Bound by Flame

Bound by Flame lets the players customize their character. During the creation of their hero, players will be able choose their gender and then choose from three pre-made models.

Through its different chapters, Bound by Flame follows a main quest with optional side quests. Several companions will join the player during their quest, and will, depending on the player's actions, develop friendship, romance, or rivalry. Depending on the choices made by the player and the influence of the demon, some chapters will offer different scenarios and a different experience.

The story takes place in the fictional land of Vertiel during a war between the Elves and Red Scribes against an assembly of immortal necromancers known as the Ice Lords and their undead empire, the Frozen Shadows. The player character is an unnamed mercenary known only by their pseudonym; Vulcan. They are a demolition specialist in service to the illustrious sellsword company, the Freeborn Blades. Vulcan is a mysterious person whose past is largely forgotten by them.

The Freeborn Blades are under the employment of the Red Scribes in their attempt to hold back the army of undead in service to the Ice Lords. During a mysterious ritual conducted by the Red Scribes, something goes wrong and Vulcan is possessed by a fiery demon. Vulcan is endowed with inhuman powers of strength and magical abilities of pyromancy, which they then use to overpower and defeat an undead Juggernaut beast.

Jehanne Rousseau, CEO of Spiders, said "Bound by Flame is like Mars on the game-play aspect, but of course the universe is completely different. We really tried to listen to all the critics we had from the players, from the press, and we tried to work differently on some aspects that were very poor in Mars. Now we have more of a budget and more time to develop it, so we tried to improve all the things we can." The game was not released on the Xbox One due to the team not being given development kits for the console in time.

The game's soundtrack was composed by Olivier Deriviere. In an interview, Derivière stated, "I really wanted to capture a sense of loneliness and despair with the music so I created unique soundscapes to support the different locations and atmospheres." Derivière went on to talk about the possessed hero Vulcan and that he "thought it would be very interesting to have a contrast between the dead and the living." In the same interview, singer Iré Zhekova who lent her voice to some of the game's music tracks says she "used an imaginary language because she wanted to explore the human voice and express the emotion beyond the words."

Bound by Flame received mixed reviews. It was criticized for its lack of deeper character development, relationship building with party members, poor AI system, short length, and poor combat that gives the game an unnecessary difficulty. Excessive and inappropriate swearing and profanity to give the game an artificial edge as well as out of place jokes and misplaced dialogue and information have also been cited. Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot stated that there are several questionable design choices such as when "you're asked to enter a name for your character—a name that is then summarily ignored by the game's supporting cast...

This identity crisis may seem a minor detail, but it is a head-scratcher of an issue in a role-playing game full of head-scratchers, each one more stymieing than the last." Adam Beck of Hardcore Gamer had similar sentiment as other reviewers, opining "Bound by Flame is a charming RPG that's fundamentally and mechanically flawed."