Preview: Blightbound (Steam Early Access)

by Jim Smale · August 10, 2020

Blightbound is a multiplayer dungeon crawler that tasks three heroes to venture down from their mountain refuge to face the abominations of the Blight – a mysterious and corrupting fog that enshrouds the land.

Pros:

Hand drawn cel-shaded style graphics.
3446mb Download size.
Partial controller support. (still need the mouse for certain menus)
ARPG dungeon crawler gameplay.
Opening tutorial levels.
Graphics-fullscreen, resolution, v-sync, multi-threading mode, anti-aliasing, reflections, sharpen, distortion effects, bloom, film grain, and depth of field blur.
3 heroes-Warrior/assassin/Mage.
Hub-you, unlock new merchants and options as you play through the game.
3 player co-op, you always have 3 players and if you don’t have 2 friends then it will matchmaker to make up the numbers.
Blightbound is played in a 2.5D game world.
Anyone can pick up loot and it goes to everyone.
Not tied to the same screen.
Earn EXP, level up, and put stats points into your character.
Level select-when starting a game you get to choose from a selection of levels and can vote on it along with difficulty.
Each character has a role to play.
End of run shows collected loot.
Catchup system so if you get left behind you warp up to the group.
You are randomly assigned a character to play.
Recruit new characters that you can play as or that serve as a vendor/merchant in your community.
Blacksmith-find plans and craft new gear.
Overall you have story objectives that push you forward.
Can revive each other.
Puzzle elements.
Hack and slash combat.
Big boss encounters with an initial pop up screen of who they are.

Cons:

No single play just online with randoms.
Random which character you play as.
A lot to take in.
Browsing menus and generally moving around is not good with the controller as it feels clunky and unclear.
Every game has a hint of lag.
The slowdown can happen anytime.
Nothing stopping other players running on ahead and leaving you to warp up all the time.
Takes a long time to get going, the easy difficulty is far too easy.
Boss fights don’t have the greatest loot drops if any at all.
Controller icons can disappear.
The story is broken up and hard to follow.
The level selection is not clear.
No Steam achievements.
Mouse cursor stays on the screen.
Small text.