Dustborn Reviews
Dustborn brings angst to a comic book caper about an alternate-reality America, and you'll get an emotional ride with a few exciting punk performances if you stick with it through a slow start.
Dustborn’s rhythm mini-game is just another way the game demonstrates how underdeveloped it all is. Its terribly paced narrative is married to an elementary view of authoritarianism and stars an irritating crew that never stops talking. Combat is woefully simplistic and lacks the necessary smooth controls. None of its systems fit together coherently, either, because they’re all underbaked in one way or another and, in some cases, plagued by glitches. It’s hard for Dustborn to fight the power when it’s too busy fighting with itself at every turn.
Dustborn loses power when it feels the need to look straight at the camera and make sure you understand it
This overly ambitious adventure game’s heart is in the right place
Dustborn tells a story about spreading misinformation and the power of words, with some great ideas despite some frustration.
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.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
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 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.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Dustborn delivers a "road movie" story with an interesting and addictive plot that also gives great sensitivity to issues as important as gender identity or the empowerment of women. All this makes you overlook some of its stumbling blocks in terms of gameplay.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
It is rare for a game to be about something, to work its themes into every fiber of its being, to ask us to think about the world around us and reflect on who we are, the world we live in, and the things we’ve done to make it what it is. Dustborn does that, and it's special because of it. It doesn’t always work, but what it gets wrong pales in comparison to what it does right. It is a reminder that what we say and do matters. That, to quote Hemingway, “The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.” That a better world is possible, if only we have the courage to build it, if we can find the right words to speak it into existence. Let there be light.
Dustborn follows the Telltale Games studio's precepts: no-choice elections, minimal variation, and silly plot twists. The second part of the game looks like it was finished by another team of writers.
Review in Russian | Read full review
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 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 a game that tries to be many things, and in the end does instill some of its charm in the player. However, the grating tone of the game's dialogue, which takes up the bulk of the game's run time, hampers the user's overall enjoyment. It's a bit of a missed opportunity, as underneath it all is a story and game world that begs to be properly realized.
Overall, it was enjoyable to watch the relationships between the characters unfold. However, the prologue soured it early on for me, as it felt a bit too overexaggerated. The conversations and getting to explore new environments were some of the best parts of Dustborn, while I unfortunately found the combat system to be a little lacking in places. Still, the idea for this game is incredibly unique and one that I really enjoyed.
Dustborn is a very strange game: in its narrative and graphic adventure component, the game is of unique beauty. Then every once in a while you get some fighting sessions that are really bad and you wonder why they included them.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Dustborn may not be one of the most memorable releases of the year, yet there is some good in the work done by Red Thread Games. The story on the road does not always travel on the right tracks and some characters are out of focus, helping to weaken a title with undoubted potential. That said, it undoubtedly remains a title to keep an eye on, and who knows if that path from West to East may not be to your liking, despite the critical issues.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Tempered by lackluster combat, Dustborn is a thought-provoking narrative adventure where your actions have lasting impact.
Dustborn has noble intentions, but intentions don't matter as much as execution and it executes just about everything poorly. There are too many characters and gameplay styles to make any one of them shine, let alone enjoyable.
Combining dialogue-driven drama, a sprinkling of humour, interesting well-written characters, combat with a baseball bat, and a variety of other distractions, Dustborn emerges as a compelling and memorable schlep across America.