Deathbound (PC)

Deathbound is the first title from Trialforge Studio, a new souls like which has been 6 years in the making. Published by the folks at Tate Multimedia we give this spin on a tested formula a go. Hitting PC, PS5 and Xbox Series consoles, Deathbound is an action adventure with a unique spin. With an ever growing genre will it be able to stand up to the other goliaths? Let’s give it a shot

We find ourselves in a dystopian world, where a modern looking world with fantasy elements is in ruins. Obviously finding out whats going on but some interesting storytelling with our characters gives us a distinctive adventure where 6 people have to piece together an over arching narrative.

Deathbound’s story is told in a plethora of ways, we occasionally are treated to cutscenes, where bits and pieces of usually boss interaction is told, though most of what’s going on is told through our roster conversing with each other, and memories being unlocked. These memories are somewhat familiar to veterans of Fromsoft’s efforts, memory shards are often placed on maps for certain characters to use, this will unlock a shaded visual with some dialogue, almost similar to bloodstains on the floor in Dark Souls, but these are obviously not usually death animations but will give a piece of story away. We also get transported to a different realm where or characters are shown backstory giving us an opportunity to trial our new combatant, I like these giving us specific back story to each character.

In the game we find ourselves in control of a team of characters, as opposed to having one set character in most titles, Deathbound gives us access to a party of 4 at any time (Once unlocked). We are able to access 6 “essences” overall in our time in the game, with 4 of these being quick swapped at any one time. This gives a bit of freedom in how we play but not to the level of other games.
However the fact we can have 4 “essences” gives us some unique options. We have conflicts between the characters which is explained in the story. Where different characters can dislike each other or the opposite, this idea gives us some balancing we have to manage. Where each essence that can dislike an other, a debuff or unique buff can be added. Likewise for essences who like each other, additional buffs can be obtained. Giving us some interesting dynamics in how we play.

Each of these essences play slightly different, with the game starting with Therone, our generic knight archetype, a “typical” knight, with shield and sword, we quickly are introduced into our second and third essences, one being a quicker thief character with a dagger and crossbow alt, weapon, and finally the third we meet after getting to grips with the game is our mage. We move quickly through the roster where we start to piece together what’s going on and how and why our team don’t always see eye to eye.

As mentioned we have a variety of characters to play with, each of these have their own styles so you can find something to suit you, even if it’s not a build that you’ve specifically made yourself.
Combat is pretty typical with 2 main attack buttons, which act as a “light” and “heavy” attack, but 2 more attack buttons help mix things up a bit.

Enemies can be a bit of a struggle to deal with, where fast attack patterns can quickly tear down your life if you’re not savvy. One of my main issues with the combat was this, and I found enemies were almost able to keep me stun locked in certain situations due to timings, and I wasn’t able to either move due to a lack of stamina or a lack of being able to switch between characters whilst being under attack. I feel it’s more than likely a lack of skill on my behalf, but I think more practice would have seen me nail this.

With each character having varying builds we can have a charged mage attack or a crossbow, there are many possibilities and that’s always a positive. We have a sync meter added, something I’ve not seen in other games. The sync bar helps up link up between our 4 selectable characters, the more synch you build up through fighting enemies, or perfect dodges, this gives a level of complexity to the combat balancing between your favoured characters, keeping them alive and getting the best out of everyone.

Typically levelling up is a thing in souls, but with us not having one character to build, a skill tree is required. As well as having a typical +x to health, there are buffs to each character too, so if you wanted to have a primary character who’s the most stacked stats wise you can, but personally I find it more useful to keep everyone balanced. Being a skill tree things only unlock once other things are unlocked, and some of these will be hidden between certain characters branches so making sure you level one or both to unlock certain buffs is paramount to becoming to best you can.

Visually Deathbound has a strong look with some modern and futuristic mazes spliced with grimey underground areas. We’re transported through a spectrum of visually different areas, despite the game being another bleak souls like we’re treated to a good variety of environments. We also visit some dream-like areas, which visually reminded me to the death sequences in Prey 2006, where stone/natural formations of rocks and ground are interlinked with almost ghostly imagery, something I don’t recall seeing in a long time. It definitely makes Deathbound stand out at least from a visual stand point. Characters are all ok, though we have no variety apart from some downloadable skins for each, those who expect some fashion souls might be a bit disappointed. There’s some slight jank in animations but again stuff like this is usually overlooked in souls games,

The audio presentation is a bit more standard, where voice acting is very ok, but nothing outstanding. But for a game of this budget it’s more than adequate. It doesn’t sound phoned in and everyones puts in a shift. I will come back to the games writing further on. Combat sounds meaty though with every impacting having a good thud to it, movement and combats has all the bells and whistles you’d expect from an Action RPG. The soundtrack isn’t something I can comment hugely on, as it was a bit lacking, areas don’t have much music, where as resting and certain scenes have unique chimes but it’s nothing breathtaking.

Performance wise Deathbound holds up, with options of flat 30, 60 and 120 fps, my pc was able to handle 60 consistently on ultra, though the game visually isn’t hugely demanding areas are mostly quite tight, with some areas having bigger more intricate designs but again I had no real dips in performance here. Very very occasionally I’d have a small stutter but it wasn’t enough to detract from my enjoyment in the game. It’s worth noting some people have found some issues with performance in Deathbound with crashes and dips, but I personally only had a few drops in performance.

Generally there’s nothing that blows you away with Deathbound, it’s a solid foundation here, with some improvements that can be made for future titles. Expecting a AAA adventure from the devs first title is almost impossible but a good effort has been made here. I think Deathbound happily falls into the category where things like Thymesia and Last Hero of Nostalgaia live.

Deathbound has the markings of a good Action RPG, veterans of the genre will find something here which will tie them over till the next big title, I think there’s some interesting and fresh gameplay introductions here, but lacks the finesse of other genre efforts.