The Indie Informer

As I sat down for my session with Dinogod’s Bounty Star at Summer Game Fest, I was pumped at the idea of a Wild West setting and exciting mech combat. Ex-soldier Clementine McKinney, or Clem, has failed her town, letting violent scoundrels overrun it, and now everyone and everything she cared about is gone. In an attempt to repent and move on with life, Clem is trying to build her life back up, attempting to go legit by taking on bounties and taking out the scum terrorizing the land.

The first half of the Bounty Star demo is more serene than I expected. Instead of jumping into the fray and blasting outlaws in a mech, I was instead doing chores around Clem’s adopted homestead. First, I gathered ingredients for a cactus salad, then provided power to some forsaken appliances before doing a little revolver target practice, shattering glass bottles scattered around the property. This little oasis is a nice calming respite in Clem’s daily activities outside of the brutal business she takes care of when she’s taking on bounties.

Fitting for an ex-soldier turned bounty hunter, the central garage is where she stores her trusty Desert Raptor MKII and can customize it for battle. The Raptor can be outfitted with a variety of items that can be geared towards specific playstyles. For instance, when choosing my weapons of war, I gravitated toward a massive hammer, a favorite blunt armament when I play Monster Hunter. Little did I know how appropriate this choice was. Speaking with the game’s director Ben Ruiz, he’s a big fan of Capcom’s series, and much of Bounty Star is inspired by it, as I’d soon find out the hard way when signing up for my first bounty.

Stepping into the mission, Clem is now suited in her mech, which gives her plenty of firepower to deal with enemies. However, I completely misjudged the pace of combat; running and shooting and swinging my hammer at will made my Raptor overheat quickly, leaving me stranded and waiting in a pit of danger while its systems rebooted. Of course, I didn’t learn my lesson, overheated again, and was destroyed by the mercenaries I was tasked with destroying.

Once I took a second to recalibrate my brain, I started to gel with Bounty Star’s combat, which begs the player to be patient and thoughtful with their actions. To take out airborne drones, I relied on my mech’s gun, and to take out mercs on the ground, my hammer and some well-timed dodges were enough to clear the mission. 

While my time as a bounty hunter initially humbled me, I had fun sharpening my skills in piloting the Desert Raptor and living a day in Clem’s boots. Because there are a number of other weapons I didn’t get to play with, and there’s a lot of the homestead still left to see, I don’t feel like I got a real grasp of what Bounty Star is truly capable of. Still, I’m glad it taught me a valuable lesson in hubris that gave me a taste of what’s in store when it releases in the first part of 2025.

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