Dustborn

Once you warm up to its cast, Dustborn's unique twist on a super-power adventure in an alternate-future America makes for an engrossingly great time, even if some of its gameplay leaves more to be desired.

Red Thread Games and Quantic Dream present Dustborn, an action-adventure game focused on the power of words. It has all the ballots to get a great community, especially for its beautiful art style, its varied gameplay and its charismatic characters. The mix is so good that it is positioned as one of the great surprises of 2024.

Although Dustborn has questionable combat and some technical issues, the game has an excellent and engaging plot, a fact that will keep you hooked until the end of the story.

Dustborn is a real treat for narrative adventure fans. The script is the star here, with the game’s characters being wonderfully written and brought to life via solid voice acting. And by the time you’re done with this adventure you’ll have experienced a wide range of emotions what with its often comical conversations and unexpected twists and turns.

Dustborn tells a touching tale brimming with personality and political messages with each character offering a unique perspective that enriches the narrative. While these diverse viewpoints occasionally lead to inconsistencies in tone, the game succeeds in delivering a strong, but potentially divisive, story. The musical elements provide a refreshing twist to the gameplay, standing out against the uninspiring combat. Overall, Dustborn adds various elements to the interactive drama genre, and while not all are equally successful, the game offers a compelling experience that will resonate with those seeking an ambitious tale.

Dustborn is an atypical narrative adventure, because it combines storytelling, simple combat and musical rhythm. It stands out for its plot, which is about discovery and current issues, and how we approach the relationships between characters. The fighting system is too simple and unnecessary. However, its comic-like aesthetic gives it a very interesting graphic touch.

While some of its gameplay diversions miss the mark, Dustborn is an excellent example of how to craft engaging characters and wrap a story around them. The game is filled with surprisingly natural sounding conversations, whether they’re serious and detailed or funny and light. It’s very rare that I encounter characters that are so believable in a game. Quite the achievement considering one of those characters is a gruff, bearded New Yorker with dwarfism who heals people by reciting poetry, who I honestly wish I got to spend more time with.

Dustborn offers an intriguing story set in an alternate version of the United States, with a captivating narrative and a unique presentation. However, its ambition in terms of gameplay leads it to tackle various game modes without truly excelling in any of them.

Dustborn tells a story about spreading misinformation and the power of words, with some great ideas despite some frustration.

After the first hour, I was sure finishing Dustborn would be up there with folding laundry in terms of chores – but just a few hours later and I was invested in the welfare of all my little freaky friends as they played gigs, fought robots, and had sometimes melodramatic conversations. Its band of well-intentioned weirdos tells an absorbing story in an alternate-history America, and while I may have started by rolling my eyes, I was high on science fiction satisfaction and wondering if I was too old to get a neck tattoo and some neon accessories by the end.

Dustborn may be one of the most difficult games I’ve ever had to review. The core of the game, the characters and story, is one of the strongest I have seen since Telltale’s era, even if it fumbles towards the end. I love how dynamic and realistic the dialogue is, but hated what that did to the pacing. I adored the political message about speaking up for your beliefs, but wish it had been delivered with more subtlety and nuance. Dustborn makes missteps, but its victories more than compensate.

Likeable characters, a well-developed scenario and exciting mysteries - Dustborn is a very well-written and, above all, excellently voiced adventure game in which I wanted to know how the story would continue right up to the end credits. Unfortunately, the interspersed action scenes don't keep up this level.

Rock and roll with the indifferent, outcasted, and unwanted miscreants born from the dust! Words have power (literally) in this narrative based adventure across a broken country that houses unimaginable secrets. Even if the game suffers from poor design decisions and bad gameplay mechanics, there's no way to gaslight it's original take on the genre that expresses a sentiment no word can fully capture.

We said at the beginning that Dustborn is a bold game, and we reiterate it, but I wish Red Thread, Quantic Dream or whoever else we have to point out had been as brave in allowing a few extra months of development.

It's a shame that a game with so much potential couldn't find some great mechanics and focus on them. Instead, it focused more on a political statement that it shoves down your throat every chance it gets. Dustborn offers excellent visuals and voice work with some solid writing when it focuses on the story, but falls flat from janky and simple combat and noticeable bugs.

Dustborn has great unrealised potential, and that's a shame. The alternate world it sketches out is fascinating, and the cast of characters, with their diversity, adds great value to an otherwise poor experience that fails to shine in any other respect.

It is difficult to recommend Dustborn in the face of a catalog with stronger and more established offerings. Although it has a very specific universe, the monotonous pace and the difficulty in forming connections with the characters make the experience feel unengaging.

It's a bit of a missed opportunity, as underneath it all is a story and game world that begs to be properly realized.