Chris InglisDeathbound is a party-based souls-like action RPG developed by Trialforge Studio and publisher Tate Multimedia and launched on August 8 on PC and consoles. I played a demo previously that put us straight into the action and experiencing the absorption of essences that unlocks other classes to your party. I enjoyed that aspect the most, but the demo just had a taste of the essence utilisation which is now one of the game’s best features by switching essences mid-battle.
The game features a post-apocalyptic sci-fi world mixed with fantasy elements, which is a refreshing change from the typical dark caverns and massive castles of many recent souls-like games. As you explore the world of Deathbound, you will come across various essences, each located in different parts of the game world. Finding and unlocking these essences provides characters for your party with unique abilities and playstyles to switch between as well as talents to invest XP into.
Each essence in Deathbound comes with its own backstory and lore, which adds depth to the game’s narrative. Exploring and finding these essences helps you piece together the story of the world and its inhabitants. These essences have synergies or conflicts with each other, affecting how you approach exploration. Some areas might be easier to navigate with certain combinations of essences, while others might present challenges if your essences have conflicting abilities.
We start the game as Therone Guillauman who is a sword and board knight in heavy armour, and we next unlock Anna Lepus who is an assassin with a dagger and crossbow. In the demo I stuck mostly with Therone as I love sword/board characters, and I felt the extra armour would help me against the bigger hulking mobs. Where I found the most versatility in the gameplay compared to playing the demo was being able to switch essences on the fly during combat. This allows you to adapt to different combat situations by selecting the most suitable essence for the task at hand.
In this full release version of Deathbound, it is advantageous to switch essences mid-fight as you get damage and hit bonuses if timed perfectly. I would engage with Therone, blocking and dodging hits while whittling the mob’s health down to around 50%. Your stamina limits how much you can do these actions so you cannot just swing and dodge constantly, you need to be strategic. Once the sync meter has filled up, I switch to a character like Anna and this performs a move that takes down a quarter of the mob’s health, if not kills a lesser mob. You can also gain sync by switching mid-dodge as well. It makes combat a lot more versatile and livelier.
You can have four essences active in your party but if you deplete the health fully of just one of the party members, you will die and respawn at the last save point you activated. As such, you need to keep an eye on the health of your essences and switch if one is getting too low. There are health pots and other beneficial items to collect in the environment and using a health potion will spread hitpoints across all active essences in the party. There are also grenades and other items to help you across your journey.
Collecting XP from enemies allows you to level up at save locations. You progress essences along a shared skill tree, which includes nodes that affect individual characters as well as boosts that benefit all characters together. The game features a talent system that rewards exploration and interaction with the game’s world. Unlocking talent points through character interactions adds personalization to your characters, making progression more engaging.
Overall, Deathbound is a versatile and engaging party-based souls-like action RPG with a captivating story and strategic combat with essence switching. The game’s progression system is well-designed, rewarding players with experience points and talent points for exploring the world and interacting with its inhabitants. If you are looking for a slight alteration to gameplay compared to a number of big souls games on the market, Deathbound is worth a play through.
This review utilised a key provided by and Deathbound is available now on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation.
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Johnny