Void Bastards made some waves last year with its reveal, thanks in part to its stylistic visuals and the pedigree of being from former Irrational Games developers. The final result is a game that shakes up the genre a bit while harkening back to their roots.
Void Bastards
Developer: Blue Manchu
Price: $30
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
Void Bastards begins by setting up your goal: you’re a prisoner who’s been recently released with the objective of piloting a ship out of the Sargasso Nebula in exchange for your freedom. To do that you’ll travel across a map that’s very reminiscent of FTL, collecting parts to rebuild parts of your ship as a Stephen Fry-esque character over sees your progress. The premise is silly, and the entire thing has an air of absurdity that really works thanks to its absolutely gorgeous comic book inspired aesthetic that has just a hint of classic Guy Ritchie flair to it.
I’ve seen a lot of people call this game a rogue-like which is an incredibly deceptive descriptor. Sure, when you die you’ll start a character anew, but you don’t actually lose any progress or have to restart your run. Upon death you’ll be issued a new prisoner with a fresh set of randomly generated traits like “chain-smoker” wherein your character will occasionally cough, alerting nearby enemies of your location or one that hilariously causes you to scream every time you pick up loot. Your story progress, upgrades, and collected crafting materials all stay with the only thing being lost is your fuel, food, and ammo. So while yes, it does share the same “new character every time you die” element of the genre, it’s not based around “runs” and there is a definite hard end to the game. If I were to compare this game to anything, it’d be the weird baby of Bioshock and FTL, the former because of how similarly the gameplay feels (no surprise considering the team is made up of former Irrational devs) and the latter due to its strategy elements.
Circling back to the FTL comparisons, the world map in Void Bastards is almost exactly the same as FTL, as you move your ship through a grid, carefully choosing the path you want to take to your destination. Unlike FTL where there’s an air of uncertainty of what you’ll encounter when you land on a spot, Void Bastards allows you to click ahead to see exactly what sort of ship will be on that spot, what enemies are onboard, how many of them are there, what sort of loot you’ll find, and even any special events like the power being out. It’s a severe level of transparency that helps define the game’s main hook: plan a route focusing on hitting locations with the loot you need, board whatever ships you want on the path, get said loot, and move on to the next ship.
It’s a really neat system with my only complaint being that I wish you could see a bit further down the map. The game goes so far as to allow you to pinpoint exactly where a crafting part you need is on the map, but it’s more often than not far outside from what you can currently see. Many times I found myself having to miss the part because I took a path that wouldn’t let me reach the part when it eventually came into my view on the map.
The gameplay itself is fairly simple. If you’ve played Bioshock or System Shock the weighty gunplay will feel immediately familiar to you, as will the feeling of creeping through dark hallways as you listen for enemies around a corner. You’ve got a hefty variety of gadgets and weaponry to outfit yourself with such as a robotic cat that chases enemies before exploding or my personal favorite, the hyper rifter, which allows you to remove an enemy from their current location and move them somewhere else like inside an airlock hatch that you’re about to open for example.
The enemies themselves offer a nice bit of variety as you’ll encounter explosive blobs, robots, spooky cloaked ghouls who phase in and out of reality, and these mischievous little pricks who spew very British insults your way. Knowing what weaponry to bring onto the ship is key to dealing with these enemies, and even going in prepared doesn’t mean you should let your guard down. Stupid human error was the cause of all my bad runs on a ship, either from not listening to how many enemies were on the other side of a door and barging in to not watching out for cameras that alert powerful sentry bots. In many instances, your best bet is to get what you need and get out; something that the game regularly encourages. For the most part you don’t really need to collect everything on a ship, and you probably shouldn’t since the longer you spend on it the more ammo you’re wasting and higher the risk of you getting killed. Many times I’ve hopped onto a ship purely to collect its fuel and immediately dipped out; or other times I ran straight to the helm to collect the map of the area to know where the part I’m looking for is and made my escape as soon as I collected it. Enemies are very manageable in this game, more so as the game goes on and you become more powerful with your upgrades, but nothing will save you from being stupid.
Scrounging for resources is your main and only goal when entering these ships since you have to be constantly on the lookout for more fuel and food so as to not get stranded in space and die. You’ll also find a host of crafting materials that you’ll use to help make your guns kill better. The hunt for more materials can start to feel like a grind however as crafting is separated into two types: you need parts to craft upgrades but you need materials to craft into parts for those upgrades.
For example, to craft a certain gun you might need a nutri tray. Now you could find one out in the world, or if you’re impatient or just can’t find one then you can craft a nutri tray yourself. In that case you’ll need 40 plaz and 40 volt materials which are acquired by looting ships for scrap which is then recycled into various material types. A ship with a lot of computer scrap will yield a lot of data materials for example, or finding fingers will supply you with bio. This system is fine since it strikes a nice balance of letting you fast track your way to the upgrades you want and the ones you can wait for, but some parts can ask for a ridiculous amount of materials sometimes. It’s not too bad for the most part, but when you’re hit with a particular upgrade that requires the grind it can halt the fun for a bit.
The Final Word
In short bursts, Void Bastards can be a lot of fun, and even when its repetitive nature starts to kick in, something silly happens that makes you laugh and pulls you back into it.
– MonsterVine Review Score: 4 out of 5 – Good
