Dustborn

About

Dustborn is a single player action adventure game with a drama theme. It was developed by Red Thread Games and was released on August 20, 2024. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Dustborn is a single-player, story-driven action-adventure game about hope, love, friendships, robots…and the power of words. You play Pax: exile, con-artist, Anomal — with the ability to weaponize language. Looking for a new life and a way out, Pax has been hired to transport an important package from Pacifica to Nova Scotia, across the Justice-controlled American Republic. Sounds like a legit r…

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66%

Audience ScoreBased on 467 reviews

story132 positive mentions

stability14 negative mentions

Engaging narrative-driven adventure with deep character development and a unique time-sensitive dialogue system that reflects natural conversation flow.
Rich world-building and stylized comic book art style combined with strong voice acting and a diverse cast of flawed but realistic characters.
Optional combat and rhythm mini-games add variety without detracting from the story; combat difficulty is adjustable and can be skipped if desired.

Combat mechanics are clunky, simplistic, and easily bypassed, with some technical issues like frame drops and inconsistent hitboxes reducing enjoyment.
The story pacing is uneven, with a slow start, rushed final chapters, unresolved plot points, and occasional heavy-handed or on-the-nose political commentary.
Dialogue overlaps, repetitive and sometimes cringe-worthy writing, and some forced player choices limit engagement and break immersion.

story
536 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
71%
4%
The story in this game is a choice-driven, character-focused road trip narrative set in a dystopian America, praised for its compelling themes about language, resistance, and found family, with rich worldbuilding and strong voice acting. However, many find it uneven and rushed, with a disjointed main plot, underdeveloped characters, pacing issues, and some forced or illogical story elements; choices influence character relationships but not the core story beats. Despite these flaws, the unique comic-book presentation, emotional moments, and heartfelt character interactions make the story engaging for fans of narrative-driven adventure games.
- “Dustborn is an ambitious narrative-driven road-trip adventure that aims to fuse emotional storytelling, social commentary, stylized visuals, and light action gameplay into one cohesive experience. At the center of the story is Pax, an “Anomal” gifted with vox powers—abilities that turn spoken language into a literal force. Her mission is deceptively simple: transport a mysterious package across the continent. Even in its heaviest moments, the story finds room for humor and warmth, evoking the spirit of a rebellious found-family adventure. These themes offer fertile ground for storytelling, and the game clearly aims to say something significant about the world we live in. At its best, the story is powerful and heartfelt; at its weakest, it feels heavy-handed, rushing through complex social issues without giving them the nuance they deserve. The road trip structure ensures constant evolution, and by the final act, the journey carries the sense of a story that mattered, even if it stumbled along the way. It is imperfect, sometimes clumsy, but unmistakably bold—a story about survival, resistance, and chosen family told through the strange, powerful language of fiction.”
- “The story is simply fantastic – emotional, gripping, and filled with amazing characters that truly grew on me. Each dialogue choice can influence a companion in a different direction, and their current outlook reflects in the way they respond to you—and their story by the end of the game. The story so far also does a good job sparking intrigue with the characters and their past events. Sharp writing, a memorable cast of characters, smart social commentary, varied and clever gameplay and a story that is filled with heart and soul. The story of this game lies within the interactions with its characters, so it will feel a bit bland if you skip through the dialogue. As you play through the game, all these little details suddenly have so much meaning, and it literally feels like a spiderweb (of plot points) is actively forming as you play.”
- “I love this game and don't have much to add to the previous positive reviews that emphasize the story, the characters, the dialog, and the music. The story and world seem heavily inspired by things like Marvel Runaways, Book of Eli, Misfits, and X-Men. All of which are free to be explored and worth it to add some weight to an already heavy story. The game is a story-game with some side-content (rhythm, action) that is either optional or a nice break from the dialogue. The writing for the most part is great: story, characters, setting and dialogue. The story reminds me of 70-80s science fiction, with colorful characters, some of which are at a junction of their lives, some others already know who they are and don't need you.”
- “The big problem is the story, it feels disjointed. We have two plots: a resistance plot to deliver a McGuffin to a resistance fighting fascist organizations that rule a shattered USA, and as their cover they pretend to be a band. These elements take on a road trip vibe.”
- “The story is also an utter mess. It feels like the game’s entire narrative is just a MacGuffin to tell this story about friends on a cross-country road trip and they opted to give no thought to what the Puritans’ goals are, what Justice’s goals are, what Nova Scotia’s goals are.”
- “Your dialogue options basically cause characters to feel different about you, but none of the story beats in the game are affected by this. It’s absurd that any game made these days as an adventure game wouldn’t have story beats affected by your choices. The story is basically linear and your choices are pretty much an illusion.”
gameplay
182 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
65%
13%
Gameplay in Dustborn presents a mixed experience: it combines narrative-driven adventure elements with segments of combat, rhythm games, puzzles, and exploration, offering variety but often feeling shallow or clunky, especially in combat and rhythm mechanics. While the dialogue and story-based mechanics are praised for their integration and player agency, the combat is frequently described as boring, poorly designed, and lacking challenge. Overall, the gameplay supports the storytelling focus but may disappoint players seeking tightly polished or engaging action mechanics.
- “Dustborn’s mechanics are unexpectedly sharp and rewarding, blending action, traversal, and storytelling systems into a gameplay experience that feels fresh and purposeful.”
- “The world isn’t just a backdrop — it’s built with mechanical intent, featuring platforming segments and shortcuts that reward curiosity and mastery of movement.”
- “The dialogue and choice mechanics are cleverly integrated into gameplay, where choosing how to respond alters not only character relationships but mechanical outcomes like available perks and item effectiveness, reinforcing player agency without slowing down pacing.”
- “The gameplay is also really bad; it’s supposed to be an adventure game but features badly designed beat-em-up combat segments which are boring and uninteresting, coupled with a frustrating skill tree system.”
- “The gameplay mechanics in this game are just trash.”
- “Combat in particular tends to be the weakest link: animations feel stiff, encounters lack depth, and repeated enemy types make fights feel more like mechanical obligations than thrilling moments.”
music
171 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23%
64%
13%
The music in the game received mixed reviews, with some praising its integration, atmospheric soundtrack, and how it supports the narrative, while others criticized the rhythm mini-games as frustrating, the band songs as unpolished or cringe-worthy, and the lyrics as weak or off-putting. Although some players enjoyed the challenge and thematic fit of the music segments, many found the gameplay clunky, the songs lacking in quality, and the overall music experience underwhelming compared to expectations for a band-centered story.
- “The music and sound design enhance the experience even more, letting you fully immerse yourself in the world.”
- “The soundtrack reinforces the mood with a mix of punk attitude, atmospheric tones, and soulful tracks that punctuate critical narrative moments.”
- “The music is excellent.”
- “Hated the music rhythm game portion, and the songs were absolutely dreadful, like seriously, what were those?”
- “Awful rhythm minigame with some of the worst music you'll ever hear; songs repeat constantly and none of them are enjoyable.”
- “The music rhythm sections of the game were particularly offensive to me.”
graphics
102 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
45%
51%
4%
The game features a distinctive, vibrant comic book-inspired art style with bold outlines, cel-shading, and colorful visuals that many players find visually appealing and well-suited to its narrative. While some noted minor graphical bugs and occasional performance issues, the overall aesthetic—combined with detailed character designs and dynamic camera control—is praised for enhancing the storytelling and immersive experience. However, a few reviews felt the style tried too hard or found the graphics less impressive compared to similar titles.
- “The cel-shaded, comic-book aesthetic brings environments and characters to life with bold outlines, vibrant palettes, and exaggerated expressions that highlight emotional beats.”
- “The aesthetics are on point too, with excellent comic-book styling layered over every inch, from the shaded lighting to the outlines to the panelled UI and font.”
- “First of all, the comic style art-style is gorgeous; performance wise it's pretty steady with some minor bugs here and there.”
- “Game is damn boring, graphics are worse than 2013-2014 Telltale games, and actually for that price, just get GTA.”
- “The game is aesthetically repulsive and an insult to the entire project of world civilization; playing it for only three hours I developed a terrible headache within the first.”
- “Though as graphically undemanding as this game is, it tends to stutter frequently out of nowhere, just jumping from 144 fps to 40 fps and back for seemingly no reason.”
humor
54 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
93%
7%
The game's humor is a polarizing mix of campy, absurd, and often unintentional comedy, with dialogue that can be both hilarious and cringe-worthy. While some players appreciate its tongue-in-cheek tone, charming character interactions, and satirical elements, others find much of the humor forced, repetitive, or falling flat, especially when political commentary feels heavy-handed. Overall, humor is a highlight for those who enjoy ironic or “so bad it’s funny” moments but may disappoint players seeking a consistently witty or serious narrative.
- “It can be quite interesting and funny, and let you learn more about both characters and the world.”
- “Even background conversations these characters had were so interesting, hilarious and natural that I would avoid ending the night in the game just to listen to them.”
- “The dialogue is funny and has lots of personality, each character is unique and feels distinct, and the voice acting is great.”
- “Dialogs have some problems: too many unfunny quips that characters make.”
- “There's too many cringey quips that aren't funny or engaging at all.”
- “It's not funny now, and it's going to age like a warm bowl of milk left out in the Arizona sun.”
emotional
50 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game delivers a deeply emotional and heartfelt narrative centered on a makeshift family, with moments that can move players to tears and foster strong attachments to its characters. While its ambitious storytelling and stylized visuals enhance its emotional impact, some players find the character portrayals uneven, dialogue occasionally heavy-handed, and emotional scenes sometimes undermined by stiff animations or pacing issues. Overall, it offers a memorable, sincere experience for those who appreciate narrative-driven games blending personal drama with social commentary.
- “Finally finished it and I'm still processing the experience... I admire the game's ambition and attempts at being sincere and heartfelt.”
- “The narrative serves as Dustborn’s beating heart, and the emotional core comes from the makeshift family that joins Pax along her route.”
- “It made me laugh, it made me cry, and I will never forget the journey.”
character development
27 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
56%
11%
The game excels in character development, offering a deeply engaging, character-driven story where player choices significantly shape relationships and endings. While character designs receive mixed opinions—ranging from stylish and unique to overly busy or inconsistent—the overall narrative and dialogue are praised for creating a strong sense of connection and growth among the cast.
- “The core of the game is character development and relationships, with various minigames breaking up the conversations and choices (which do affect the story).”
- “This game has some of the best character development and dialogue I've had the pleasure of experiencing in a long time.”
- “Dustborn is great for narrative enjoyers, I loved the character development of the characters so far, it really feels like being part of a crew going on a road-trip!”
- “Some character designs feel like they were designed by the most overstimulated person in the pillbox.”
- “The character designs just feel like they spun a wheel or had a dart board with various quotas they needed filled and after landing on a couple of options that's how they decided to diversify their cast.”
- “While I enjoyed the variety of things to do in this game (exploration and choices with guitar hero and ghost buster and x-men vibes), I feel like more of the lore and character development could've been explored and wrapped up better in the end.”
stability
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
78%
The game's stability is mixed, with many users reporting frequent bugs, visual glitches, and occasional game-breaking issues requiring reloads, while others experience a relatively smooth, bug-free playthrough. Combat mechanics and animations show occasional clunkiness and glitches, but the overall game remains playable with maintained progress despite these hiccups. Stability appears to vary depending on platform and player experience, with some praising its smooth launch and minor issues.
- “Game is not buggy.”
- “On a positive note: the game actually works and is bug free.”
- “Runs great on the Ally.”
- “It doesn't help either that the game is buggy as all hell, with visual glitches galore throughout and even some actual game-breaking bugs that require reloading your last autosave.”
- “The game doesn't run well for what it looks like. The audio mixing is terrible and you have to look at characters to hear them correctly, which is incredibly annoying. The combat is buggy, glitchy, clunky, and stutters like crazy.”
- “At one point after some fighting my character model just disappeared, so I had to restart the game, but luckily the progress was maintained.”
optimization
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
45%
22%
Optimization in the game is inconsistent, with frequent performance issues such as stuttering, buggy combat, and poor collision detection negatively impacting gameplay. While some aspects run steadily, the overall coding feels unpolished and in need of patches to fix glitches and improve smoothness. Despite these technical flaws, the narrative and voice performances offer enough engagement to maintain player interest.
- “First of all, the comic-style art is gorgeous, and performance-wise it's pretty steady with some minor bugs here and there.”
- “I also stumbled upon some performance issues during combat, but it was nothing too serious.”
- “It just needs a patch to iron out some minor issues and improve performance a bit.”
- “The optimization is horrendous, the coding feels like it’s held together with duct tape, and the collision detection is an absolute mess—constant clipping everywhere.”
- “The game doesn't run well for what it looks like; the combat is buggy, glitchy, clunky, stuttering like crazy, even though the boss fights are actually pretty okay.”
- “While this game is good for a laugh for how insane the writing is, it's also poorly optimized, with boring combat you can spam basic attacks to win most of the time.”
grinding
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
10%
90%
Users find the grinding in the game tedious, lengthy, and often required, detracting from the overall experience. The mechanics, particularly combat and mini-games, feel poorly designed or like unnecessary filler, leading to repetitive and unengaging gameplay that contrasts with the game's vocal power-up theme. Grinding lacks difficulty scaling, further contributing to its stale and monotonous nature.
- “It’s so tedious and it takes so long and it’s literally required.”
- “Again…the whole plot of the game is your character leveling up her voice/vocal powers… why is this a guitar hero game where you literally sing to level up your powers instead of this other tedious mini game?”
- “With the exception of the final boss, enemies never scale in difficulty as you progress, making combat quickly become tedious and stale.”
atmosphere
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
83%
17%
The game delivers a unique and well-crafted atmosphere, blending dynamic "always on the move" pacing with a fitting comic art style and a diverse soundtrack that enhances key narrative moments. Its road-trip vibe and light narrative choices create an engaging, cohesive mood that resonates strongly with players.
- “The soundtrack reinforces the mood with a mix of punk attitude, atmospheric tones, and soulful tracks that punctuate critical narrative moments.”
- “It offers a unique atmosphere, light narrative choices, and a road-trip dynamic that instantly reminded me of Road 96.”
- “The comic style is beautiful and perfectly fits the atmosphere.”
replayability
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
34%
33%
The game offers strong replayability due to its numerous twists and multiple potential outcomes, encouraging multiple playthroughs. However, the lack of consistent or manual save points slightly hinders the experience.
- “There are so many twists and turns and potentials for different outcomes that this game also has good replayability if you're into doing multiple runs!”
- “It would also help with replayability if save points were always after conversations ended or if players were able to manually save.”
monetization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game’s monetization is well-received, with players appreciating the absence of microtransactions and DRM. This approach is seen as a positive aspect that enhances the overall experience.
- “Judging it as a game, I appreciate that there are no microtransactions or DRM.”