Game Title: DeathBound
Platform: PS5
Release Date: 8th August 2024
Developer: Trialforge Studios
Review copy supplied by publisher

What’s Deathbound about?

DeathBound is another soulslike type game like previous titles before it. Examples of these would be Elden Ring or the original Demon Souls or Dark Souls that emphasize on high difficulty gameplay with a particular type of combat which relies on timing, skill and use of stamina and timed attacks, specially against bosses. DeathBound mixes up Religion and Science to a degree where you seem like a knight from the crusades but fighting in the future against space creatures and more. While other soulslike type games focus on a single character mostly for their story, DeathBound instead uses a party type system where you’re able to switch between characters on the fly and even use different attacks and specials belonging to these multiple characters.

These characters “memories” can be collected during the story mode and once you have seen the memory and played out it’s story you can then switch to this character instantly when available and use their weapon set and special attacks or power ups specific to them. You can also switch to other characters mid attack and perform switch specific attacks dealing more damage.

While you do get to switch between 3 other characters in DeathBound, the game quickly makes you think about attacks and whether you have enough stamina to attack a foe. I found myself being a natural button basher that found this strategy would just not work for me. I naturally am terrible at soulslike games and die a lot and this can be seen at my initial 3 hour gameplay video below available on our Youtube channel. While you fight with your multiple characters, you charge up a sync meter which you share with all the other characters (essences) so you really need to plan your attacks, specially in the boss fights or you will find your perishing quickly as they are just brutal and unforgiving.

What’s the movement and controls like?

While the controls are pretty basic in DeathBound i did find myself sometimes finding them to be unresponsive at times and just not doing what i wanted them to do and found myself sometimes getting into trouble being stuck behind objects or stairways, specially with areas with bigger foes that you can’t walk through and get trapped because you cant both fit and since you have no ability to jump. You have the basic light and heavy attacks which work fine and can depend on strengths your current character or essence can deliver and i did find myself perishing for not swapping to a better character at the required time.

You have the usual dodge and parry which you will need to use a lot like most soulslike titles and a well timed dodge could be the difference of death or success, which i sorely found out I’m pretty proficient at dying in DeathBound. I did find myself dying falling into open water that caught me by surprise at times and you die instantly. Soulslike fans may be more accustomed to the control system in DeathBound and perform better. The camera angle got me into trouble at times also but this was mostly down to my awful dodging skills 😂

How does the game look graphically?

Deathbound takes place in a world called Ziêminal in the city of Akratya. While been mostly a linear experience, the world is dark, beautiful, destitute, war torn and more. The various levels are well detailed and lit up well were needed. The creature design is not too bad but maybe not as many as i would have thought on screen at any given time. The various bosses are well detailed and can look horrifying or just plain weird but the models are decent and can show many graphical feats from lighting to cloth movements to special attack animations that look great.

DeathBound does look great and the developers have made good use of the Unreal Engine 4 and we could see a upgrade to the 5th installment of the engine in the future since it’s touted to have a good flow upgrade for projects built using 4. The lighting is good on magical effects in-game and it does make use of a lot of breakable objects in the game too but perhaps the team could have added some reward tied to the destruction of these artifacts, such as drops or sync meter boosts etc. which leads me to the next regard.

Progression

As you progress through the story in Deathbound, you can earn XP by doing various tasks and defeating enemies and bosses which you can then use to buy various items that can assist with health of your character or boost other things like damage or offensive capabilities. These items can only be bought at specialist sleep areas were your character can rest and purchase the items.

The item prices can vary depending on the strength and use the item describes and some can be pretty expensive so you’re definitely going to need to check what you buy. There is also another element that you must take into consideration also and that is off the characters you must accompany you may not like each other so during the game you must toggle how close they may be to each other so they’re not unhappy and complain a lot. So keeping a good balance is key to success also with the characters.

You also level up at the rest spots that let you buy upgrades by either using XP (Experience points) points or MP (Memory points) points that can increase or decrease your stamins, health, melee or defence by varying percentages, similar to your run of the mill skill tree. The biggest power ups or upgrades come from using MP points which is similar to skill points in other games and only become available at specific stages throughout the story.

Conclusion

DeathBound is a good game in it’s own right and a worthy addition to the many soulslike games out there and the team at Trialforge have done a great job on it but i do feel like the game was somewhat rushed out and could have done with more work on the controls and the story and may have fallen into the premise that the soulslike combat was the only thing to focus on. I think the game while not bad looking in Unreal 4 could have also benefited with the jump to unreal 5 and benefited greatly by it’s increased fidelity and world tools. I also think the artifacts on screen should be tweaked to better show what can be broken, traversed or interacted with. Lets hope the studio keep working on the game and i look forward to seeing what comes of DeathBound.