Preview: Blightbound (Steam Early Access)

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.