Lootbound – Review

RNGeezus

I don't think it's a surprise that I have a soft spot for so-called "dad games". They don't demand much thought, but they have a loop that keeps you glued to the screen when you have very little time, or you're too tired to fire up your favourite JRPG or soulslike. Titles like Slay the Spire, Dredge, PowerWash Simulator and even Vampire Survivors are popular with players who have responsibilities, because they don't ask for the same dedication or hours as Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth or Elden Ring.

And so, among the recent games to land in my lap is Lootbound, the latest game from ArtDock Games, a small studio from the Republic of Moldova that has set its sights on becoming a genuine industry powerhouse. Although they've made more casual titles in the past, such as SOS OPS! and Penguin Helper, the studio looks to be getting serious now with its newest release: Lootbound.

Nobody will be shocked to hear that plenty of games borrow elements from the industry's titans. Whether it's the visual style of Children of Morta, the progression system of Slay the Spire, the inventory of Diablo or even the RNG of Borderlands 2, any current title borrows a little from other studios' releases. But it's rare to find a game that manages to blend all those borrowed pieces into something coherent and interesting, and that is exactly what Lootbound does! If I've made you curious, let's start with the story!

The Darkness of the Dungeons

Normally this is where I'd give a short summary of the narrative, but not this time, because there's simply nothing to discuss in Lootbound. The player does have a goal: to work through the three zones and face the boss at the end of the journey. But we never learn why we set out on this "legendary" quest. Revenge? A better life? The good of humanity? Those questions go unanswered, because the player is thrown straight into the world of Lootbound with no explanation. Over the 12 hours I spent in this universe, I had a handful of interactions that could count as a story thread, but it doesn't seem to be the main one: they happen around a campfire, between members of our own party. They don't tie into any wider narrative, since they reveal more about the characters involved than about the intriguing world of Lootbound. The game suffers for it, and this is one of its weakest points.

Unlike other roguelites that put their dark stories front and centre, such as Hades, Curse of the Dead Gods, Dead Cells or even Slay the Spire, ArtDock's game puts the emphasis on its inventive gameplay. As I said above, the developer has taken several familiar elements and combined them in a coherent and interesting way. Combat is turn-based, and progression and enemies are clearly randomly generated, but absolutely everything hangs on the RNG system. As a result, I've had excellent, almost perfect runs as well as disastrous ones, and all of them came down to that wretched random number generator.

Every run begins with choosing a character, after which we set off on the adventure and are joined by up to three secondary characters. They're controlled by the computer and, together with the player, make up a typical D&D party: a tank, a spellcaster, a DPS and a healer. In Lootbound, those roles are filled by the paladin, witch, warrior and bard. We begin the whole adventure with the warrior, but successfully completing a run unlocks one of the other three companions as a character to start with. The characters who join you can't be controlled and will automatically attack the most wounded enemy.

Picture this: you're near the end of a run, your build is perfect and you've got plenty of mana for the current fight against a mob. According to the turn order, you go first, followed by the rest of your AI-controlled teammates. The enemy is some random creep you've wiped the floor with countless times by now. You press the ability that should obliterate it and are stunned when it misses. Then the ground drops out from under you as the rest of the party misses too. Not a single one of your attacks finds its target, and the creep subjects you to death by a thousand cuts, destroying your HP, your run and your sanity. That's roughly the risk you run with the RNG system in Lootbound, which doesn't seem to be balanced.

Don't get me wrong: the situation above is an extreme one, but it's one that happened to me and to other people who had access to the game before launch. And RNG is built into everything, tied to absolutely every aspect of the game: from map generation to which enemies you'll face, and even which gear the defeated enemies drop as rewards. Yes, it's frustrating to suffer a whole string of misses because of RNG, but you'll also see the flip side, when luck smiles on you non-stop. The only place RNG didn't appear was at the end of a zone, where we were asked directly what kind of modifiers we wanted the final boss to have. The player gets to choose between several options and build around them to take it down.

The big surprise in Lootbound is that the fights and the systems around them aren't the main attraction. Yes, they're necessary for progression, but they're not what will keep your eyes glued to the screen. No, what will pin you to your monitor is managing your inventory as efficiently as possible, and for that reason I can say without a shadow of doubt that Lootbound is a "dad game".

Tetris with Swords

The game's main attraction is its inventory system. It bears a striking resemblance to the one in Diablo II, being grid-based, but unlike in that legendary game, here we can rotate items to find the perfect spot for them. Yes, you could compare it to the system in Resident Evil 4, but Lootbound brings an inventive idea of its own: item positioning!

Runs depend partly on the gear you pick up, and some items have passives that only activate when certain other items are next to them. For example, a suit of armour can trigger a passive that considerably boosts life-steal (called vampirism here) if it's surrounded by helmets, and a dagger can improve its slashing attribute if it's placed between two swords. What begins as random placement of items in the player's inventory slowly turns into painstaking work, as dedicated players try to squeeze as many benefits as possible out of the "perfect" arrangement of their pack.

As you'd expect, the gear collected during a run turns into a resource at the end, which can be spent in the "base" to upgrade the character we set off with. It's the standard setup for roguelites, but the model doesn't work efficiently with multiple characters, because the true progression experience only happens with the first one. Later characters get a much better head start from the outset thanks to upgrades bought with the crystals gathered during the first character's runs.

As I mentioned above, RNG is the foundation, and most of the attributes on gear depend directly on RNGeezus. And it pokes its nose into absolutely everything, because upgrading gear or gaining new abilities means dealing with it again, this time in the form of a "game". For those of you who grew up in a tower block in the 1990s and 2000s, and for fans of Dungeons & Dragons (or Pathfinder, if you're not in the Wizards of the Coast camp), this game will feel quite familiar, because it involves rolling a die. Getting "fatal" abilities and optimal gear upgrades takes high rolls, and if Fortuna isn't smiling on you, you can try again, depending on the type of die you're using. The basic ones let you re-roll a few times per run, while others come with modifiers similar to those in Baldur's Gate III.

To top it all off, Lootbound isn't a bad game: it manages to blend its borrowed elements in a coherent and interesting way, but it doesn't reach the same level of quality as the titles that inspired it. The tiresome, unpredictable use of RNG detracts from the experience, though that's partly offset by the clever loot management system. Still, given the affordable price it will launch at on 14 August, I can't help but recommend it both to fans of dad games and to anyone curious about the roguelite genre.

Thanks to ArtDock and Dreland Enterprises for the review code and the chance to play Lootbound before launch.

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Available on: Xbox Series X/S, PC
Played on: PC (Steam)
Release date: 14 August 2026
Developer: ArtDock
Publisher: Dreland Enterprises