Cole MacGrath isn't exactly the guy you'd expect to see sprouting fangs. He’s usually too busy grinding on power lines or deciding whether to save New Marais or burn it to the ground. But back in 2011, Sucker Punch Productions decided to get weird. Really weird. They took their gritty superhero sequel and smashed it headfirst into a gothic horror movie. The result was inFamous: Festival of Blood, a standalone expansion that basically proved DLC doesn't have to be a boring map pack or a handful of new skins.
It was a risk. Vampires were everywhere in 2011—Twilight was still a thing, and The Vampire Diaries was peaking. Sucker Punch could have played it safe. Instead, they leaned into the campy, bloody aesthetic of 1970s hammer horror.
What Actually Happens in Festival of Blood?
The framing device is honestly one of the best parts. It’s not "canon" in the traditional sense. The whole game is a tall tale being told by Zeke Dunbar, Cole’s best friend and notorious exaggerator, to a woman in a bar. Zeke is trying to impress her, so he weaves this yarn about Pyre Night—a fictional New Marais holiday that’s basically Mardi Gras meets a blood sacrifice.
Because it's Zeke telling the story, everything is dialed up to eleven.
The plot kicks off when Cole gets bitten by Bloody Mary. No, not the mirror ghost. This is a centuries-old vampire queen who was pinned underground by a holy cross. Once her blood touches Cole, he’s transformed. He doesn't just get fangs; he gets a ticking clock. He has until sunrise to kill Mary, or he’s her slave forever.
It’s a simple premise. But it changed the gameplay loops in ways the main games never did.
Moving Like a Monster
In the base game, Cole moves by parkour or static thrusters. It’s tactile and rhythmic. In inFamous: Festival of Blood, that goes out the window in favor of "Shadow Swarm."
Basically, Cole turns into a cloud of bats.
You can fly. Like, actually fly. It consumes "vampire vision" juice, which you replenish by biting NPCs. It’s dark. It’s a bit messed up, honestly. You’re playing as a hero who is actively predating on the citizens he usually protects. This creates a frantic energy. You aren't just looking for a recharge at a transformer; you’re hunting.
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The sense of verticality changed overnight. New Marais, with its French Quarter architecture and swampy outskirts, became a playground for a predator rather than a climbing gym for a conduit.
The Stakes (Literally)
Combat had to shift. Lightning bolts are cool, but they don't exactly kill the undead. Sucker Punch introduced the Shadow Stake. It’s a makeshift weapon that Cole uses to finish off vampires once they’re downed.
- You can't just spam bolts from a rooftop.
- Vampires teleport.
- They swarm you from the air.
- You have to get close to get the kill.
This forced players who had spent dozens of hours in inFamous 2 playing like a sniper to suddenly play like a brawler. It breathed life into an engine that some people thought was getting stale.
Why Everyone Forgets the UGC
One of the most ambitious things about the inFamous era was the User Generated Content (UGC) suite. It was Sucker Punch's attempt to do what LittleBigPlanet did but for open-world action. inFamous: Festival of Blood actually doubled down on this.
They added a "comic book" style cutscene creator.
Suddenly, players weren't just making "kill 50 guys" missions. They were trying to write their own episodes of Zeke’s tall tales. You’d find missions where Cole was fighting giant invisible monsters or navigating platforming gauntlets made of floating coffins. Most of it was janky. Kinda broken, too. But the 2D storyboard tool allowed for a level of narrative creativity we rarely see in console games even today.
The Atmosphere of New Marais
New Marais was always a moody city. It’s a love letter to New Orleans, full of grime and history. But for the "Festival of Blood," the art team turned the saturation down and the red levels up.
The sky is a permanent, bruised purple. There are literal rivers of blood. The catacombs beneath the city—which were mostly just tunnels in the main game—became sprawling, gothic tombs.
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It felt like a different world.
It’s a masterclass in asset reuse. They didn't build a new city. They just "vamped" the one they had. By changing the lighting, adding fog, and scattering pyres across the streets, they made a familiar map feel claustrophobic and dangerous again. You weren't the apex predator anymore. You were the prey.
The Weird Legacy of 2011
Looking back, 2011 was a strange year for "Spooky DLC." We had Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare just a year prior. Gaming was in this phase where developers weren't afraid to take their serious protagonists and throw them into B-movie plots.
inFamous: Festival of Blood was the peak of that trend.
It didn't need you to have finished inFamous 2. It didn't care about your choices. It was just a tight, three-hour blast of electricity and gore. It was also one of the fastest-selling digital games on the PlayStation Network at the time. It proved that people wanted "side stories" that weren't bogged down by the weight of a 40-hour epic.
Common Misconceptions
A lot of people think you need to play the first two games to get this. You don't.
Zeke explains the basics of who Cole is in the first two minutes. It’s actually a great entry point for people who found the morality system of the main games a bit too binary. Here, the morality is replaced by a hunger meter. It’s simpler, sure, but it fits the "tall tale" vibe.
Another weird myth? That this was a PlayStation Move exclusive.
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While it did support the Move controller (and was actually one of the better uses of the tech), it played perfectly fine on a standard DualShock 3. In fact, most players preferred the controller because flicking a wand to stake a vampire got exhausting after twenty minutes.
Why We Won't See This Again
Sucker Punch moved on to Ghost of Tsushima. SONY moved on to prestige, cinematic dramas. The "weird DLC" era is mostly dead, replaced by live-service seasons and battle passes.
That’s why inFamous: Festival of Blood feels like a relic. It was a time when a studio could say, "What if our hero was a vampire for a night?" and just do it. No microtransactions. No "To Be Continued." Just a solid, spooky experience.
If you still have a PS3 hooked up, or a decent streaming connection for PS Plus, it’s worth the afternoon it takes to beat it. It reminds you that games used to be allowed to be "kinda dumb" in the best way possible.
How to Experience Festival of Blood Today
If you’re looking to dive back into New Marais, there are a few things you should know about the current state of the game:
1. The Streaming Factor
The game is currently available on the PlayStation Plus Premium tier via streaming. Since it’s a PS3 title, you can't natively download it to a PS4 or PS5. If your internet is spotty, the "Shadow Swarm" flight can feel a bit laggy because of the input latency. Hardwire your console if you can.
2. Finding the Easter Eggs
Sucker Punch hid a lot of references to Sly Cooper (their previous franchise) in the environment. Look at the graffiti in the catacombs. There’s a specific "Thievius集" symbol hidden near the final boss arena that most people missed during their first run.
3. Mastering the Flight
Don't just hold the flight button. Tap it. You can extend your "Shadow Swarm" travel distance by about 30% if you pulse the bats rather than burning the meter in one go. This is essential for the "Street Race" side missions that populate the map.
4. The UGC Shutdown
Be aware that while the main story is fully playable, many of the online User Generated Content features have become unstable as SONY maintains the older servers. If you see a mission marker that won't load, it’s likely a server-side issue with a legacy map. Stick to the story missions for the smoothest experience.