The Supergiant Run | Bastion

''Proper story's supposed to start at the beginning. Ain't so simple with this one.''

The Supergiant Run is a mini-series where I chronologically play through all games made by Supergiant before the official release of Hades II. Some of my favorite games are made by this amazing indie studio, so I want to relive the experience of playing them again and share my thoughts. You can check out the rest of the entries here: Transistor, Pyre, Hades.

---

Play time: A little above 5 hours
Played on: Steam Deck
Difficulty: Normal

Discover the secrets of the Calamity, a surreal catastrophe that shattered the world to pieces.

I try not to have ‘‘favorite developers’’ or ‘‘favorite studios’’. It’s a very slippery slope, and one that I’d rather not bother with. But I’ve loved every Supergiant game so far and played every game with a childlike wonder. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that if I have to say that I have a favorite game studio, it’s them.

header image from the steam bundle

I sincerely believe that they want to put their hearts and souls into every game they make, and it shows. And I’ve heard really good things about their work ethics, which makes me want to support them. Not overworking your employees and not forcing them to do crunch should be the norm, but in this industry, it unfortunately became the exception.

---

Bastion is the game that put Supergiant Games on the map back in 2011. It was critically acclaimed and widely successful, especially for a first game by a small studio. It was made by only 7 people. It is kind of mindblowing that a studio this small could get big enough to have one of the most highly anticipated indie games of 2025. It was all possible thanks to Bastion, and how well-made this game is.

Games made by Supergiant tend to have a few key points:

• Imaginative plot and worldbuilding

• Distinctive art style

• Banger music

We will delve into these in a moment.

This is not to discredit the gameplay and the mechanics. I really admire that they always want to experiment and try out new things. Each game before Hades has a unique gameplay, and Hades is the culmination of all that they learned from their previous games. I think that’s amazing and something that more studios should take as an example.

Bastion is a game in which you play as ‘‘The Kid’’, move through floating hand-painted worlds, fight against enemies using various weapons, all the while Logan Cunningham is providing delightful narration to the story. Your goal is to restore the Bastion after the Calamity shatters the world, and then rebuild the world using the Bastion.

I played Bastion after I played Transistor way back in 2014. Transistor was how I discovered this studio, as I’ll go into more detail in my next post. I played Bastion again back in 2022, and now in 2025. With each playthrough, I have a new perspective because of how much more aware I am of the process of making a game, and thus getting more impressed at how a 7-person team could do this.

Back in 2014, I had a simpler perspective: am I having fun with this game? The answer was a resolute yes. But by 2022 and now, I have more insider knowledge, more awareness of what is required to make a game. So for a 14-year-old game, I’d say Bastion aged really, really well.

Imaginative plot and worldbuilding

The world of Bastion is kind of bonkers. A ‘‘calamity’’ threw the world into chaos, and as a result, the world is now fractured and… floating. They apparently decided to make a floating world before they even came up with the story. ¹ It’s amazing to know that the story came later, I would have thought the opposite.

As you go through the levels, you get to know the world better, and as the world reveals itself to you, you uncover the story. I will not go into detail with the plot to keep away from spoilers, but I thought it was very well done.

I chose to not use a specific weapon in the end-game, no matter how good it was, because I was petty and, and what that weapon represented was leaving a bad taste in my mouth. This is how you can tell that I was immersed in the story.

I also have to mention the fantastic narration of Logan Cunningham here. On top of telling the story in a fun way, there is also a lot of snarky one-liners about what you are doing in the game at that moment. You start the level and destroy all the props? He comments on it. You fall off a ledge? He sarcastically narrates it. It makes for a really engaging story. One downside of the narration going on during battles is that it’s really hard to pay attention to what he’s saying at times, which made me almost miss some key story moments.

screenshot credit: link

Distinctive art style

One of the most important things that this studio is known for is its art style. That’s thanks to Jen Zee, the lead artist at the studio. You can tell that she put so much love and care into making the world of Bastion. It’s apparent in every tiny detail, every piece that flows into place as you uncover more and more of the world.

It’s a feast for the eyes.

It really feels like you are reading through a storybook, but instead of just reading, you are actively participating in it. The vibrant colors and the whimsical nature of the art style bring everything together and make for a really nice time wandering around the world.

Banger music

Let’s get to the part that makes me hyped the most: the music. Darren Korb is an insane composer, in the best way possible. Just a forewarning, I will be shamelessly glazing the soundtrack of all Supergiant games throughout this mini-series.

Darren Korb has a very distinctive style that can be found in all of their games, which generally involves a fusion of traditional instruments and modern beats. He seems to love experimenting with different samples and he is crazy good with any instrument, especially string instruments.

Terminal March has some absolutely insane riffs. It made it harder to actually fight against the enemy and listen to the narration because I kept bobbing my head to the music. A lot of the music on the levels is amazing like this, but Terminal March is one of the more memorable tracks for me.

Both Zia’s theme and Zulf’s theme are great as character themes, and they both carry very strong leitmotifs. The way they tie into the ending theme, Setting Sail, Coming Home, is extremely satisfying.

These tracks don’t exactly contain spoilers, but I’d recommend holding off on listening to Setting Sail, Coming Home before playing the game to feel the full impact of it.

Darren Korb himself apparently described the style as "acoustic frontier trip hop"². While I don’t know what exactly he meant by this, I’m sure it’s good. Actually, I think that Terminal March is a good example for this ‘‘genre’’.

He becomes an even better composer as years go by, which we will talk about in the upcoming posts in this mini-series.

Gameplay

The gameplay is arguably the weakest part of Bastion, but it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It’s still very fun to experiment with different weapon combos, upgrading them and changing your strategy depending on your enemy. But there is a certain clunkiness to it that shows its age and developers’ inexperience.

However, it’s for sure that Bastion was the main inspiration for Hades’ gameplay. I do believe that Supergiant took the gameplay of Bastion, polished it, applied all that they learned to Hades and made it an incredible experience. You can say that Bastion is the prototype for Hades. Why else would Zagreus use a machine gun in a game based in Ancient Greece? They came up with it in Bastion and loved it, that’s why. The sheer ridiculousness of it makes it very charming.

Overall thoughts

Bastion is an amazing game with great characters, incredible art, and awe-inspiring music. The gameplay may have aged a little and the story is immersive but not mind-blowing. It’s important to evaluate this game for the time it was made and the scale it was made on. Some elements may feel dated, but considering it’s the debut game of a studio that went on to make Hades, I think it deserves to have some leeway.

It only takes around 5-6 hours to finish, so I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who is looking for a shorter game with a great story, visuals, and music. It also pairs well with handheld systems, so I played it as a bedtime story before sleep.

1. ‘‘Once the prototyping proved very promising, this became deeply ingrained in the design of the fictional game world. Why this is a fragmented, shattered land also became very central to the story.’’ - Greg Kasavin

2. ‘‘He then developed a musical motif that he describes as "acoustic frontier trip-hop." Those three things may sound like they don't make much sense, but they do fit together in a cohesive way in our game.’’ - Amir Rao