Heartbound
Skip · RPG · 2018 · Early Access
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
SKIP IT.
It scores 0, under the fair line, at $9.99.
- Length
- 2.3h
- Value
- $4.34/hr
- Reviews
- 53% positive
Watch this gameOne alert when it is worth buying.
Minimum on the Steam store: 4 GB of memory, 512MB, 502 MB of storage. Runs on Windows, Linux.
Heartbound is a non-traditional role-playing game about a boy, his dog, secrets, and sanity.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
The value story
The lowest price on record is $7.99, set in December 2021. 18 discounts in the 8 years on record. They run about 20 percent off, roughly 6 weeks apart.
It is less well reviewed than 98 percent of its genre. The games it most resembles do better on the same math. Evoland 2 ($4.99, scores 75) and Outcore: Desktop Adventure (free, scores 93) both outscore it.
6 of the 800 Steam-purchase reviews sampled here come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written July 2024 to August 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 35 percent of the 980 reviews written there were positive, against 53 percent overall, and those are 30 percent of everything written about it.
It carries Valve's Deck Verified rating and runs 2.3 hours, about as long as a handheld game wants to be.
The drop-off
24% start to <1% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
What players say
Many a time ago, I bought this game, and while I enjoyed it, it felt hollow. (Of course it did. This is an early access game, despite the version is past v1 (which means finished)) I then looked up the developer to find their dev logs, since steam updates had been unusually quiet. What I found, was a f****ing gaming channel. A popular one, where every stream at best he would program like 15 minutes at a time and...
dont buy this. Game been in development hell for YEARS. They are still working on the second of 3 area's. Gameplay wise its also just walking around and talking. 'Puzzles' are WAY too easy. Only 2 combat sequences in the game and they are both the same. Not worth it.
I had hopes for this game. And I want to believe it still has potential. But it just falls short as of now. Lot of dialogue yet the story feels disjointed. The foundation is there, the music/audio design is really good. And the art gives this game a unique identity. Controversies aside, Pirate Software had big ideas for this game and a bigger team I think can help flesh this game out.
Steam reviews, mixed to match its Steam ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Heartbound scores 0/100 on the BANG Score (a skip) as of Oct 2, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/567380/heartboundReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 26, price as of Oct 1.
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