“Become a Space Wrangler and take direct control of creatures called “Voidlings” in this action-packed sci-fi 3rd person shooter. Shape them through branching evolution paths and upgrade their abilities to overcome bubonic swarms, pestilent bosses, and reclaim lush planets overrun by corruption. Shoot, slash, slam, and blast your way through battles. Evade, block, or parry incoming attacks. Sprint, jump, and dash across diverse biomes and planets. Charge and unleash devastating ultimate abilities to defeat the most challenging foes.” – Steam Description

Voidling Bound is a third-person, action adventure RPG with a focus on creature collection and evolution. The game has multiple systems in place to help you fine tune your creatures to overcome the challenges that await.

The game has nine different creature types which you can level to add a singular point per level to one of five attributes. Strength, Essence, Vitality, Recuperation and Agility. You can evolve your creature down one of two elemental paths using elemental mutagens you collect within missions and unlock a variety of alternate abilities and traits to help define your playstyle. You have a primary attack which is usually a basic ranged or melee attack, a secondary like some variant of “grenade” attack or leap, a defensive attack such as a dash, block or shield and your ultimate which charges over time.
The core elements the creatures evolve into coincide with certain enemy types. Fire and Organic (poison) are strong against Plague creatures, Ice and Digital (electric) are strong against robots, and Plasma is strong against all enemy types though slightly weaker than a specialized element. While gene splicing makes it possible to give a creature any element, certain enemy types are very obviously meant to be fought with ability types as well as element, like a ranged ice creature struggles against robots due to not having the correct kit.

Within missions you can also find eggs that you can bring back to your hatchery to add to your collection. These wildly laid eggs can have a variety of creatures. They hatch with either a mutated element or possess a nature that greatly influences starting attributes. You can breed your creatures within your hatchery to mix attributes and potentially create a more powerful offspring.

In addition to evolving a creature, you can also add enhancements to boost the skills and abilities of all creatures of the same type that are in your collection permanently. You can place your creatures in various devices within your gym to have them train for general experience or target one specific attribute up to a cap based on your Wrangler level.

Finally, you have your splicing station which you can use to directly modify every aspect of your creature including its physical appearance. It allows you to add traits which directly influence their base attributes, specifically target skills and abilities you prefer within that creatures genetic line, completely override its base elemental type or even mix and match elements per skill.

• Graphics– Graphically the game is stylized and cute. I found even some of the most intimidating enemies have their own charm. Everything about the game is distinct while surprisingly nothing seems to get lost in the chaos of combat once things start getting more complex with your build.
• Gameplay– The gameplay does, unfortunately, leave something to be desired. While the systems mentioned above for customization leave a lot to the player, the way the missions play out get in the way. While gene splicing makes it possible to give a creature any element, certain enemy types are very obviously meant to be fought with ability types as well as element, like a ranged ice creature struggles against robots due to not having the correct kit.
  In addition, there are only a handful of actual mission types and they tend to get very repetitive, very quickly. The missions themselves always offer the same things such as eggs and mutagens to help you customize your creatures. Other than getting through the missions themselves or progressing the story missions, there isn’t a lot of incentive to continue to progress further. There’s no carrot at the end of the stick so it feels difficult to want to continue for anything other than the sake of completion. The combat itself is fine but nothing to write home about. It’s simple and flows well. Its has potential, but I was left wanting more.
• Sound– Sound from a purely technical standpoint is exactly what it needs to be. You can hear enemies and attacks in time to react before you take damage. The directional audio is accurate and you can use it to find an enemy that might be hiding around terrain. The music of the game is very lack luster, mostly only adding to ambiance. Even now after playing the game and reviewing my own gameplay footage, I wouldn’t be able to identify one of their tracks if it was played for me out of context.
• Controls– The controls are intuitive and tight. The inclusion of a double jump by default is appreciated, making it feel simple to get around, even through the simple platforming sections of the game or when exploring for hidden items. My only complaint is that it can get a little confusing between creatures when one has a dash (on shift by default) as their defensive ability when another has a block instead and a leap as the secondary attack (right-click by default). When going between creatures, I regularly found myself flubbing a block instead of leaping out of the way of an attack because I was personally more used to the dash.
• Story– The story of the game is very bare bones, serving more as a vehicle to get you between missions more than anything. There are no notes or lore items to discover within missions and it is very much at face value as told you by the few NPCs on your ship. Much to my disappointment, I was greeted at the beginning by a wonderful cinematic that laid the premise of the game and had a fairly decent voiceover only to find that there is no voice acting anywhere else in the game.