By sjj_admin 
Originally published on GameOnAus.com in August 2021
Blightbound is a co-op dungeon crawler from Ronimo Games. Players journey down from their refuge into the Blight, a mysterious and corrupting fog that covers the lowlands. For me it was a tale of two very different play attempts.
The game is stunning to look at and the dungeon environments are well crafted and unique. Time and care has been taken to make this game look amazing.
There’s a ton of unlockable characters that fit into one of three classes: Warrior, Assassin and Mage. These classes fit a specific role, with Warrior being a tank, Assassin damage and Mage a healer. You start with one of each and find more as you progress through the dungeons.
Each class has one ability that requires you to generate energy of some kind. The Assassin generates theirs with each basic attack, the Warrior generates rage by shielding enemy attacks and the Mage generates an orb of Mana that any character can pick up. This makes the classes play very differently.
Completing dungeons yields loot like new equipment and crafting materials to improve or create new gear. Each character has its own gear and level, so there’s lots to do.
I enjoyed the dungeons in Blightbound and the way things scaled but I had a hard time with finding groups. Power Up PR were kind enough to supply us with three keys so we could group together, but #AdultLife meant it was difficult to find time to play together. There is match-matching with cross play but I very rarely got grouped with anyone, even after changing regions. In fact, at the time of writing I have only ever been paired with one match making group.
There are bots available to fill the gaps in your group but they’re not the smartest. There was a puzzle where there’s a gate with two switches on either side with a moveable block. You put the block on one switch and stand on the other, the other two players move through to the two switches on the other side so you can move through. The bots wouldn’t move through to the other switches so I could progress. In one of my frustrated moments I ran the block over one of the bots and found out I can move them. In the end I positioned the bots with the block and continued on my way.
The Blightbound experience greatly improves when playing with friends. Co-ordinating with a group shows the variety and ingenuity in the combat.
Blightbound is a fun co-op game, but if you don’t have friends that also have play it’s hard to make any progress. Having a regular group would improve things but the lack of decent match making lets the game down in a big way.
Blightbound is out now on Steam, Xbox and Playstation.