Blood Bowl 3

I've held off on commenting until I've got a few games under my belt so that I can give a fair description, here goes:
Pros
- A really good implementation of the 2020 tabletop rules set
- Looks pretty

Cons
- Remember when you bought a game and you got the whole game? Yeah, not any more, you have to buy most of the teams separately with in-game transactions... I hate that.
- The screen in game is simply far too busy, they've given everything so much texture and detail that it's hard to see what's actually going on.

Neutral
- The game is completely geared towards online multiplayer, which I really like because AI in single player games is always terrible. BB2 AI was a joke, and I'm not a programmer but I reckon building an AI opponent to actually be competitive has gotta be hard.
- The controls are clunky as hell to learn, but once you get used to it, it's fine, you just need to remember to choose what type of activation you want to do before you activate a player.

Overall, it's not perfect, but it does need more players and is actually pretty good, so I will recommend.

This game has really made progress and is now an accurate representation of the tabletop game.

I stayed away from this game for a while after the awful launch but man coming back this game is finally really good. I am thoroughly enjoying the current ladder. If you went away (understandably), this game is well worth another shot

A very fun game, if you can handle bugs, lack of support, and microtransactions. I've seen kickoffs freeze and re-kick, resulting in an additional roll for KO'd players, injuries freeze and not result in actual injuries, and as I write this the service is completely down. It has been out for years and is unfinished. The full game, which does not give you all the teams, is not a $50 game, maybe $25.

Good substitut to the tabletop version but lacks the teams

No eternal league as of yet still so you HAVE to play against people even if you don't want to. The rng system is copy paste of BB2, so if you're like me and can't get a good roll to save your soul my boy yor are S-C-R-E-W-E-D. So don't make my mistake and buy this game. Stick with BB2 much better odds of getting a good roll, my rng is still abysmal in that game so... Gameplay is copy paste as well so I'll skip that. Team customization, that is to me hard to compare because it's more but also less. 2 you can change the heads between a couple dozen options depending on your team make up and the uniform patterns were a about the same number. 3 you only really change the armor pieces and paint patterns, so in 2 your players looked different from each other though the options were limited.

Now the biggest grip besides only pvp, the blood pass. They skirt steam and have in game currency and the blood pass, which is horrible. Picture this you unlock a few levels of the pass only to figure out you can't use any of the unlocks until you complete the pass by either spending $50 or so on in game currency to shave off levels to get to the end, or you slog through the pvp only modes and chip away at it slowly. New teams, you have to unlock new teams via the blood pass when they are added same as the other cosmetics. Nope, can't just buy them seperately you have to finish out the BP to unlock a brand new team. Old teams you can buy with the in-game store after their newness period has worn out. It's greed at it's very finest. Don't buy this game.

I can not recommend this game even though I otherwise mostly enjoy it. I have had two game freezes happen where my bank time expires. Pressing end turn will not end my turn and the bank time runs out. Unplayable.

Two years and counting, created 8 custom teams (offline) and can't do a single thing with them. Have no interest in PVP, which requires a separate account. There's a reason BB2 never goes on sale.

Great game just a shame you have to keep on purchasing in game which is something I will not do.

BB1 was - meh. BB2 is great fun, I expected more from BB3. Better graphics - but they've fouled up on the game side of things. Not fun to play. A case where "moving forward" has taken the gameplay back a step. Cannot recommend.

Geeky, time-consuming fun.

I was there in the late 80s feeling the impact of Blood Bowl and the whole Games Workshop / Warhammer empire.

The combination of Tolkien fantasy characters, american hand-football and goofily twisted darkness of the Warhammer Fantasy universe combine for a potent coctail of VIBES you are not gonna get elsewhere.

While the game is on the surface level very static and "chess-like" (albeit with a HUGE random element), in the imaginations of the players it's very wild, chaotic and humorous.

Blood Bowl is directly translated from a board game, so it is fully turn based. It works very well, even though BB3 has been notorious for many bugs that now have been squashed. Timer keeps the games around 90 minutes long if there is no overtime.

The ruleset is relatively simple, but the amount of different skills that exist in the game can be a minor headache when just starting out. Learning things the hard way is the natural way tho, and it will often take a few games as opposed to a few dozen games.

I have played BB the boardgame around 1988-1993, so I had a bit easier learning curve now in 2025 than someone who has never touched the boardgame.

I have played a few ladder matches, but clearly the most fun is to be had in custom leagues like the one where I play right now. We are a group of 6 middle aged nerds who have all played BB the boardgame in the past. We have a Discord channel where we voice chat during the game. After the games we write lenghty match reports to the server. Those are both fun to read and fun to write.

One of the best parts of BB is developing your team. I feel like this aspect never fully took off when I played the board game. Playing online is faster and more convenient than IRL (1,5-2 hours in your own house vs physical setup, traveling, chitchat -> 4 hours), so it is easier to advance the league, gain experience and level up your team members.

Highly recommended for anyone looking for a daftly humorous new hobby!

Blood Bowl takes patience and strategy to play well. Like the seasons and weekly challenges.

Once you get the hang of the controls it's not bad. I've read some disheartening reviews but this game is amazing. And similar to the table top game. Looking forward to all of the teams coming out.

After 2 years away it is worth playing however the match ui is not as good as bb2

I was skeptical about this game going in because of all the bad press, but it’s great fun. The UI/UX has a bit of a learning curve, as does the game itself, but with a few matches under my belt I started having a great time. I’ve seen complaints about the AI, but it seems fine to me and there’s a big patch coming soon to improve it.

Apart from the game itself, the Blood Bowl “vibes” are dead on and extremely entertaining.

Monetization is whatever. Buy the game when it’s on sale and then spend a little more if you want one of the expansion teams.

It's just not a good game. Not even the videogame... Just blood bowl in general. Playing well means absolutely nothing. You can play perfect and lose to a chimp. If that's what you want then go ahead.

Sure BB3 had a rocky release, but at this point the game has come a LONG way and I haven't encountered any bugs in well over a year now. It's better than its predecessors in every way, except the AI for solo play is the only real weak spot and that is being worked on. I'm sure that will improve having seen the major improvements with every season. The graphics are great and there are some really nice touches with the animations. The gameplay is smooth and it's just an all-around blast and well worth getting.

I'm also physically disabled and I play games entirely with voice control. I was able to play BB1 but because of the interface of BB2 I couldn't play that one. When BB3 was in development I made some suggestions to the developers so that BB3 would work with dictation. I can do everything by voice, the only thing that is somewhat difficult is using the wheel to select things like Stab. I figured out how to do it with a mouse controlling program, but it would have been awesome if there were keyboard shortcuts to make things like that easier. Hopefully that is something that can get worked on.

My only issue that I have is with the time limit. Since I do everything by voice it takes me a little bit longer so I would have preferred keeping the BB1 clocks or at least extending the extra time from 7.5 minutes to 10 minutes. An additional 2.5 minutes is not asking for much, especially when the Internet can also cause lag. Otherwise keep up the great work Cyanide & Co! :-)

Really fun but too many micro transactions.

game has improved drastically since launch, arena mode finally makes it playable

I got this game hoping that it would be an improvement from Blood Bowl 2, but it seems to not only be missing features from Blood Bowl 2, it also appears to have been made in a haphazard fashion, with more microtransactions baked into the gameplay. Things like simply being able to see your team when you open the roster have been removed, so the player customisations are less meaningful, and the special rules for different special fields don't even seem to work. Eternal League is in development, but I don't have high hopes. Unless you have regulars that you play with, maybe people who used to play the tabletop, I'm not sure it's something I would invest in.

The initial bugs and ui issues are gone. I recommend to give a trz.

The game is improving with every season. The development team has been doing a lot to provide multiple game experiences for various audiences (arena, ladder, AI improvements...). I played almost 2000 hours, this is the game I play the most and I will keep playing it.

Yes, with caveats.

The dev is still plugging away at BB3, presumably supported by their in-game currency and season pass model. Those things are... not great, but they give you something to work towards if you buy in.

The current content (barebones "campaign" consisting of 5 3-game tournaments, which repeat the same teams every time you replay them, and 1 training session) for single players is mostly to practice and experiment with different teams. An "Endless League" mode is moving through beta now which promises good things for single players, however, and why I decided to buy in now.

Blood Bowl at its core is a good, funm punishing football-themed board game. If that sounds good to you, pick up a complete version of BB1 or BB2. If you're excited to get into multiplayer ladders, grind through season passes, and aren't put off by slow but steady development (Endless mode was promised with launch and is just now nearing release), or if you want to get some practice in against the middling AI right now and bet the new single player mode will be good, get BB3.

Wow... what a true let down - CYANIDE NEVER LISTEN and always pump out sub par un tested games that require the community to QA them. So many bugs in the tutorial which doesn't let you complete it without reloading. Online career mode is just buggy and disconnects every few minutes.

Timer doesnt pause during annimations leaving you loosing a load of time on a tight 2 min timer. Its bad, somehow worse than BB1 which launched in a dreadful state.

Despite buying everything for BB1 & BB2 its all behind a grind paywall in BB3... Cyanide do not care.

Like it looks pretty

This game is a con.
They have moved the DLC teams into their live service section.
Meaning if you buy them you cant use them offline firstly, and secondly when the server shuts down you will lose ALL of the content you paid for.
Its a fucking joke and im tired of these games and these developers doing this.

Started off rocky back on release. The game is by no means perfect, however i do think its a good game. It is not fully complete as of 3.16.25. Following the discord there seems to be a good plan laid out, The updates are frequent and welcomed. They are also getting the community involved more in the game with doing special events. So in the end some great special events coming with one currently active in beta. The game i think is in a good state. Dont buy cosmetics but be prepared to buy teams you want.

The best place to play the new rule set online.

Not a fan of the micro transactions.
But where else will you get your blood bowl fix?
Bb2 is fun, but it's a stale, solved meta.
This is still relevant to table top blood bowl.

As a new player who bought to help with learning the tabletop game I think this is amazing! The AI was very slow a week ago but seems to of been fixed for me after this last season dropped! A few seconds to think and then the computer seems to take all it's turn with no delay. Actually owning a rule book and playing the PC game solo and casually online with friends have helped me understand the game far quicker. The customisation in the shop are definitely pricey... But the starting teams are great and I think the price of buying the additional teams is fair compared to the minis. It's a niche game. They gotta make money and they can be won by grinding which I like!.. An amazing game.. violent sports chess with dice! Easy enough to learn but a long road to mastery!

Aced the campaigns then bravely lost 5-0 on my 1st online match :)
I'm sure I will be playing for years.

much better now than on launch. The best way to play BB online, although still not perfect.

its ok i like it . some factions are with aditional price games takes about 1;30

Positives -

The game runs well for Blood Bowl, the graphics are good, and its got multiplayer/single player.

Negatives -

Far less content than BB2 (less teams) and all teams must be unlocked through grinding or purchase.
All player customisations are found through grinding or purchasing through in-game currency.
Less interesting data. In BB2, I could look at tournament stats and see who the best player was, who the most violent was, who scored the most. It was fun to see which players did well in tournaments and leagues. That is now removed.

My review of Blood Bowl 3: Where the Only Thing Getting Blitzed is Your Wallet.

Audio: An Awkward Silence

One of the most glaring issues with Blood Bowl 3 is the audio. The game fails to deliver any meaningful impact during some of the most intense moments. When a player hits another or crashes to the ground, there’s an utter lack of sound. It’s as if the game forgot to add basic sound effects for these key actions. Instead, we’re left with grunts and a haunting silence during critical moments, which completely kills the intensity of the gameplay. It’s an odd and disappointing oversight that makes the game feel lifeless.

User Interface: A Confusing, Clunky Mess

The UI in Blood Bowl 3 is nothing short of awful. Once you finally get a game going, the interface is confusing and clutteredThe layout feels unpolished and unintuitive, and while there’s an attempt at streamlining the process, the overall experience is frustrating. It’s a far cry from the sleek, more user-friendly options we’ve come to expect in modern games.

Customization: A Step Forward… But Behind a Paywall

While the customization options in Blood Bowl 3 are a welcome improvement over Blood Bowl 2, the excitement of personalizing your team is quickly dampened by the game’s monetization practices. Almost everything is locked behind a paywall or the “Blood Pass”—a time-limited battle pass that forces you to grind or fork out real money if you want access to cosmetics, other custom features. This “Blood Pass” system feels like a blatant cash grab, and it significantly undermines the player experience.

Factions: Locked Behind a Paywall

At launch, Blood Bowl 3 offers 12 factions, including the Black Orcs, Imperial Nobility, Chaos Chosen, Dark Elves, and more. However, the rest of the factions are locked behind in-game currency that can only be obtained through microtransactions. What's worse, each locked faction has three tiers of "cosmetics" that require additional payment. This feels like a blatant attempt to force players to spend more money to unlock content that should be available from the get-go. It’s a disappointing trend that feels more like a money grab than a game feature.

AI: Dumb and Slow

The AI in Blood Bowl 3 is practically braindead. In solo play, the AI is slow and unresponsive, making matches drag on far longer than they should. The turns take an agonizing amount of time, and you’re often left waiting for the computer to make basic, predictable moves. This lack of challenge or urgency makes the gameplay feel dull and tiresome.

Final Thoughts: A Missed Opportunity

Blood Bowl 3 had the potential to be a great update to the series, but it fails to deliver in nearly every aspect. The lack of sound effects, confusing UI, frustrating monetization, and underwhelming AI all contribute to a game that feels unfinished and disappointing. and more of a cash grab then an actual fun experience

Its good :)
I think there's enough varirty in the teams now to keep me entertained. Base is 12 I think + new teams you can collect through playing or purchase.
And a number of ways too play.
I've always managed to play enough games (25 - 30) in each season (90 days) to get new teams.
You can use the in game currency to buy the previous "new teams" - they come down in price over time and always deals to look out for.
The develops are still working on patches and mixing things up with different modes.

TL/DR:
If you're a seasoned Blood Bowl player or an eager newcomer determined to start playing, and alternatives like FUMBBL aren’t an option, then Blood Bowl 3 might be your only choice. For everyone else, I can’t recommend it.

A Nightmare for New Players
While Blood Bowl has always had a steep learning curve, Blood Bowl 3 does little to ease new players into its mechanics. The tutorial and campaign mode exist, but they fail to properly explain the rules in a way that prepares newcomers for real matches. Given the complexity of the game, a well-designed tutorial is crucial—but BB3 stumbles here.

AI Plays Like a Goblin on Mushrooms
While not the game's biggest flaw, the AI is a major weak point. Instead of following logical strategies, it often makes reckless moves, prioritizing risky actions, failing to set up proper blocks, and even acting randomly. In some cases, the AI gets stuck entirely, not doing anything before it runs out of time. This means that new players can’t rely on AI matches to learn the basics, making the solo experience borderline useless.

A UI That Fumbles the Basics
In my opinion, one of the biggest issues with Blood Bowl 3 is its clunky and unintuitive UI, which sometimes makes even basic interactions frustrating. Simple actions, like selecting or setting values, feel tedious and unnecessarily complicated. Worse, the poor UI design makes the game error-prone, leading to misclicks, accidental moves, and other frustrating mistakes that can directly impact the outcome of a match.

Better Graphics, Worse Clarity
On a positive note, the graphics have improved a lot, the models are detailed and well made, especially when zoomed in. However, in actual gameplay, it’s often difficult to distinguish players and positions. Some streamers have even made guides on which customizations to buy just to make the game more playable—which brings us to the next issue…

Microtransactions
Blood Bowl 3 leans heavily into microtransactions, pushing players to spend money on customization options. While cosmetics don’t affect gameplay directly, the customization system is far more restrictive than in Blood Bowl 2—without purchasing additional cosmetics, your ability to customize players is extremely limited.

Missing Teams and Incomplete Rules
While BB 3 follows the BB2020 rules, it’s still missing several teams, and some rules are not fully implemented, leaving the game feeling incomplete. A new team is added approximately every three months, but players must either purchase these teams or play enough matches in the current season to unlock them. For new players, this means you'll have to buy teams added in previous seasons if they want access to the full team roster.

Bugs That Shouldn’t Exist
Even beyond the AI issues, game-breaking bugs are still present. Balls can disappear, players’ status (standing or prone) or positions can be unclear, and a range of other glitches make the game feel unreliable. While patches have addressed some of these issues, they still appear, though less frequently, and can occasionally cost you the game.

Recycled Sound and Commentary
While this isn't the most problematic issue in the game, the commentary and some sound designs are recycled from the previous game. Worse, some of the commentary references outdated rules and terms, further highlighting the lack of polish of the game.

Conclusion
Blood Bowl 3 has come a long way since it's launch, with updates addressing some of its major flaws and introducing new improvements, game modes, etc. However, it remains a frustrating, unfinished experience, weighed down by an unintuitive UI, aggressive microtransactions, and frustrating bugs. That said, Blood Bowl is, in my opinion, a great game with a decent and passionate community, and it's kind of a shame that the digital version is struggling to reach its full potential.

As everyone else has been saying. It's been out for 2 years and the following still exist:

1. AI will literally just time out not doing anything. Like, you'll have a full 10min turn of just sitting there while it does nothing.

2. During that, I've had the game crash on 2-3 occasions

3. Input delay is just horrific. You can lose anything from 10-20 seconds in just waiting for the game to register your click and that's assuming it even detects it. Sometimes you'll sit there that long and realise the click never even registered.

Input delay seems to be related to lag in talking to the game servers from what I've read, but when you're playing in the campaign mode or a friendly match vs AI, why is this even a thing. Why is my machine not handling all the decisions for it?

Even worse, the turn timer continues to tick down during those delays so in effect, you actually get far less game time during a match (I want to say maybe a quarter of the time shown is actually spent doing things?). Coupled with the input delay and AI just doing nothing you can spend the better part of an hour to 90mins just sitting there staring at your screen.


Underneath all that there looks like there could be a fun game there, but as it stands, not even when it's on sale is it worth this trouble. Particularly when it's been out so long

Final version as crashed 5 times and I can't even complete the tutorial.

This... Is bad. let me take what people keep saying, and explain.

1:Bad UI: Trying to set up formation outside of game is hair pullingly frustrating. No button key to tell you what does what. Clicking on things over and over but it doesn't click the thing, or doesn't show. In the game, double clicking SOMETIMES works to input an action, other times you have to push space.

Bad AI: I turned the game off when the AI literally took 0 actions during it's turn. I sat there for 10 mins until al it's time was up. Add into it. The AI takes longer to make moves then your average player who is looking at their phone between actions.

Bad Microtransations: You can't even buy the teams outside of the game. IE: not on steam. You HAVE to buy theyre bs currency in game to buy stuff.

Dissapointing sequal: Same fucking voiceovers from the same 2 people. But the sound quality is worse then in BB2. I mean it. SAME EXACT LINES... But now you will struggle to hear them repeat the same jokes you've been hearing for 8 years.

I'll be getting a refund.

It's good, I'm having a good time with it. The main menu UI is a bit clunky to navigate, but the game itself plays well.

Released in 2023 barely functional, is now playable but incomplete in 2025. Bloodbowl 2020 tabletop fans buy this on a discount.

This game is amazing! I've loved blood bowl for years, both digital and physical, and this is the first digital version makes you feel like you can model your own players.
Continuing support has been great with a slew of improvements being made based on community feedback.
Most original teams are in now and they are adding the newer teams as well.
I have always been more of a private league coach (which has great admin support now), but I love the new arena mode and have heard good things about the upcoming eternal league.

Why can't you fix the server connection issues? Where do you run these servers to be this shit? Underwater?

Blood Bowl 1 & 2 are superior...
The micro transaction business model, trickle feed of team releases, poor UI (designed for consoles), and extremely bad AI make this largely unplayable.
If you enjoy playing one off games in the ladder format or wish join a third party league then perhaps Blood Bowl 3 could be okay. However, there is still no excuse for the lack of a full complement of teams over 2 years after release...
There is a chance a new version of the tabletop could be released before all of the teams are available for PURCHASE in this video game.
But hey, the graphics and animations are great!

Great alternative to the table top. Nice for learning the skills. I've enjoyed it.

Has better graphics than Blood Bowl 2 +10 pts

Has worse EVERYTHING ELSE than Blood Bowl 2 -20 pts

Has some of the shittiest, most half-baked, myopic monetization and UI I've ever seen. Worse than most of the garbage trash Activision and EA put out. -900 pts

Put the Ork cheerleaders behind a paywall -900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 pts

ONLY buy this game if you have a dedicated group of friends to play it with regularly, and even then yall should just play BB2 instead.

Ill definetely reccomend playing blood bowl 3 with all the issue cause of the love i have for this game Cyanide is listening to the player a lot

theyve finally fixed it! and its real good!

lots of depth but doesnt take itself too seriously

This abomination of a game is a horrible downgrade from BB2 and it should NOT have been released to the public. DO NOT BUY!!!

If you enjoy games that make you rage quit. Then you will love the shit out of this one. When you think dice cant possible roll any worse but they defy the odds like winning the lottery. And player after player just drops dead. The game only cost so much. But you will be spending a lot more on replacing all your keyboard and patching up drywall.

6 hours in, 3 games played. They take forever, stay away!!! Get Blood Bowl II instead, i enjoyed it more. I will be uninstalling this one and getting my fix with BBII...

A very good Turn Based Strategy game with dice.