Voidling Bound Review

A fresh evolution in the creature-collector genre.

There's been a bit of a rebirth in the creature-collecting field in the past several years. But younger creators are now aiming to make it more than simply classic turn-based battles, with Pokémon and other older properties setting the norm for the genre.

Some games have included open-world exploration, some have put a lot of focus on survival, and a few have sought to blend monster hunting with elements of completely different types of games. Voidling Bound, the first game from Hatchery Games, is firmly in the second group. Voidling Bound isn't about making gamers become trainers yelling orders from the sidelines. Instead, it explores a basic yet largely unexplored question: what if you could control the animals directly?

It's a vibrant sci-fi action RPG that integrates third-person shooter combat, creature breeding, genetic engineering, evolutionary systems, and progression strategies.

A small team of veterans from the game industry developed Voidling Bound. Their work can be seen in games like Borderlands 3, Rainbow Six Siege, and Call of Duty, as well as the visual effects of big movies and television shows. There's a little bit of Skylanders, Spore, Ratchet & Clank, and Pokémon in the experience, but it manages to create its own flair.

The game does offer some of the most imaginative creature-building mechanisms I've seen in quite a while, but it also has some of the most frequent faults that small games have, especially when it comes to content variety and story depth. When Voidling Bound is on, a dangerous alien force called the Legion is invading the galaxy. This evil is all across many planets, transforming the environment and species. Worlds formerly teeming with life are now covered with deadly purple growths and terrifying animals.

The player takes on the role of a Space Wrangler, one of the few people tasked with preventing the spread of this galactic plague. Voidlings are an important advantage humanity has discovered in the struggle. These aliens are naturally immune to the rot, allowing them to live and thrive where others cannot. By using special Wrangler technology, players can connect their brains to Voidlings and control them directly during tasks. Not only do you control monsters from afar, but you enter their bodies and experience battles through their individual skills and methods of fighting.

The way it is set up is interesting. The intro cinematic does a good job of setting up the situation and describing what is going on. The beginning is exciting, but the tale loses quite a bit of speed afterward. The plot is primarily delivered through mission briefings, infrequent crew exchanges, environmental background information, and collectible diaries that reveal how past expeditions went awry.

That's not necessarily a deal breaker, as it's evident that Voidling Bound prioritizes gameplay above story. But those seeking a detailed plot with memorable characters, dramatic turns, and extensive world-building may be disappointed. There's a setting that seems interesting enough to support a deeper tale, but the game scratches the surface.

The plot is mostly a vehicle for the game mechanics and not a key component of the experience.

It achieves what it claims, but it never quite reaches the level of the game's personalization and growth options. In Voidling Bound, the core gameplay loop is around gathering, growing, breeding, customizing, and sending Voidlings on missions throughout numerous planets.

Voidling Bound only features nine major species, yet many creature collectors have hundreds of creatures. This may appear limiting at first glance, but each species includes several evolutionary branches, distinct shapes, elemental variants, customization options, and genetic changes that greatly expand the possibilities.

The majority of missions begin on your spacecraft, which is also your home base and where you handle everything else. Here, users can hatch eggs, produce creatures, train their team, enhance skills, splice genes, develop facilities, and customize their ever-growing collection of Voidlings. Once prepared, players select a Voidling and embark on missions across different corrupted planets.

Mostly, these include cleansing diseased regions, exploring new places, acquiring resources, solving minor environmental challenges, fighting foes, and facing challenging monsters. Players complete tasks to progress as they earn mutagens, study points, resources, eggs, and coins. The loop is easy to learn but highly addictive. You: Explore, fight, acquire resources, upgrade monsters, breed better creatures. Rinse and repeat.

The amount of control players have over this way helps it stand out from other monster-taming games.

Every Voidling is a long-term endeavor, not a one-time guest. The game rewards exploration and encourages players to experiment with different gene-splicing sets, breeding combinations, and evolutionary trajectories.

One of the nicest things about the progression system is how creatures get more and more unique with time. Players can create animals that feel quite distinct by adding various eye types, body parts, elemental affinities, colors, passives, talents, and inherited qualities. The same foundation species can wind up with radically distinct builds by the conclusion of the game.

More than that, the sanctuary system reinforces that sense of control. Your own personalized creatures walk around your ship, chat to each other and lay eggs for future breeding efforts, giving you a sense of connection that many creature aficionados find hard to discover. The best part of Voidling Bound is certainly the battle.

This is not a turn-based battle system; this is a third-person action shooter. Players control the Voidling of their choice directly and fight foes in fast-paced combat that emphasizes movement, positioning, and skill management. Each critter has their own set of tools, which usually includes: Main, Secondary skills, dodges,ges movement skills, close combat moves, defense options, ultimate skills.

This gives every Voidling the feel of an active player in an action game, instead of just another monster in a collection. The settings are straightforward to grasp and function effectively. For the most part, it feels great to dodge strikes, combo techniques, and exploit enemy weaknesses. Elemental systems add further layers of strategy and motivate players to switch between creatures based on the type of enemy and the task's requirements.

Some monsters are good at fighting from a distance, while others are better at dealing damage in close combat, crowd controlling, or support. 

Choices concerning evolution further affect combat styles, changing attacks and opening up whole new aspects. Often the boss is a delight to meet with. In fighting bigger adversaries, you have to be mindful of where you stand, know how they strike, and know how to use your creature's powers right. As the difficulty level increases, you have to employ strategy much more, which can turn what looks like an enjoyable activity into something very hard.

The puzzles in the game are not too hard. Most exploration missions involve interacting with the environment, climbing onto platforms, locating hidden goods, eliminating corruption nodes, and clearing diseased areas to open new paths. Though these sections are fun for mixing up the action between fights, they rarely become challenging puzzle-solving scenarios.

The content range is occasionally a problem for the game. Most of the adventure will involve players repeating two primary types of missions: Survival Missions, set in battle regions attacked in waves. Both are fun, but after a while they start to seem alike. The game has so many ways to move that they often outstrip the number of problems you can apply them to. Players can spend hours building super sophisticated constructions for their creatures only to test them in ordinary mission types.

It doesn't destroy the experience, but it definitely makes a stark delineation between how much you can tweak and how much material there is. Voidling Bound really shines as you start moving forward. The game features various interrelated levels of progression that reward players for their time and effort throughout the game, rather than relying on typical leveling systems.

Voidlings get experience from missions, which players can use to boost their strength, vitality, speed, healing, and essence. Research points acquired on missions can be used to unlock species-wide advancements through the Cerebral Tree system. This will help future investments be profitable. Things that modify cells as they perform tasks keep evolution going.

These materials allow creatures to evolve in different ways that dramatically alter their appearance and fighting ability. Breeding adds another stage of development. Players can breed high-level Voidlings to their liking, giving their offspring desirable features and making each generation more powerful. Gene-splicing can combine body parts, cosmetics, and powers of different creatures to create entirely new ones. This enhances the flexibility of modification.

In the final abyss mode, catalyst gear systems are implemented, which offer extra stat bonuses and long-term growth goals.

Most importantly, the grind is typically fun. Each task helps you progress in more than one way at the same time. Even failed runs typically give useful information, so you don't feel like you wasted time. This game offers a lot of depth for people who prefer to optimize, theory-craft, and attempt new builds. But for those who desire to keep doing new things, advancement can be more valuable than material variety in the long run.

One of the biggest surprises of the game is how lovely Voidling Bound looks. Hatchery Games isn't aiming for photorealism here, but rather a colorful stylized appearance that's a wonderful match for the game's creature theme. Alien planets are vibrant with color, luxuriant flora, and cleverly built landscapes. The visual shift when players successfully clean up an area is satisfying,g as corrupted areas look wonderful next to fixed landscapes.

The creature design deserves an extra shout-out. There are only nine base species, yet there is a huge visual variety due to the countless evolutionary variants, genetic combinations, cosmetic alterations, and elemental transformations.

Many animals start out looking extremely simple, almost like cartoon figures. But as they mature, they become bizarre hybrid monsters with spikes, tentacles, armored plating, blazing eyes, and elemental effects. Not many monster collectors allow you this much graphic control. Sometimes there are complaints. Some creature models are not as detailed as they should be compared to current AAA standards, occasionally reminding me of designs from the time of Spore.

This is more stylistic than technical, though, and it does not really detract from the general presentation. The performance is excellent on all PC systems, with smooth frame rates and a variety of graphic options. The game is also incredibly Steam Deck-friendly, so it's easy to play on many devices. One of the worst elements of Voidling Bound is its sound.

It has a great soundtrack, mixing symphonic and electronic sounds to create a pleasant sci-fi soundscape that works well for battling and exploring.

Several tracks really shine, doing a terrific job of capturing the game's exciting and weird environment. The sounds made by the creatures also help breathe life into the refuge and battles. Different chirps, growls, squawks, and other sounds provide personality to the Voidlings.

The combat sound effects lack some of their punch, which is a shame. Many of the hits feel shockingly quiet, despite the amazing graphics and impressive powers. Ultimate powers, elemental assaults, and big impacts sometimes don't have the gratifying audio feedback that gamers expect. The noises of movement can be too faint, too, which makes bigger monsters move with a peculiar weightlessness.

These issues create a disconnect between what players see and what they hear, but they aren't awful enough to destroy the experience as a whole. Better music blending and stronger combat effects would make the game's presentation considerably better.

Voidling Bound works because it understands where its strengths lie. It's not about competing with those who already collect monsters, but about re-imagining what it may be like to be in charge of a creature. Hatchery Games has done something special in an overcrowded genre, allowing players to get into their monsters directly and then adding a complex customization system to top it off.

The gameplay is enjoyable, fast, and surprisingly interesting. Evolution, breeding, and genetic engineering offer a tremendous number of opportunities for experimentation. Quickly, you get addicted to creating your own unique team of bizarre alien creations.

The game is fun; however, it does have a few issues.

There isn't really a story after the beginning; the missions get boring after a while, and the sound design isn't good enough to adequately support the action. That said, the shortcomings never fully detract from the core experience. Voidling Bound at its best captures the same creative excitement that made games like Spore and Pokémon successful, but also carves out its own unique style.

Voidling Bound is a nice game for people who like to breed monsters and make them better and mix it up. If you are looking for a story-driven journey, or a lot of varied things to do, you might want to keep your hopes low. Hatchery Games has established a very sturdy base. Voidling Bound may not be the latest stride forward in the creature-collecting genre, but it is one of the more inventive ones in a long while.