BLACKWOOD is the story of Anton Blackwood, a man who runs a small DVD shop in Brooklyn, 2012 by day and works as a contract killer by night. The shop is not background dressing: it is the clean half of his life and the clean half of his income, and the game is built around the pressure of keeping both halves running at once.
Everything on this page that describes the story is quoted from the developer's and publisher's own material — the Steam store description, the Steam announcements, and the official community FAQ. Act 1 was announced for September 16, 2026; the material behind this page was gathered on September 15, 2026, before that date, and nothing here has been checked against a finished, playable build.
Who is Anton Blackwood?
The developer's own one-line description of the character, from the official Inside BLACKWOOD: Character Art, Mocap, Gameplay announcement, is this:
"Set in Brooklyn, 2012, you play as Anton Blackwood, a quiet DVD store owner by day, and a contract killer drawn into the city's criminal underworld by night."
The Steam store description says the same thing at more length, and adds what the story is pulling against:
"By day, you are a seemingly ordinary store owner, managing your small DVD shop in an authentic recreation of New York, 2012. When night falls, you descend into the city's underworld as a contract killer, caught between survival, morality, and a past that refuses to stay buried."
That is the whole of the officially published character brief. Anton's age, how he came to take contracts, and what exactly the "past that refuses to stay buried" is have never been stated by the studio. The store page also confirms the story is his rather than an ensemble's: "Anton's story takes place over the course of three Acts."
When and where is it set?
Brooklyn, in 2012. Not the present day — that detail is easy to skim past and it shapes everything from the DVD shop premise onwards, since a rental business is a 2012 business. The Steam store page uses the wider term, "an authentic recreation of New York, 2012"; the official announcement is the more precise of the two and names the borough, so Brooklyn is the wording we use and New York is the larger area it sits in.
It is not an open-world game — the developer has said so directly — and what that means for how you actually move through the city is the subject of Is BLACKWOOD an Open World Game? rather than this page.
No official map, district list or area breakdown has been published, and the public material does not describe the city at a neighbourhood or street level at all — the borough and the year are as specific as the setting gets on the record.
How does the DVD store connect to the killing?
Through money, and the developer is explicit about the mechanism. The shop earns one kind of currency and the contracts earn another:
"Your DVD store earns clean money… Contracts pay dirty money, giving you access to everything that happens underground."
The two are connected by a daily conversion that the announcement describes in Anton's own terms — a portion of the night's earnings becomes spendable, legitimate income each day, "showing how Anton launders money to keep his life running". "Launders money" is the studio's word, not ours. How much converts, on what basis, and what each currency actually buys are covered on Clean Cash & Dirty Cash.
You do not run the shop alone. The announcement introduces an assistant by name — "Amelie acts as your assistant, taking care of customers while you focus on other tasks" — and states that "building their relationship opens up new opportunities as the game progresses", without saying what those opportunities are. The day-to-day of running the place is on The DVD Store.
The pressure that ties the two lives together is the monthly deadline. At the end of each in-game month a payment comes due — bills and hush money — and the developer states plainly that failing to cover it "comes with consequences". That deadline is what makes the shop and the contract work two halves of one problem rather than two separate activities: the studio's own summary is that "planning ahead and managing your finances is not optional, it's survival". How much it comes to, when it lands and what happens if you miss it are on Monthly Bills & Hush Money.
How is the story structured?
Three acts, each sold as part of one purchase. The developer describes them as self-contained parts of a single story: "Each Act is a complete part of the overall story."
The published mission structure is:
- Act 1 — 4 main missions. Released as the first act; the announcement notes "Act 1 offers 6+ hours of gameplay" once side content is included. That is a floor the studio gave, not a measured total, and there is no published upper figure.
- Act 2 — 4 main missions. Officially placed at around March 2027.
- Act 3 — 5 main missions. Officially placed at around September 2027.
Those counts "refer to the main story missions only", and the developer adds that each act "also includes multiple side missions and additional content". The reason Act 3 carries one extra main mission is stated officially — it "includes an alternate ending" — and that statement is about Act 3 specifically. Nothing has been published about branching in Act 1, so this is not a "multiple endings" game as far as the public record goes.
Act 2 and Act 3 arrive as free updates for existing owners, which is a pricing matter covered on Price & What You Get. The dates above are the studio's own approximations and have not been reconfirmed since September 15, 2026.
How is the story told?
The developer's own genre label, from the official Steam community FAQ, is "a story-driven, cinematic action game with a strong emphasis on atmosphere, narrative, and immersive gameplay mechanics". The store description frames the same thing as "a gritty third-person action thriller that blends smooth, responsive combat with cinematic storytelling".
Environmental detail is part of the pitch rather than an afterthought:
"BLACKWOOD introduces a cast of flawed, human characters navigating a violent city full of secrets. Every ad, tattoo, and poster tells a story. Every mission pulls you deeper into a web of conspiracies and consequences."
The performances behind that were captured rather than animated by hand. From the official announcement:
"we worked with real stunt performers who have experience in film and action choreography. Every takedown and movement seen in the game was performed by an actual stunt actor, with no exaggerated or fabricated animations."
What story threads has the footage hinted at?
Everything in this section comes from a single third-party source, and it is weaker evidence than anything above.
The only long-form pre-launch gameplay footage is BLACKWOOD Gameplay Walkthrough Part-1, a roughly 61-minute, no-commentary video from the third-party channel NextGenWalkthrough. It is not official and was not produced by the developer or publisher. The lines below come from that video's automatic captions, which transcribe speech only — so every proper name here is a transcription guess whose spelling the developer has never confirmed. None of it is official setting material.
With that caveat attached to each of them, the captions point at four threads:
- A stolen USB drive, taken from a company the automatic captions render as "Lighthouse" and describe as "the company that owns the lantern". Company name unconfirmed, spelling from captions only.
- Pursuers working for a figure the captions render as "Silus" — the same captions also produce "Silas". Both the name and the spelling are unconfirmed, and we are not treating this as an established character until the developer says it.
- Eight years spent at somewhere the captions render as "St. Raphael's" ("8 years. I didn't know it was that long"). What kind of institution that is, the captions never say, and no official source mentions it at all. unconfirmed
- A line of Anton's about the double life: "I can't tell which life is the act." Quoted from the same automatic captions, so even the wording is a transcription. unconfirmed
These are threads, not a plot summary. The story outline in the sections above is built entirely on official statements; nothing in this section is load-bearing, and any of it can turn out to be a mishearing.
Is this the John Wick game?
No — BLACKWOOD is AttritoM7 Productions' own game, and as of September 15, 2026 there is no public information tying it to the John Wick licence; the officially licensed John Wick game is a separate project from a different studio. Where the comparison comes from and how the two differ is covered on Is BLACKWOOD a John Wick Game?.
What the published material does not answer yet
- How the story ends. Apart from the one official line placing an alternate ending in Act 3, nothing about how the story resolves has ever been published — no ending descriptions, no branch conditions, nothing about where Act 1 leaves off.
- Who Silus, Lighthouse and St. Raphael's actually are. One third-party caption track is the only source that has ever named them, and it is unofficial.
- A step-by-step account of the opening. No official mission names or objective text exist, and the only long-form gameplay footage available carries no interface text at all, so step-level routing cannot be derived from what has been published.
- Whether Act 1's story branches at all. Never addressed publicly.
- Anything that needs a finished build. Everything here is pre-launch material gathered on September 15, 2026.
These get filled in once the developer publishes more, or once the released game can be checked directly.