Deathbound Review: A Frustratingly Held Back, Ambitious Character-Swapping Soulslike (2024)

The indie soulslike is always a risky venture. Often, it's down to budgetary constraints and not a developer's lack of ability, and Trialforge Studio’s debut Deathbound is an ambitious and artful swing that doesn’t whiff the pitch. Publisher Tate Multimedia has already shipped a few energetically offbeat genre attempts, many of which similarly miss the mark of greatness. In Deathbound, some clever variations on soulslike themes and a dark narrative are ultimately held back by inelegant mechanical details, but it remains a fun game for those with the patience for its flubs.

One of Deathbound’s soulslike quirks is an absence of modifiable armor and weaponry, instead offering variety through its avatar “essences,” a set of characters to unlock which players can switch between at will. There’s a standard sword-and-board knight to start with, but there’s also a rogue, a poison wizard, and others to find, then build out into a team of four to contend with each level’s dangers.

Deathbound

3.0

Pros

• Combat's peaks can reach excellent gameplay
• Atmosphere and setting are standouts of the genre

Cons

• Needs way more time in the oven to correct mechanical issues
• Lacks the depth and challenge that makes Soulslikes resonate

The multi-character concept isn’t the game’s only twist, with other unique hooks peppered throughout Deathbound’s substantial runtime. Finding them all will be dependent on a player’s patience with its crudest edges, including some occasionally stiff and buggy combat, a weird healing mechanic in lieu of standard estus flasks, and other odds and ends to decipher along the way.

Dark, Sharp, and Poorly Lit

Deathbound's Visual Identity Mixes Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi With Fantasy

Visually, Deathbound presents a few bland textures and junk-strewn invisible walls, but its detailed integration of environments unique to soulslikes catches the eye. There’s a modern post-apocalyptic style evident in its dilapidated office structures and city streets, and it’s refreshing to play a game like this outside of dark caverns or massive castles (and additional kudos for avoiding any Blighttown stand-in entirely).

The world of the game is also less connective and interlaced than Dark Souls, giving Deathbound a flow more consistent with standardized level-to-level styled play. Basic fast travel isn’t unlocked until deep into the game, with its main purpose to search previous areas for missed artifacts and rings, the only equippable gear types to be found.

It’s somewhat easy to miss an essence – I seemingly failed to discover one of the seven total unlockable characters, hard as I tried – but they provide more than just differentiated combat; each character has their own conspicuous position in the Deathbound story. Discovering their corpses unlocks them for use, leading to an interactive narrative level that helps introduce their abilities and backstory, a smart design which proves much more interesting than a passive cutscene.

Characters like to chat and bicker among themselves, and there are even rare occasions where swapping to one can engage an NPC or prompt a unique interaction. Their personalities are measurably different; one is a cruel foulmouthed torturer, another a noble warrior with a debilitating injury, and so on.

Responsive and Weighty Combat

Deathbound's Action Leverages Its Sense of Velocity And Character-Swapping Gameplay

Combat in Deathbound tends to resolve quickly, with a poise system, some elemental effects, and weighty swings that leave players and enemies open to quick counters. It’s a faster soulslike on the whole, but most enemies are weakened by their meager movesets, eventually rendered to harmless pests after several hours into the story.

Upgrading applies stat buffs to all characters, but all of these are minimal and confusing. A 1% increase to defense or melee is barely felt, and the web-styled upgrade path doesn’t ever make sense in practice. There’s a low ceiling for upgrades as well; once we attained level 90+, there was nothing to do with the extra XP, and a complete lack of merchants makes Deathbound’s commendable new game+ mode something of a non-starter.

All that being said, Deathbound's basic combat is fun, meaty, and responsive. Weapon feedback is excellent, and stringing together characters to make best use of dwindling stamina reserves feels dynamic and cool. A “sync meter” lets players instantly swap during a dash, and it can also be spent on one heavy-hitter attack using the selected essence. This stuff hasn’t been seen in soulslikes before, and an affinity system provides extra bonuses based on party configuration and character alignment.

Simple Bossfights and Basic AI

Eventually, Deathbound's Simplicity Gets The Better Of It

Deathbound’s bosses are less successful, unfortunately, and will mostly present as low-level challenges for soulslike vets. With the exception of a horde boss which required some trial and error, the game’s purported toughest fights feature only a handful of different attacks to learn. An early game boss transforms several times during the fight, but we only encountered this mechanic one other time during our playthrough, and new game+ doesn’t upgrade these fights in any tangible way.

Enemies first come off as intimidating threats, but their simplicity is their greatest weakness, aside from some occasional glitches. Poise-breaking stuns them for just a brief moment, so this mechanic is barely effective, even though most will casually interrupt player attacks with a nudge. Bleed effects are taken straight out of Elden Ring and are just as broken here, turning most fights into quick dalliances with Iulia’s spear weapon.

There are shortcuts to unlock, but these only create faster passage to phylacteries, the game’s version of a bonfire/point of grace. Since the levels are only connected at one juncture, shortcuts are much less vital, but still function to hasten a boss run. A handful of key items unlock a couple of roadblocks, and rings and artifacts add slight modifiers here and there, but exploration rarely feels appropriately rewarded.

Final Thoughts & Review Score

3/5 Solid, Or Good, By Screen Rant's Review Metric

Playing through Deathbound makes it easy to spot all the smart ideas amid anything hampered by its budget. A menacing threat similar to Resident Evil's Nemesis shows up in a few areas for a fun scare, but the game never really knows what to do with him, and he’s summarily dispatched later on with a shrug. Combining characters is a fantastic idea that helps spice up the action, but the lackluster upgrade system prevents players from devising their own unique builds.

In true soulslike fashion, Deathbound’s narrative is a ropey epistolary patchwork, but it’s tantalizingly dark and dour, full of post-apocalyptic religious sermonizing and violent imagery. It’s designed to be mostly skippable for anyone less than invested, but there’s clearly been much work put into the game's worldbuilding, along with a decent payoff for seeing it all through.

Releasing an appropriate amount of time after Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC was the right move, as Deathbound can't really go toe-to-toe with the greats. Still, anyone with a tolerance for jank and an interest in the game’s new ideas should come away satisfied, even while recognizing that this pluckiness only takes it so far. Deathbound is an indie soulslike through and through, a scrappy moonshot with some interesting tweaks on the genre, and a satisfying depth of lore to boot. Its flaws hold it back, but that shouldn’t distract from its enjoyable character-switching combat and overall gumption.

Deathbound

Soulslike

Action RPG

Systems

Platform(s)

PC , PlayStation 5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

August 8, 2024

Developer(s)

Trialforge Studio

Publisher(s)

Tate Multimedia

Engine

Unreal Engine 4

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ Due to Violence, Blood, Strong Language

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