Deathbound is set in a grim sci-fi future where religious zealots and science geeks are locked in a mysterious, verbose conflict. In this harrowing dystopia, many doors only open from one side, and ankle-high objects can obstruct passages. The art style is an interesting mix of fantasy, sci-fi, and neon-lit noir elements that remind me of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, and while it’s undeniably a soulslike, it breaks the genre’s tradition of stoic stillness – this is a very talkative game, with a labyrinthine narrative that doesn’t shy away from spectral flashbacks.
A new soulslike needs to have a twist, and Deathbound has its party system. This doesn’t mean you’ll be wandering around the neon-lit ruins of Akratya City with three friends in tow: it means you can switch between a total of four characters on the fly (there are more than four characters, but you have to select four to equip). As I made my way through Akratya’s mostly linear but sometimes loosely interconnected zones, I occasionally found new party members, like Anna, a loudmouth assassin, or Haodai, an unfailingly sincere “master of essence” (a mage, basically). There’s the super-serious spear-wielding Iulia, a heavy battle-axe-wielding misanthrope named Agharos, and, most unusually, a monk, Mamdile, who specializes in the Afro-Brazilian martial arts style Capoeira. Rounding out this group is the former Lord Therone, a sword-and-shield guy, and another character I’ve yet to unlock.
Each character has their own playstyle, and they're satisfyingly distinct. My favorite is Mamdile, whose melee combat is facilitated by a generous parry window and flexible maneuverability. I typically found myself in areas as the versatile Anna, whose quick dagger stabs are complemented by ranged bolt throws, though Haodai was a serviceable sniper, albeit at the mercy of a heat meter that ensures that throwing magic missiles and buffs will result in literal overheating (exploding, basically. Thankfully, not fatally).
I didn’t actually choose a main character. You’re not supposed to: Deathbound relies on situational changes, and it heavily incentivizes (or rather, demands) on-the-fly changes mid-combat. There’s a five-bar sync meter that fills with normal attacks and perfect dodges, and switching to another party member after a successful hit can expend one of these bars, triggering an immediate “morph strike” from the newcomer. When the sync meter is completely full, landing an ultra-successful morph strike can deliver a devastating blow that will usually take out most of the health of heavy soldiers. It’s the difference between a slow, boring war of attrition and a near-instant victory.
Instead of drinking Estus, the active party member heals the other three by dealing damage to them.
It’s a cool idea that evolves Nioh’s stance-switching system, but it’s difficult to execute reliably. I understand that Soulslike orthodoxy rules out canceling hastily activated moves, but performing a close-range sync is a risk not worth taking. If I fire off a few projectiles as the mage, then sync up with the spear wielder for a quick, bloody blow before performing a perfect dodge, and then sync up with the battle axe guy for a big hit from behind, each move needs to be played out in its entirety—without getting hit!—or else I’m going to get beat up—and that’s considering the brief moment it takes to actually perform a sync. That seems like a long time when you’re facing unpredictable enemies with fast attacks. It’s especially irritating when my sync meter is full and I perform a melee super attack, only for that attack to miss. Timing can feel tedious rather than satisfying and precise.
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Stamina management is also of utmost importance, as all characters have their stamina reduced based on their health pool. That means if you're low on health, you're also low on stamina. This is another incentive to constantly switch characters, especially since there's no effective healing item, save for one that increases the user's health and reduces everyone else's. Instead of consuming estus, the active party member heals the other three by dealing damage.
There is another layer of complexity related to the party members: some of them hate each other (and boy do they say it out loud!), while others have affinities. Party selection is done via a diagram showing the interaction of the selected loadout. If characters are connected by a blue line, they enjoy certain advantages, but red lines mean that some negative effect or disadvantage will be applied:
Look: I really admire the concept behind Deathbound, so it pains me to say that the execution is too flawed to warrant a recommendation. I never felt like the party sync worked as well as it should, which is exacerbated by the fact that, as usual, the combat has a stiff quality that many other Souls-like titles suffer from, from big budgets (Lords of the Fallen) to small team-based titles. It’s a lot to ask of a clearly talented indie studio to match the gameplay-feeling perfection of something like Nioh, but unfortunately this genre is so crowded that it’s all or nothing.
More outrageous is the level design, or more specifically, the placement of furniture. For a game that likes to throw barely visible snipers at me, there sure are a lot of annoying ambiguities about what I can and should walk through. I was already feeling pretty disenchanted when, upon entering a giant, ramshackle stadium, I was made to navigate aisles of seats toward enemies shooting at me. Ankle-high boxes (in one case a tiny speaker!) placed in the aisles are enough to prevent my hero from entering that aisle. These lapses in logic are easily forgiven in games if they don’t hinder us, but boy do they hinder us in Deathbound. If I’m not confusingly navigating a stupid maze like this while dodging near-invisible poison beams, I’m getting stuck on objects while an enemy is punching me in the face. Or, a long-armed monster is punching me. Through the walls Although I can't even hit an enemy near a piece of furniture without it obstructing my sword.
All of this results in a game that annoyed me despite my efforts to genuinely like it. There are tons of soulslikes out there, and they all have their own vignette twists. In Lords of the Fallen you switch worlds. In Lies of P you're Pinnochio, with stance changes. In Another Crab's Treasure you're a crab. I think Deathbound's “twist” is my favorite because of the way it removes the complexity of number-crunching in favor of on-the-fly party management. I'm not sure if its shortcomings can be fixed post-launch or not, but for now it's a perfect example of an awesome concept undermined by poor execution.
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