Though exploring the post-apocalyptic wastes is nothing new, developer Arkavi Studios has seen fit to explore it in a little more personal matter, following the tale of a little girl and her robotic companion in Bonded. After depending on our machine companions for a little too long, a catastrophe happens, and mankind is forced underground, and backed well into a corner. With humanity's numbers dwindling into the triple digits and falling, a young girl, Mira, and her robotic friend Bao sets out to find her parents, and perhaps quite a bit more.

Being that this is a third-person exploration/platformer game, Arkavi haven't said much else about the story and what else is going to be discovered. What has been revealed is that players will be able to swap between the robot and the girl freely, allowing the two to collect items and progress through puzzles requiring both characters. The screenshots included don't reveal much either, but do give hints at a world dominated by the machines, with large mechanical structures and oddly geometric features dotting the game world.

Looking at the other game on Arkavi's rapport does have me a bit worried, however. They released the critically panned Lords of the Black Sun, a space 4X game just last fall, and it was apparently shipped in quite the incomplete state. With few updates to follow, the community response turned quite negative. Bonded has promise, so let's hope that Arkavi has learned from their mistakes when it comes out on PC and modern consoles this winter.