While watching the big III Initiative trailers from a year or two ago there were a few games that stood out to me. Void/Breaker was one of them for its mass-destruction mechanics and weapon mod system.
Already in early access, solo developer Stubby Games has added plenty of new toys to play with and a second chapter to the story. I’m really enjoying the fast-paced robot shooting so far, and I think with the Zone 4 update, it’s a good time to talk about why.
What is Void/Breaker?
You’re just another test subject permanently trapped in a never ending loop of simulated violence, forced to run endless iterations for the evil AI IRIS. You are given a grappling hook, a gravity tether, and your choice of guns before being told to go off and kill everything in sight.
Enemies are aggressive and want you dead. They will chase you down and give you very little time to breathe. Even if you go on top of a building, they will jump up after you so you cannot stop moving. Most things shoot loads of bullet hell for you to dodge through or have very fast melee attacks. While you can kind of clump everyone together and circle-strafe to some extent, variants of elites force you to dive into the chaos with shields that only break to melee damage or armor that has to be chipped down with environmental hazards.
In order to deal with the hostiles rapidly approaching your location, your character has a ton of movement options. You have a dash with I-frames to cut through the bullet hell, plus a slide and wall-run alongside double jumps and a grappling hook. Between you and everyone else, Void/Breaker has a breakneck pace to it that is adrenaline inducing fun.
Explosive strategy
Void/Breaker’s main gimmick is its destructive physics system. You can blow buildings up with explosives and have the pieces fall on top of enemies to stun them. Stunned enemies once killed are your only source of healing and ammo, so you’re heavily incentivised to destroy as much of an area as possible. It becomes so chaotic to the point of being hard to read as bits of debris are falling everywhere, but it’s super satisfying.
While blowing up the world would be a fun loop as is, that’s not going to make for a very interesting roguelike. This is where weapon mods and the inventory come in. There are a load of changes you can apply to your guns; anything from burst firing icy explosive canisters to shotgunning ricochet bubbles that light enemies on fire.
You have a tarkov-esque inventory to manage with limited slots that become a puzzle of cramming as many upgrades in as possible. Inventory upgrades can be found that give mods additional “executions” but usually have a downside of disabling inventory slots nearby. It sounds limiting but I like that it forces more thought behind how you organise the upgrades you pick up instead of just mindlessly eating every modification in sight.
Room for refinement
I do have a couple issues I’d like to see addressed throughout Void Breaker’s development. As mentioned before, enemies do have a habit of clumping up together in the center of an arena and just feeling like a pile of metal to circle strafe and shoot at. The enemies that escape the pile are the ones making fights interesting, and I’d like to see their behavior leaned more towards flanking and being spread out.
While I understand how Zone 4 was implemented narratively, I don’t like how it is separated into a different chapter of the game, resetting your upgrades. At minimum I’d like to see an option for a “hardcore run” that makes you do the full game in one go while keeping your items, especially as Zone 4 is on its own in Act 2 as of writing.
Boss fights could be a bit more dynamic with more environmental changes occurring and leaning further into the destruction mechanics of normal gameplay. On top of that, I do feel like three phases a piece make them a bit too long, especially as they aren’t nearly as interesting to fight as the arenas beforehand. None of these problems are make or break for me, but they do cause some small hitches in my enjoyment.
The Verdict
Void/Breaker is a very promising FPS roguelite. It already has good run variety and gunplay that feels fantastic. Stubby Games has the foundations to make an incredible game and for the most part, I like the direction it’s going in!
