When your homeland is cursed by a withering blight, who do you intend to call? Three random adventurers who happen to fit bog-standard RPG character archetypes! Okay, I know that’s nowhere near as catchy as the theme song from Ghostbusters, but it’s just about the best way I can think of to introduce Blightbound. I think my introduction does decently sum up the core gameplay loop, though: You play as one of a group of three heroes who must leave the safety of the mountaintops and become strong enough to eradicate the titular Blight that plagues your homeland at its source.

That aspect of Blightbound’s core gameplay loop and the fact that, as you successfully complete objectives and clear out increasingly dangerous dungeons, your actions help to restore and build up your heroes’ home base both give me quite pleasant Darkest Dungeon vibes. It occurs to me that it might be weird to have gotten anything resembling pleasant vibes from a game like Darkest Dungeon, but that’s rather beside the point. In any case, you’ll control a member of one of three main character classes, team up with two allies, and clear out dungeons in order to complete various necessary objectives.

The main character classes in question are Warriors, Assassins, and Mages. If you’ve completed any dungeons in World of Warcraft or any similar MMORPG, I think chances are good that you’ll feel comfortable playing as at least one of these classes in Blightbound. If you’re not familiar with those kinds of dungeon environments, though, I’ll explain how each class functions as best I can. The Warrior has the largest health pool and the strongest armor of the group, which is why it’s their job to hold the attention of all attacking enemies and protect their less-sturdy allies from harm.

Assassins are melee damage dealers who, in my experience, function identically to World of Warcraft’s Rogue class. Assassins can use their main assortment of damaging abilities to build up combo points, which they can then spend to unleash much more pain on any who dare stand in their way. Assassins also critically hit any enemies they strike from behind, thus further increasing their damage output if they can position themselves favorably. Their so-called “Titan abilities” also allow them to deal quite a bit of area-of-effect damage and effectively dispatch grouped-up enemies. You’ll have to keep an eye on your abilities’ cooldown timers, though.

Lastly, Mages are the group’s source of both ranged damage and protective magic, like healing and shielding spells. Mages can generate Mana orbs by hitting enemies with their basic attacks, and can then spend any accumulated Mana orbs on their spells. Their most common healing spell works best when their allies are standing near them. Conveniently, any member of the party can grab spawned Mana orbs for their Mage to use rather than Mages having to scramble to collect them. Mages can also interact with things like switches from range in order to, for example, open locked gates that are barring the group’s path.

Based on those descriptions of each class, I’ve found that I feel the most effective when playing as a Mage. However, the reasons why I say that brings me to a fair few complaints I have with Blightbound. For starters, I especially dislike playing as a Warrior because it feels like they have a much shorter attack range than it might look. I find it difficult to tell if I’m close enough to actually hit enemies, and even harder to tell if I’m in a proper position in 3D space to land my attacks. That’s slightly easier for me to manage as a Mage.

Blightbound’s normal camera angle doesn’t help me with that, especially when the camera zooms out even further than usual because a lot of enemies just spawned in. When this happens, it’s really difficult for me to keep track of where my character is relative to my allies and any nearby foes. There have been several occasions where I’ve just been standing there attacking nothing but air because I couldn’t see the action well enough to realize that. This is even more frustrating as a Mage since I need to be able to tell where my allies are so I can heal them.

In fairness, the issues I’ve just described could be due to my poor eyesight and my total lack of depth perception, but I’m not sure. If that’s the case, there’s not much I can do about it, so I’ll give Blightbound the benefit of the doubt on that score. That brings me to something I both like and dislike about Blightbound: I appreciate that since you need to fill a party of three, you can play alongside bots if you’d prefer. Having said that, however, I think the AI that controls these bots could have used a bit more fine-tuning.

Don’t get me wrong. Blightbound’s AI-controlled bots will still perform well enough to get the job done. For example, they know when they need to use their dodge skills to avoid hazards and traps, and they know what they need to do when a puzzle requires all three players to stand on switches. However, I’ve had a few minor hiccups with the bots. Such as when I had to move blocks onto switches to open a door and the bots ended up getting stuck between said blocks and a wall until I freed them because they didn’t realize they needed to move.

Overall, I don’t feel comfortable wholeheartedly recommending Blightbound categorically. If you and two friends are up for some Diablo-esque dungeon crawling that also features elements reminiscent of Darkest Dungeon, then you might consider Blightbound, but I personally wouldn’t go out of my way to buy this title even in that case. I want to clarify that I’m not condemning Blightbound outright. I just think it has a fair amount of potential it didn’t manage to realize, which leads me to sum up my thoughts by saying Blightbound just isn’t really my particular cup of tea.

A PC review key for Blightbound was provided by Devolver Digital for the purpose of this review.

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Blightbound

$19.99

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Combat feels enjoyably fluid most of the time.
• Roles and strengths of each class are easy to understand.
• The sense of progress from restoring your home base feels quite nice.

Cons

• Camera angles and positioning aren’t ideal.
• Bot AI has some noticeable issues.
• Combat can feel repetitive given enough time.