Diablo, a few decades ago, it consecrated a trend in a complete and modern way with almost unlimited margins. We are talking about the so-called "dungeon crawler" roles, imbued with exploration perpetrated in search of the "definitive" equipment. A genre with almost immovable mechanics but which, precisely because of the basic concepts aimed at an eternal "gamble" in search of increasingly powerful objects, has "seduced" ranks and ranks of fans. In this genre, it squares Blightbound, produced by the team Ronino Games, published by Devolver Digital and currently in Early Access on Steam. A particular title, at a glance, starting from the aesthetic side, completely elaborated and concretized by hand in an original and valuable style that brings it closer, even from a more exquisitely thematic point of view, to a dark fable.
Blightbound leads us by the hand into a dark and gloomy world, made of death and darkness: we will have the opportunity to take on the role of three heroes (which we will know quite in depth during the tutorial, while we will be intent on saving them from an atrocious fate) with a difficult mission: extirpate the Blight from the world, a terrible fog capable of transforming living beings into horrible monsters thirsty for blood.
Once our hero has been selected, we can choose between a wizard with defensive and healing powers, a thief with a thousand tricks and high damage and a mighty warrior able to defend himself with a vast shield, Blightbound offers us a rather canonical gameplay for the genre, naturally enhanced by the possibility of facing the challenges that await us in an online cooperative. Gameplay fixed from an isometric view in 2.5D (while the characters will be in 2D) and devoted much more to action than exploration: the stages in which we will move, in fact, will essentially be corridors in which we will face the amorphities generated by the Blight, as well as very dangerous traps. In this sense, the characteristic on which the effort of Ronino Games focuses more is the intensity: the dungeons will be rather short when compared to the stages of other "contenders", but full of enemies, traps and in principle challenging. A choice perhaps atypical compared to the sector but, certainly, appreciable right now, in a state of planning far from being definitive.
Like any self-respecting dungeon crawler, even Blightbound will have a good characterization of the classes (although three, probably, are few), each of which will have a fixed and unchangeable role: the warrior will act as a tank, thanks to the possibility of blocking the hits with the shield, while the mage will have the possibility to heal and defend his allies thanks to his arcane arts. Finally, the thief, thanks to his daggers and the ability to attack from a distance, will be the ace in the hole of the entire party.
Despite the aforementioned good character design, it is probable that for a veteran of the sector three classes and moreover fixed in their margins, may be insufficient especially if you think that other exponents of the sector offer not only more usable archetypes, but also many more possibilities for customizing them, capable of almost revolutionizing their use. That said, Blightbound will still be fun and will offer everything a fan of the genre is looking for (even some difficulty scalable as needed).
During the exploration of the dungeons we will find objects of different rarity that, at the end of the stage, we will receive as a reward and that can be analyzed as soon as we return to our headquarters. In addition to objects, we will have the faculty in our base camp to build some fundamental buildings for our progressive evolution. For example, in the most classic of videogame-role-playing canons, we will have the right to build a blacksmith from which we can obtain weapons and armor, strictly limited to the chosen class. In addition to the canonical tools of the role-playing heritage, in Blightbound we will have the opportunity to get our hands on precious artifacts, free from the harsh concept of class, which will directly impact some specific characteristics of the characters, such as skills, hit points, etc. Features that, once again, can be further enhanced at level up, where the game will allow us to distribute fixed points that will outline the capabilities of our alter ego.
The title, technically, looks pretty good: no major bugs, substantially good performance and a good range of graphics options with which to tinker to find the right compromise between quality and fluidity (or, shoot everything to the max). In principle, Blightbound by its nature will not be particularly demanding in terms of hardware requirements and will run without great difficulty even on older machines. The title also supports the use of a game pad (although the support is not yet perfectly implemented), which probably becomes the best and easiest option to be able to control our heroes on the field, especially in (rather frequent) situations. more excited.
Blighbound is, as mentioned, currently in Early Access on Steam and, of course, only and exclusively the roadmap of corrections and content in mind of the developers, will sanction the "success" or "failure" in the long run. What is certain is that now, at an affordable price, the title offers a pleasant experience, good content and dynamic and cooperative gameplay. Blighbound is a promising project that we feel we can fully recommend and support.
