Dustborn Demo Review – Punk Across America!

OVERVIEW

Lead a band of misfits on a road-trip across a Divided States of America in Dustborn, and discover a story about hope, love, friendship, robots, and the power of words.

Developer: Red Thread Games
Release Date: August 20th, 2024
Price: $29.99
Platforms: Steam, Playstation, Xbox, Epic Games Store

Gameplay in the Dustborn Demo

Gameplay image from the Dustborn games dialogue options.

While the full game releases in August, the gameplay demo available on Steam provides several tantalizing glimpses of the full game. The first section players will see is a section involving freeing one of their crew from under a bus involving multiple components and managing other crew and the environment in creative ways.

The second Section begins tense as Justice peace-keepers are searching the Dustborn’s bus. While awaiting customs, the Dustborn engage in a musical performance which consists of an intuitive rhythm game involving multiple different buttons on the controller. To note, even in the demo the game featured full controller support for both Microsoft and Dualshock/ sense controllers as well as a suite of Accessibility options.

During the song’s performance buttons would need to be pressed in certain orders, held down, or played simultaneously with varying scores awarded for accuracy. What piqued my interest was that in the center of the rhythm track where notes would need to be played, the game would display ahead of time which button would be played next in the queue to help players stay in rhythm and avoid confusion. The game was easy enough to pick up and play that we succeeded in the task on our first attempt … if not with a great score.

The next section is mostly narrative as we can interact with the tour bus, reflect on various story beats, converse with our fellow crew, change outfits, or even unlock new music with a variation of the rhythm game mentioned earlier. The story beats mentioned in this section don’t reveal anything not obtainable from the game’s Steam description but tease deep worldbuilding and mysterious threads I can’t wait to explore in the full release.

The final section I played was a combat section which functioned very well for the game. I was pleasantly surprised as the game had so far presented different mechanics for puzzles, playing music, and now combat but they all play fantastically. The combat itself is satisfying and streamlined, but what sets it apart is the introduction of “power words” that can be unleashed with the help of your crew mates. These can be combos used to turn enemies against themselves, words to throw or push enemies, or words to multi-attack in a sweeping motion.

Enemies are varied as well with melee and ranged units interspersed in the encounter. At one point we even had to take down a helicopter with a well-hit homerun swing. Finally, we had a mini-boss to tie off the encounter which was a lot of fun. The attack windows are fair and telegraphed ahead of time.

Difficulty & Accessibility in the Dustborn Demo

Dustborn isn’t a particularly difficult game, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. This game is primarily narrative-driven from my experience with it. The dialogue-heavy interim between combat sections and even most puzzles can be completed with just one or two buttons and occasional use of the joysticks.

The auto-saving is generous as well, as at least three times I had to shut down the steamdeck while playing and it booted right back up with only a few minutes at most lost each time. The game also has multiple Accessibility options I was impressed by in the settings, even for just the demo.

A Creative Juxstaposition

Screenshot of combat in the Dustborn game.

Both the art and art direction for Dustborn fit the theme exceptionally. I enjoyed the cell-shaded style juxtaposed by the, only slightly, dystopian fractured Americana aesthetic. The irony of most of the “justice” faction being faceless, literal automatons wasn’t lost on me either.

Our protagonists also fit the grungy, punk look to a “tee”.The music had a great variety during the demo I played as well; at least one song we played with bandmates, one we developed on the tour bus, and that’s not including the background tracks and ambience.

Final Thoughts on the Dustborn Demo

Overall, my experience with Dustborn was very positive. It was relaxing to listen to the music we so recently played and Plot the course of our tour bus. Even though my time with them was brief, I enjoyed all of the character interactions and can’t wait for the full release to explore more of those interpersonal relationships and the worldbuilding present in Dustborn.