Hellbound (2020)

 PC
Metascore
61

Mixed or average reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 17 out of 21
  3. Negative: 2 out of 21
  1. TheGamer
    Aug 4, 2020
    40
    what is currently available feels like a prototype for something better. If the campaign were just longer, tighter, more refined, then Hellbound would be an easy recommendation. Saibot created something that feels solid in the hands but doesn't quite stick the landing. You can only play the campaign so many times before you've seen it all and Hellbound simply doesn't deliver much else.
  2. Screen Rant
    Aug 4, 2020
    40
    Ultimately, Hellbound isn't going to leave a sour taste in any player's mouth, but that's only because it leaves no taste at all. It's a bland retread of a bygone era of gaming that has no understanding of why people want to return to it. Hellbound carelessly mashes up concepts and mechanics with no thought and no craft, creating an end product that's serviceable only because of the strength of its foundation. Fighting demons with a shotgun is fun. It always was fun, and it always will be fun, and there's nothing wrong with Hellbound's interpretation of that. It's just that there are a thousand other games that do all this so much better, so it's hard to see why anyone would pick up this particularly shotgun.
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  1. The Indie Game Website
    Aug 4, 2020
    The often severe frame drops and occasional bugs that led me to restart a level aren’t that big of an issue, and they can be always be fixed after launch. But the specific tone around the game, and the message it leaves as it neglects to listen to the learned lessons in the past few years from similar experiences in the indie sphere, can’t be solved with a patch.

User Reviews

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User Score
6.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 28 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 28
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 28
  3. Negative: 9 out of 28
  1. EnigmaXtreme
    Aug 5, 2020
    4
    In the 90’s the term “DOOM Clone” was given to First Person Shooters following the runaway success of iD’s Demon Slaying Magnum Opus. ItIn the 90’s the term “DOOM Clone” was given to First Person Shooters following the runaway success of iD’s Demon Slaying Magnum Opus. It wasn’t always used negatively though as this era saw many great titles including Heretic, Blood and of course Duke Nukem 3D. Hellbound however is a DOOM Clone in the sense they actually tried to clone the game but something was contaminated in the test tube.

    Hellbound wants you to think that it is a game inspired by the shooters of the 90’s, with all the twitchy finger, devasting weapons and bloodlust they were known for. But playing the game, I felt as far away from the 90’s as possible and just saw a game that was seriously trying way too hard.

    It starts with the title screen that isn’t even pretending to be a ripoff of the DOOM logo, but I will give them one point, the game does play just like a 90’s game in one sense as there is no, I repeat NO CONTROLLER SUPPORT. In this day and age, especially with how cross platform game development is, there really is no reason whatsoever to exclude this feature.

    On the gameplay side of things, you have level design seemingly taken from the cutting room floor of DOOM Eternal, I’ll be with a little less jumping and a few uninspired one-liners, so digging into Duke’s rubbish bin while we are at it, seemingly dropping F-bombs as much as other people use a comma. If a game like Hellbound was released in the 90’s it would undoubtedly be promoting itself by calling DOOM weak, they have a Double Shotgun? well, we have a TRIPLE Shotgun!

    But that’s the thing, while promoting itself as a game inspired by the 90’s there is really nothing about this game that reminds me of that era. Shooters of that era were always fast paced with a trove of weaponry to play with, health and ammo littered everywhere so you could continue blazing through. Here, your main TWO guns really lack any sort of punch with them even having issues with the smallest enemies. The game promotes itself on its difficulty, but it is more cheap, with a lousy checkpoint system than difficult.

    Performance wise, the game is even more of a nightmare. I wouldn’t say I have the beefiest rig, but I’ve been playing games on it now for several years with barely any issues. But with Hellbound, the game is continuously pausing for moments at a time and I found the only way to make the game run properly on my rig was turning down the visuals wayyy down. I’m talking graphic quality that would make the Switch cringe, and that’s just the graphics, load times are a real hassle with the game taking forever to load a save file, might explain why the game doesn’t utilise a Quick Save button.

    That’s probably my biggest issue with Hellbound, just how much of a poser it wants to be. It wants to be DOOM so badly, it will give us the gruff protagonist but give him no personality whatsoever outside of saying **** a lot. Halfway decent hellish inspired levels that are marred with graphical and performance issues and just the most generic metal music playing over it all as you plough through one of 5 different enemies. It wants to think its from the 90’s, but what shooter from then had ironsights? The only saving grace this game has is that it’s over quickly with a wet fart of an ending.

    This game would like to think of itself as “Unapologetically 90’s” but really it just owes me an apology.    … Full Review »
  2. WarkStelliar
    Aug 11, 2020
    7
    Extremely nostalgic gunplay and movement, as well as very classic level design reminiscent of Quake.
    A bit too short for the price though,    Extremely nostalgic gunplay and movement, as well as very classic level design reminiscent of Quake.
    A bit too short for the price though, and the dialogue is kinda cringey.    … Full Review »
  3. gryphsu1984
    Aug 11, 2020
    9
    Super Fun game, as it is said, Kill monsters and have fun, I think that they respect that premise.
    If you are looking a good 90´s game made    Super Fun game, as it is said, Kill monsters and have fun, I think that they respect that premise.
    If you are looking a good 90´s game made today, this is it. Well Done. Regarding the comparisons, yes people, they even told you on the description on the game, a 90´s shooter made today, it will obviously look like doom, Quake or Serious Sam, almost as Every Assassins creed look like the previous assassins creed, like fifa 20 looks like fifa 19, 18, 17 etc. You do not judge games on how they look like other games, you judge games by how fun is to play and this is really fun.    … Full Review »
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