Erosion crossed my path this week when I read a press release about the game’s playtest, which launched yesterday, June 23, 2026.
The premise pitched in the presser was enough to draw me in for a closer look, and I don’t mind admitting to you, Dear Reader, that I’m a sucker for a good time travel movie.
Time travel and the concept of cause and effect sit at the heart of Erosion, although this part of the game wasn’t really the focus of the playtest I just tried. The developers acknowledge as much on the game’s Steam page (where you can sign up for the playtest). It is made clear there that this trial is all about the gameplay.
In terms of what you can expect from the demo, there are two dungeon tiers with bosses, two overworld biomes, and “an assortment of quests spanning two branching timelines.”
In the simplest terms, you play as a grunting farmer-looking dude out to rescue his daughter, who has been kidnapped by a strange criminal gang. You see, there’s a weird magic pillar, and you must venture inside it to get her back, but failure and death while inside are punished by the passing of time and the loss of ten years.
After my first attempt ended, I learned that my daughter had aged ten years. Yikes. I also learned that I might be able to rescue her and turn back time completely, which takes the pressure off a smidge. Still, as a parent myself, I can’t imagine higher stakes for an adventure like this.
As mentioned, the core gameplay is the focus of this playtest, and on that front, Erosion is already shaping up to be a very interesting action-RPG. And that is discounting the time-travelling gameplay hook, which has already snagged my attention.
Erosion might feel like one, but it’s not a pixel-art action-RPG. Instead, it’s an open-world voxel-based roguelike with fully destructible environments and physics. The aesthetic reminded me of playing Minecraft Dungeons with the kids, and the destructible elements had me recalling Teardown, a heist-puzzle hybrid that I really should return to, now I think about it.
Erosion feels like a western at first, but it wasn’t long before those pretensions were put to the proverbial sword. Or in this instance, the sword was a fecking laser gun that I was using to blast giant grubs. Like the maggots in Nuclear Throne, once destroyed, smaller grubs emerge from the debris.
If the developers are pushing for feedback on the gameplay side of things, then I would say that it’s shaping up pretty well. There’s a big emphasis on dodge rolling, but the controls and movement felt smooth and responsive. There are also loads of different weapon types, from a magnum to the aforementioned lasers, and I look forward to seeing how they evolve in future plays.
You’ll need to play around with the different guns because the action is pretty relentless, both down in the time-twisting world and up in the overworld, where you get to see time passing between deaths. Again, I’m really interested to see how this pans out beyond the two decades featured in the demo.
The demo did a good job of showcasing the gameplay and core idea, but I’m going to step back now and wait for a complete experience, so I can really get into the game’s time-travelling story. A good first impression has been made, so stay tuned for follow-up coverage.
When Erosion will be released isn’t clear, but the timeline suggests early 2027 for the full release. This will be instead of a staggered Early Access launch, and given the game in question and its theme, I think that’s a wise move indeed.
