Some levels cannot be finished if the player uses a hover bomb at the wrong time. It is useful for killing enemies, but in some levels it must be used for blowing open doors or destroying power generators. Hover Bomb - When thrown, this bomb lights up and rolls along the ground and up walls until it reaches a target. An iron key opens any lock, but can only be used once. Iron Key - A key that deactivates laser fields that cannot be removed by destroying a generator. Bridge keys can be removed from these pedestals and reused elsewhere as well. Bridge Key - A gold key that activates a force field bridge at certain pedestals. As the game progresses, Androthi allies will help him upgrade the weapon, increasing its speed and power. During the game, Kyle uses a Pump Action Shotgun as his primary weapon. As the game progresses through these areas, Kyle becomes stronger and better armed, but so do the enemies. The Sega 32X version includes a fifth area, the snowy mountains, which is not found in the other versions of the game. The game has seventeen levels within four areas - the mines of Androth, the Karrellian forests/swamps, the Wasteland desert, and Shadow keep. Blackthorne can also fire blindly behind himself. Both Blackthorne and his enemies can press against walls to avoid incoming bullets.

Combat in Blackthorne takes the form of gunfights. The gameplay involves large platforming sequences, in which Kyle can run and climb around the environment, find keys and items and progress to the end of each maze like level. The game focuses around protagonist Kyle Vlaros who is known as the Blackthorne, out for revenge on Sarlac and his minions.

Because of GBA's lesser amount of buttons, some actions were set to combinations of buttons. The version for the Game Boy Advance was released in 2003, also with a brighter palette than original versions.

Blackthorne was released for the SNES and MS-DOS in 1994, and with enhanced graphics and a higher color palette for the Sega 32X in 1995 and for Mac OS in 1996. Blackthorne (Blackhawk in some European countries) is a computer and video game, a cinematic platformer, that was developed by Blizzard Entertainment.

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