Lootborne: an RPG that plays in a window beside your work, and sells its items on the Steam Market

Lootborne launches on 21 September, so this is not a review. It is a friendly warning paired with genuine curiosity, because this game does two unusual things and I only like one of them.

The one I like: the window

The game runs in a window small enough to sit beside whatever you are actually doing.

With the always-on-top option, your hero keeps fighting and looting on its own for as long as stamina holds, then rests and goes again. You glance over now and then, when you decide it is time to level up or change gear.

That is refreshingly honest. Plenty of idle games pretend to deserve your exclusive attention; this one owns being a desk companion.

And the content follows: 424 items across six rarities, from magic rings to mythic artefacts, with five elemental affinities that stack, 26 perks that change how you fight, 25 potions to tilt a losing fight, and the ability to respec your stats, which stops an early mistake condemning a character.

Duplicates go to the forge, where you can gamble them upward. Classic, effective.

Asynchronous PvP

Your build does not stay confined to fighting the computer. You face other players' characters, with no lobby and no queue.

The interesting detail: challenges resolve even when you are not playing, with the results waiting when you come back. There is a global ladder, the option to challenge your Steam friends, and four PvP bosses dropping gear you cannot get anywhere else.

The one that needs watching: the market

Here is the point worth pausing on, because it is rare and it commits you.

Some of the game's items will be tradable on the Steam Community Market for Steam Wallet funds.

In the studio's defence, it defuses the subject itself with a formula I find healthy: it considers this a feature of the game, not a reason to play it. And it sets precise safeguards.

The market will only open one week after release. Only Rare and Epic items, plus Legendary items dropped in battle, will be tradable. Common, Mythic and Ascended items are account-bound, as are forged Legendary items, so they cannot circulate. Trading unlocks at level 15, on an account meeting certain conditions.

It is considered. It does not remove the underlying question, which is what happens to a game's balance when its items carry a real price, but it shows a team that anticipated the problem rather than discovering it.

What we will be watching at launch

Three things.

The value of time spent. A game running beside your work has to reward returning without punishing absence. That is a delicate balance.

The market's effect on progression. If the best items can be bought, the progression curve changes nature, safeguards or no safeguards.

And the health of asynchronous PvP, which depends entirely on the number of active players. An empty global ladder is not a ladder.

See you on 21 September to settle it.

Would you leave an RPG running beside your meetings? Confessions accepted on the InsertCoins Discord.