Dave Oshry, CEO of New Blood Interactive, has made two things crystal clear: Doom is a permanent resident on his hard drive, and Fallout 76 has quietly consumed 488 hours of his life hunting cryptids.
Oshry, the man behind the indie publisher responsible for games like Dusk and Ultrakill, shared the kind of gaming confessions that feel instantly relatable. Doom stays installed, no exceptions. Fallout 76 has become a cryptid-hunting obsession. These are not the takes of someone who games casually.
Why Doom never leaves the drive
Here's the thing about Doom: it's not just a game people keep installed out of nostalgia. For a CEO who built his entire studio's identity around fast, brutal, old-school shooters, Doom is essentially a foundational text. New Blood Interactive has published some of the most celebrated retro-inspired FPS games of the past decade, and that lineage traces directly back to id Software's 1993 original.
Oshry's declaration that he will never uninstall Doom reads less like a quirky personal fact and more like a statement of professional faith. The game sits on his PC the way a musician might keep a specific guitar on the wall: functional, symbolic, and non-negotiable.
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Doom originally launched in 1993 and remains one of the most modded games in PC gaming history, with an active community still releasing new content.
488 hours of cryptid hunting in Appalachia
The Fallout 76 number is the one that catches you off guard. 488 hours is not a casual dip into a game you tried once. That's a committed relationship with Bethesda's multiplayer survival RPG, and Oshry's framing of it as "the best cryptid hunting game" is genuinely the most compelling pitch for Fallout 76 you'll hear from anyone in the industry.
What most players miss about Fallout 76 is how much of its identity is built around West Virginia folklore. The Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster, the Grafton Monster, Sheepsquatch: the game leans hard into regional cryptid mythology in a way no other major RPG has bothered to do. Oshry clearly found that specific hook and never let go.
488 hours is a number that puts him well past the point of ironic appreciation. That's genuine investment.
The New Blood connection
The key here is that Oshry's gaming tastes are not separate from his professional output. New Blood Interactive has built its catalog around a very specific philosophy: games that feel like they were made by people who actually love games. Dusk is a love letter to Quake and Doom. Ultrakill is what happens when someone obsesses over movement shooters for years and then makes one.
Knowing that the person steering that ship keeps Doom permanently installed and has spent nearly 500 hours in a game specifically because of its cryptid content tells you something about how New Blood approaches its work. The enthusiasm is not performed.
What 488 hours actually looks like
For context, 488 hours in a single game puts Oshry in a category most players never reach. Here's a rough breakdown of what that kind of time investment represents:
- At 2 hours per day, that's nearly 9 months of consistent play
- At 4 hours per day, it's still over 4 months
- Fallout 76's main story takes roughly 30-40 hours to complete, meaning Oshry has gone far beyond the critical path
The cryptid hunting angle makes sense when you consider Fallout 76's seasonal events. The Mothman Equinox and Beast of Beckley events are time-limited, which means dedicated players return repeatedly. Oshry has clearly been returning for a long time.
An honest take from someone who builds these things
There's something refreshing about a studio head being this candid about what he actually plays. The gaming industry has no shortage of executives who talk about games in abstract terms. Oshry is out here with 488 logged hours and a Doom installation he refuses to touch.
For anyone curious about the kinds of games New Blood publishes, browsing our latest gaming news gives a good sense of the retro-shooter space the studio occupies. The connection between what Oshry plays and what New Blood makes is about as direct as it gets.
Fallout 76 has had a complicated history since its troubled launch, but its current state, particularly around its cryptid events and Appalachian folklore content, has clearly built a dedicated audience. Oshry is apparently one of its most committed members. If you want a second opinion on whether the game is worth revisiting, checking out our recent reviews might settle the question faster than logging 488 hours to find out yourself.
