Blacksad: Under the Skin is set in New York City during the 1950s, and takes place chronologically between Blacksad: Arctic Nation and Red Soul. Its story begins when protagonist John Blacksad is approached by Sonia Dunn, daughter of a boxing club owner who has died suspiciously. She asks Blacksad to investigate the situation and locate the club's star fighter, who has been missing since her father's death. According to Pendulo Studios, the game contains 30 unique characters and five previously from the Blacksad comic series: John Blacksad, John Pierman, Jake Ostiombe, Weekly and the police chief. The game contains six possible endings.
Development
Blacksad: Under the Skin was developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios, the country's longest-running game developer by 2019. It had previously been responsible for games such as the Runaway and Hollywood Monsters franchises. YS Interactive initially assisted the team on Blacksad. According to Pendulo, the idea of adapting the Blacksad comic series into a game was first proposed by Pendulo's publisher Microïds, directly after the two companies had completed Yesterday Origins in November 2016. Microïds was owned by the same media conglomerate as Blacksad publisher Dargaud. Although Pendulo had never worked with a license before, the developer's Josué Monchán noted that the team had "been Blacksad fans for a long time" and agreed to the idea immediately. The team then storyboarded a pitch and submitted it to Dargaud and Blacksad's authors, who approved it. The project was unexpectedly announced in June 2017 and was initially scheduled for a late 2018 release. Giada Zavarise of Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote of the announcement, "In the world of games, the news was received with a shrug. But in the comics scene, people were screaming incoherently." Gameblog's Vincent Elmer-Haerrig called the plan a "gamble" for Pendulo, as Under the Skin is aimed at "a fringe of players who are both comic-philes and video game lovers."
Reception
Pre-release
During 2018, MeriStation placed Blacksad: Under the Skin among the year's "10 most promising" adventure games, while La Vanguardia and VidaExtra listed the game's debut trailer as one of the best to appear at Gamescom 2018. The following year, HobbyConsolas declared Under the Skin one of 2019's "most anticipated Spanish video games", and IGN España highlighted the game as one of the top graphic adventures scheduled for 2019. The editors of 3DJuegos similarly named it their 44th-most-anticipated title of 2019 across all genres and platforms, and one of their 20 most anticipated indie games of the year. According to Laura Cress of Adventure Gamers, Blacksad's display at Gamescom 2019 was "a popular draw at the annual Adventure-Treff party". The game netted a "Best Action Adventure Game" prize in the annual Gamescom Awards; The Hollywood Reporter cited it as one of the few non-sequels to win an award that year, alongside Sony's Concrete Genie and Dreams.
Reviews
Luke Kemp of PC Gamer docked Blacksad: Under the Skin points for being "unaware of its absurdity", arguing that its combination of animal characters with realistic and sexual imagery undermined the game's serious tone. He wrote, "The two obvious options with this game were to either play everything for laughs, or double down on the noir aspect ... Pendulo Studios appears to have chosen the latter, but it doesn't quite work." In Vandal, Jorge Cano offered strong praise to Under the Skin's story, which he found "very interesting ... from beginning to end, and quite well written". He also enjoyed the game's use of decision points and the deduction system. Cano criticized its technical problems, quick-time events, control system, visuals and high system requirements, but nevertheless said that "the charismatic universe on which it is based and its narrative virtues manage to sustain Under the Skin, despite all the problems it has."
Reviewing the game for 3DJuegos, Alejandro Pascual found Under the Skin overly slow-paced and, before its planned patch, rife with bugs. While he praised its storytelling, atmosphere and faithful adaptation of the Blacksad comics, he found its quick-time events flawed and the game in general unpolished. The reviewer for Jeuxvideo.com similarly lauded the game's story, writing and faithfulness to the Blacksad comics, and added praise for its music and puzzles. However, she lambasted its "amazing palette of technical flaws and bugs" and found fault with its reliance on backtracking and the "illusion of choice". GameStar's Elena Schulz continued the praise for Under the Skin's story, which she called "definitely the game's highlight". Echoing the other reviewers, her primary complaints were with its controls, quick-time events, graphics and technical issues. She summarized, "Blacksad has technical and gameplay weaknesses, but delivers a gripping adventure story full of interesting characters."
In a more positive review, Maja Verfondem of 4Players wrote, "Blacksad is—after the installation of the Day One patch—my adventure highlight of 2019, which makes you want to read the comics again." Her primary criticisms related to the quick-time events, and to "minor graphics bugs and performance issues that even the Day One patch was unable to completely eliminate".
The game was nominated for "Best Spanish Development" and "Best Spanish Performance" with Gabriel Jiménez at the 2019 Titanium Awards.
