Deathbound Review – Multiple Personality Soulslike

Deathbound is a new addition to the ever growing Soulslike genre, developed by Trailforge Studios and published by Tate Multimedia. It was released on 8th August, 2024.

Knights, Magic, Post Apocalyptic City Setting? What?

Deathbound starts with Theron, a Death Knight (they are devout to Lady Death, who will one take them in her sweet embrace), as they storm a futuristic city which seems to have gone through a post apocalyptic event a long time ago.

Theron is searching for cultists who follow the Essencemancers, which are mages who have a penchant for body mutilation and experimentation. As you progress through the story, you are fed lore through character backstories and conversations between the characters.

This is nice and all, but I would’ve loved a small 5 minute opening backstory run through to set the scene because you are kind of dumped into the game with nothing to say what’s happened or why you are assaulting a cult.

One for All, All for One!

This could have been just another carbon copy Soulslike, but Deathbound has a very unique gameplay addition. There is not just one playable character, but several. As you progress you find Essences, which are essentially souls of fallen warriors. After absorbing them within you and can swap between these spirits at will.

Each of these spirits have their own strengths, weaknesses, fighting style and all are fully voiced and interact with each other, and are not always friendly. Some characters have violent backstories, so be prepared to watch them clash with themselves.

Swapping characters does cause an animation where you are vulnerable to attack. Still, you do have a sync meter which is essentially a special attack meter. Once it is full you can execute a morph strike where you attack with one character and morph to another to deliver a powerful strike.

You can select up to 4 characters at each point, each assigned to the four directions on the directional pad. All characters have their own health pools which is helpful in tougher battles. The only downside is each character has very sluggish movement speed and some enemies are very nimble and quick which lead to a few infuriating fights.

Parrying and ripostes are present, some characters have ranged attacks, others have magic abilities. There is a lot of variety to be fair. Bonfires are replaced with a device called a Phylactery where you can use essence to level up, upgrade items and bind in other characters to play.

Let’s Not Forget the Setting

Right off the bat I got big Darksiders 1 vibes with fantasy/medieval characters in a modern post apocalyptic setting. Nature has begun taking back the world as vines, trees and grass are growing back over the buildings, cars, and everything else left behind from the previous inhabitants.

Nothing is said as to what happened to them or why civilisation started over it seems. There are signs all over with an unknown language, buildings look like old apartments, hospitals, car parks with cars, ambulances, vending machines and more strewn about. There is a lot of detail there to glance at just from the background alone.

Performance Problems

There were a few performance hiccups, as well as some bugs that I encountered in Deathbound, especially when playing on a PS5. In one such instance, I was in one of the game’s mid-bosses, but beating it caused the game to freeze, forcing a restart.

Another time, I felt a really nasty input lag and the screen alignment was off to the left. Even though I tried to fix it in the menu, I couldn’t fully make it go away. Yep…another restart.

Lastly, there was a bug with one of the game’s checkpoints, the Phylacteries. Even after I got near one, it would not activate, even with a restart, which forced me to stressfully be without said checkpoint for a good while, which in soulslikes, is something that is vital.

A Game of Multiple Facets

Deathbound is a game that certainly features multiple unique playable characters, and attempts to set an intruiguing and engaging story with its setting. Still, the lack of backstory to set the scene…and not to mention the game bugs that have not been fixed yet are definitely detriments to the experience, and I sincerely hope that the developers patch all of these issues out. Otherwise, it’s an okay soulslike, with an interesting premise.