Ravenbound (2023)

There isn't much for me to recommend in Ravenbound - its beautiful landscapes and somewhat fun combat won't be worth the hours of fighting RNG, a lack of deck-building mechanics, and basically non-existent healing options.

Ravenbound is a game filled to the brim with unique ideas. It marries the open world and roguelike/lites genres in an interesting way, but doesn’t quite hit the mark, and feels incomplete at almost every step. The open world feels unnecessarily massive, but with very little to do. It’s also filled with annoying bugs. It’s a shame because the concept and combat are surprisingly strong, making this misstep hurt even more.

Ravenbound mixes some great ideas and beautiful scenery to intrigue the player, but fails to come through on many of the promises made.

Summing up Ravenbound was a challenge because, despite its flaws, the game isn't bad and I did have a good time when it worked as intended. However, it's just badly executed with the lack of missions, explorations, and many frustrating bugs that make Ravenbound hard to recommend. Systemic Reaction are aware of the issues and are actively talking to their community through patch notes to, hopefully, revive this game and make it the fun roguelite it's asking to be.

While Ravenbound has a great story and a few good features on the mechanics front, it still needs some improvement. What would help this game shine would be a world overhaul with a randomly generated terrain to keep things interesting and possibly a few minor quality-of-life improvements. While these flaws can take away from the overall experience, Ravenbound does have a lot of potentials to go far. But for now, there’s still a great story and literal mountains of lore to discover, maybe even a Betrayer to defeat.