Many games tout impressive destruction systems under the hood, but few implement it as well as Void/Breaker. The ruin is visually spectacular, sure – who doesn’t love to watch buildings crumble because of your grenade or gravity-thrown explosives? But importantly, it’s a critical aspect of Void/Breaker’s roguelite design. Enemies caught beneath falling rubble become instantly staggered, and that’s your moment to kill. Grenades do this too, as do most items you throw at the hostile AI machinery trying to end your run, creating a vortex of shifting priorities as you dash, jump, and shoot at sequential staggered enemies in your sightlines. Countless weapon mods and permutations make fewer than a dozen weapons feel like hundreds in your arsenal, adding even more blissful chaos to the mix. Though it can be difficult at times, if you can see through the literal remains of your destruction, one of the year’s most engaging shooters awaits.
Void/Breaker wastes no time getting a gun in your hand. An AI voice in your head wants your help escaping a simulation where thousands of runners attempt to reach the end of multi-arena stages to defeat a boss. He asks that you simply follow the simulation’s commands; meanwhile, he uses the data you collect along the way to find new exits for you and him. The storytelling style is very reminiscent of Valve’s Portal. Something much larger is at play here, but it’s worth discovering for yourself.
This narrative framework supports the game’s roguelite structure. Mechanically, however, you enter various themed digital stages, from liminal spaces to beaches to snow-capped cliffs and more, and attempt to survive. Most arenas consist of a couple of starkly white structures that your grenades and thrown explosives can topple (ideally onto waves of enemies below). Learning the language of Void/Breaker means constantly scanning your field of view for explosives and structures practically begging to come down, and then eyeing neon-green bars above enemies that tell you they’re staggered and ready for a quick kill. Developer Stubby Games throws plenty of wrenches into this formula, like armored foes and electrostatic enemies you must melee first, and elite bots that will have you on the back foot, but for the most part, Void/Breaker’s formula is “Break stuff, then kill.”
The game emphasizes explosives and bringing buildings down, but your guns do most of the killing; you can only select one weapon per run. You choose from a pistol, shotgun, machine gun, sniper, and more, and each has its perks (though once I unlocked the SMG, I rarely picked anything else). There’s no sense overthinking your weapon, though, because the dozens of mods you pick up each run determine its effectiveness. As you pick up more schematics, the pool of mods you find in chests or drop from enemies expands, and soon your gun fires corrosive acid, electricity, fire, projectile missiles, and more. Not to mention, mods change how the gun fires, how much damage certain bullets do, recoil, accuracy, and just about any other stat you associate with firing a video game gun. Wild combinations are easy to create, and a unique mod-stacking mechanic that can double or triple effectiveness adds a light touch of puzzle design to this otherwise straight shooter.
Stubby Games smartly emphasizes player expression, never getting in the way of the zanier combinations available to players. The SMG I used to beat the final boss featured mods that made each bullet electric, shot missiles with each shot, covered each bullet in a destructive orb, and featured a ricochet perk that made each bullet bounce off walls and split into even more bullets. I’m thankful for mid-run saves because this SMG permutation, paired with an ability mod that let me throw infinite grenades for a limited time, filled my screen with so much destruction that the entire game crashed. I’d usually bemoan such a thing, but I couldn’t help but laugh. I pushed my PC to its limit with my on-screen chaos.
Boss fights leave a little to be desired – I rarely died because of their simple bullet-hell arenas. Instead, most runs ended because, after bringing down every structure around me, I’d get so lost in the chaos that I wouldn’t realize I was stuck in debris while enemies swarmed my location. As stunning as it is to see so much happening on screen, it can be hard to understand what is going on during the most chaotic moments.
Between enemy-filled arenas en route to a stage’s end boss, you might find a shop to buy more mods, ominous obelisks with risk-reward propositions (gain a lot of health or lose half your health, for example), optional trials, and strange phenomena that transport you to different locations. These moments are quick breaks in between bouts of adrenaline-fueled shooter action that I always welcomed – enemies can be relentless, especially as new types are introduced in each stage.
The rest of the Void/Breaker package offers few genre surprises. You can upgrade various traits between runs, research new mod schematics to add to the random pool, purchase new weapons, and discover fun secrets. You can unlock shortcuts, glean in-world information from computer terminals, and hear intriguing dialogue barks from the AI partner who needs your help. It’s all standard stuff for the rogue genre, but if anything, its simplicity pushes you back to the meat and potatoes of this shooter.
Void/Breaker’s shorter runtime – I rolled credits at 12 hours – ensures nothing gets too repetitive in its roguelite structure, but an expansive endgame promises even more to engage with, like different run modifications you can enable to make an already chaotic shooter even more anarchic. I’ll certainly be running it back (again and again) to see what other disruptions I can bring to this AI-simulated adventure. It’s hard not to when destruction feels this good.