrd.
  • Kansas City Shuffle: Like Hellboy, Werner is functionally unkillable in the Wyrd, so the BPRD drag their battle into the real world and use Scheherazade's skull to create an illusion so he wouldn't notice and fight their attempt to do so.
  • Lemony Narrator: Each of the lore note sections are colored heavily by the characters who wrote them. Altman's bestiary segments stand out as having bizarre tangents into metaphor and anecdote that almost make them useless for discerning how to defeat a troublesome enemy.
  • Marathon Level: The final phase of the game involves running a gauntlet of all four Corrupted layers in one run, culminating in a battle with Werner.
  • Meet the New Boss: Scheherazade, through either execution or egress, manages to escape King Shahryar only to be stuck telling stories for the benefit of the Norns, and eventually the Nazis. Fed up at being thrice coerced for their talents, they request that Hellboy take their mortal remains out of the Wyrd, knowing that doing so will result in their true death.
  • Mook: Named such by Altman in his notes with some stylistic differences depending on the level. They're mostly there to either erode or restore Hellboy's toughness if they either manage to hit him or if he smashes them to smithereens.
  • Not So Stoic: The Wyrd is, well, weird and frustrating enough to get a rise out of Hellboy. The earliest instance of which is when Odiana makes it known that she intends to rip out his eyes.
  • Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Hellboy gets one in the reveal trailer, right before it segues to gameplay:

    Unseen Voice: Who are you?
    Hellboy: Me? I'm mad. (Goes to town on a wolf creature.)

  • Remember the New Guy?: Hellboy's supporting cast consist of allies and consultants from the very early 1980s, who conspicuously don't show up in his other escapades during the time period (The Vampire of Prague, The Secret of Chesbro House, etc). Some perish during the events of the story or decide to quit working with the BPRD by the end.
  • "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: A twofold example in a story with actual supernatural elements. Hellboy hears a tremendous, bestial roar the first time he enters the Wyrd, hinting that some horrific monster is behind all the spikes, and that the coordinates to the Butterfly House were sent by Deneveaux in hopes someone could stop it. Then Martinez presents evidence that Pasquale was a less than laudable man who might be behind the corruption of the Wyrd. It transpires that the dead but largely human Sonnenrad Society is behind both the spikes and the coordinates, gambling that Hellboy (who was essential to their plan) would be sent to investigate if they made enough noise.
  • Taking You with Me: Sonnenrad Society grunts will self-destruct in an attempt to hurt Hellboy if he either defeats them or the last major enemy in the room they're in.
  • The '80s: Set during this decade of Hellboy's adventures. Notably, the Falklands War is happening while he explores the Wyrd.
  • Those Two Guys: Benson and Mads, BPRD folklore experts.
  • Tunnel King: Tsar Vodyanik's specialty.