Deathbound review: Two's company, three's a crowd, four is an identity crisis

Soulslike games are a dime a dozen these days, and while each one brings a different twist to the formula, it’s rare that one manages to really stand out among the throng. In the case of Deathbound, it has some interesting mechanics that are downright enjoyable to use, but unfortunately, they’re hampered by clunky combat and stilted pacing.

Life, death, and morphing

The background story that Deathbound presents is your iconic trope of gods playing games and men suffering. The Goddess Life deceived Goddess Death and created the First Men, an immortal race of people. Given infinite time, these people rose up, built tech that embodied Arthur C. Clarke’s quote about advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, and then decided to give up their immortality and disappear.

Cut to modern day. A civilization has grown like weeds in the cracks of the First Men’s technology and is attempting to acquire immortality. This is where you come in as a member of the Church of Death, followers of Goddess Death who think that immortality is a mortal sin (pun intended).

It’s not long until you encounter the game’s main selling point: morphing. The bloke you’re playing as, Therone, is a zealot hell-bent on delivering death to the unbelievers. After encountering a corpse, the person’s essence enters Therone’s body and suddenly the two are sharing one shell. Therone is not pleased about this, especially considering the person was a follower of the other goddess!

While Therone isn’t pleased, I am. Because now I get to hear these two characters bicker about their ideologies as we try to work out what is going on in this post-apocalyptic, medieval-in-science-fiction world. Plus, now I get to start morphing.

Dance with death

Morphing is how Deathbound sets itself apart from the other Soulslike games. With a press of a button, you can morph into any of the characters you’ve absorbed and assigned to the D-pad. What started as simply morphing between Therone and Anna quickly expanded into a full cadre of fighters, each with their own style.

I’d perform two strong attacks as the death cultist Therone and then morph into Anna, who would instantly twirl around in a flurry of dagger slashes. As her attacks hit, I’d switch to Iulia, who would land a flurry of strikes with her spear. To round it off, I’d morph into Tehkri, who would perform some sort of poison blast, knocking whatever monstrous beast I was fighting to the ground.

But it’s not always fast and fluid. Sometimes I’d try to switch, only for the animation to take longer than expected, get knocked to the ground, and be vulnerable to attacks. There’s a clunkiness that pervades the controls, which can make the combat and movement feel at odds with the morphing mechanic.

The good news is that there are some other interesting ideas under the hood. Any of the items (rings, amulets, etc) you pick up can be upgraded through one of two pathways, improving some stat or mechanic of your characters. The characters themselves also have an innate affinity with each other, so their position your D-pad is critical to your success: Place two characters that dislike each other beside one another and you’ll be hit with a debuff. It all adds another delightful wrinkle to the texture of the combat as you plan your builds.

Me, myself, and the other guys

While the switching between different characters has a Mortal Shell vibe, Deathbound drops the oppressive gothic setting and utilizes a sort of technopunk-meets-medieval theme. All of the characters are visually at odds with the advanced technology around them, which creates a strange yet engaging clashing of aesthetics.

Despite the interesting visuals, the levels are rather linear, with only a few shortcuts woven in. They never quite reach the impressive shortcut revelations that a FromSoftware game provides the player, but they are there, and it makes the jaunt through the areas better. However, it’s still just a bit bland, which is made more unpalatable by the clunky controls, the slow animation to pick up items or heal yourself (your character literally stands still), and the lethargic speed at which the characters run, move, and interact with objects. On more than one occasion I'd struggle to get into the exact, pixel-perfect position for a door-open prompt, hit the button, and then be knocked out of the animation halfway through and have to realign myself again.

Any last words?

Deathbound, like many other Soulslike games before it, brings a few neat ideas to the table. While they are certainly nice to sample and play around with, a lot of the surrounding elements are sluggish and bland. It’s still great to see developers have a go at joining the pantheon of games in the genre, but Deathbound didn’t leave me wanting to come back for more.

This review is based on a Steam code provided by the publisher. Deathbound is scheduled to release on PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG as well as on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 on August 8, 2024.

Sam Chandler

Head of Guides

Hailing from the land down under, Sam Chandler brings a bit of the southern hemisphere flair to his work. After bouncing round a few universities, securing a bachelor degree, and entering the video game industry, he's found his new family here at Shacknews as Head of Guides. There's nothing he loves more than crafting a guide that will help someone. If you need help with a guide, or notice something not quite right, you can message him on X: @SamuelChandler