I like it when a recreation comes out of nowhere and surprises me. Earlier this month, that’s precisely what occurred once I noticed the trailer for VoidBreaker throughout Gamescom Opening Night time Dwell. I downloaded the fast-paced sci-fi roguelike FPS shortly after seeing it, and never solely is it good, nevertheless it may be the most effective shooters I’ve performed all 12 months. And it was made nearly fully by one man, Daniel Stubbington.
VoidBreaker is an extremely quick and smooth first-person shooter accessible now in early entry on Steam and Recreation Cross PC. The sport is ready inside a big, extremely superior AI program that’s utilizing human check topics to collect information on fight and warfare. This entails you endlessly preventing and dying over and over by way of “runs” of this system’s randomly generated gauntlets crammed with varied robotic enemies and different odd cyber-opponents. Fortunately, very early on, a earlier human who was attempting to flee this system contacts you to assist take the AI down and get out alive. Sadly, your ally is simply the digital stays of a really lifeless one that has a skeleton hiding in your cyberjail’s basement. However whereas he’s lifeless, his thoughts remains to be in this system and helps you hack the system, slowly unlocking everlasting bonuses and new weapons that will help you get additional throughout every action-filled run.
If a few of that sounds foolish, it’s! And that’s the purpose. VoidBreaker leans into the absurd and unusual state of affairs you end up in, with plentiful jokes delivered by a dry robotic announcer throughout runs. Messages embody this system explaining how dwelling endlessly in ache is best than dying, and the way you aren’t alone as a result of the AI is at all times watching you. It strikes that excellent stability between foolish and darkish that Portal nailed so a few years in the past.
One other run, one other run, one other run….
The gameplay loop of VoidBreaker will really feel fairly acquainted in the event you’ve performed any roguelike recreation in the previous few years. Every run feels totally different, as enemy encounters and different sections of the digital gauntlets are randomly generated. As you progress by way of these runs, you discover mods of assorted rarity ranges that offer you new skills, make you stronger or sooner, and even change how your gun works. And naturally, as in most roguelikes, there’s a forex you earn that may solely be used at retailers that randomly seem in your path throughout that run. There’s additionally a forex that allows you to unlock everlasting upgrades within the aforementioned secret lifeless man basement.
So yeah, nothing groundbreaking in Voidbreaker. As an alternative, the rationale to play this new FPS is for the gameplay and fight. Motion in VoidBreaker is extremely easy, snappy, and satisfying. That is the type of recreation the place it’s simply enjoyable to run round and soar, even exterior of a battle. And gunplay is equally unbelievable, with the assault rifle you unlock pretty early into the sport being a loud and hectic loss of life machine that sprays enemies with bullets in a manner that at all times makes me pleased. Buildings and different buildings you notice within the ranges will also be destroyed à la Battlefield and crumble upon enemies, gorgeous and even killing them. Oh, and you may decide up most objects utilizing a Half-Life-like Gravity Gun mechanic and fling them again at baddies, too.
As you improve your character throughout runs, including ice bullets, enhancing your Gravity-Gun-thingy, unlocking hearth assaults, and gathering super-powerful grenade mods, the motion in VoidBreaker can grow to be extraordinarily chaotic. At occasions, it grew to become almost an excessive amount of for my eyes to maintain observe of as my rifle spat out electrically charged bullets coated in vitality fields, buildings collapsed round me, and enemies stuffed the world with varied purple projectiles that may do loads of harm in the event you aren’t cautious. It may be lots, and I believe for some it may be an excessive amount of. However I loved each second of it, even when there have been undoubtedly occasions once I was simply spamming my skills and grenades towards a large cloud of destruction and loss of life and hoping for one of the best.
However the chaos is a part of the enjoyable, and loss of life isn’t that massive of a deal in VoidBreaker. In spite of everything, it simply gave me one other excuse to load again up in my bizarre, sparse cyber residence/jail and shortly say hello to the skeleton within the basement earlier than hopping again out for yet one more run. I’m excited to see how the sport expands in early entry. Now, I must go and play extra VoidBreaker. Only one extra run. I’ll go to mattress ultimately. It’s solely 2 a.m….
