The Voidness is a survival horror developed by one person. This alone is admirable, but it’s even more so if the game is good. And luckily this is the case. Ryan Portelli from Steelkrill Studio offers us something different within the horror genre. A very necessary thing today, where many games sin of being similar and repetitive.
The Voidness is available on PC.
THE ABYSS LOOKS BACK AT YOU
In this game we play the role of Francesca Lee, an astronaut on a mission to explore the “void” of the planet “Tenebris” (named after the Latin word for darkness, a detail that the game repeats unnecessarily 37 times). The “void” is a special plane of existence. For that, two bases were developed on that planet, but after an accident our protagonist loses consciousness, to later wake up in base 1 finding it totally empty, with indications that something terrible happened to her companions. Hoping to return to earth and see her child, Francesca must cross the “chasm” that separates both bases to go to the next one, to see what is happening and find a way back. There are obvious references to the Paul WS Anderson film “Event Horizon”. Of course, space horror is a genre that you don’t see very often and hardly misses.
Shortly after starting we go through base 1 in search of clues of what happened, there we find out that all our colleagues disappeared and the base seems super cloudy, so the objective is to enter the abyss (or void) to reach the base 2 to ask for help and perhaps return to planet earth. This first section looks “normal” since we haven’t had contact with the void yet, and it’s going to look like a common survival horror, but once we can open some doors we’re going to find ourselves before the huge and chilling void outside. An infinite and chilling blackness.
This is immediately remedied by grabbing an item that looks glowing in the face of so much darkness, a scanner that works as a weapon, with which we will be able to spray this void with “particles” to be able to see as we go. It is difficult to explain, but I think that with the screens of this note they will understand.
This is going to be the way we have to “see” in this game, we are going to have to use the scanner to spray the environment with particles and thus be able to move and advance. This tool has some options such as being able to increase the scanning area or concentrate it, as well as a horizontal scan that I didn’t get to use much.
The scanner will mark the different objects that we can find in a different color, in general the interactables, keys, buttons and doors will be green. Part of the terror and tension that exists in The Voidness It happens because even in this emptiness, we are not alone. There are some entities that can attack and persecute us, we are not very clear about what they are, but the scanner will conveniently mark them in red. We are also going to have to keep a healthy distance and take care that they do not listen to us. Although each step we take is heard, the problem is if we step on a surface that makes noise, such as water or glass, which will be marked in orange by the scanner. If these entities detect us, they will start chasing us, they are faster than our character, so losing sight of them or finding a hiding place will be a high priority.
The game has some tables where we can hide, this makes us immune to detection, but if we are using a microphone, we will have to not make any sound and hold our breath. For this mechanic we need to have a working microphone, so if we don’t want to take advantage of it we can ignore it.
It has an autosave at some specific points, but the main way to save is using terminals, which are like computers. We can use these only once to save, and if we close the game or die we will resume this last save. This is a problem on some of the sections/levels that are longer or require backtracking and only have one terminal. Luckily I didn’t die often or have to replay a long section again, but it could be very frustrating.
The levels in general are quite well designed and understandable, with clear objectives. In general, they will require us to look for a key, a code or activate a button to open doors and continue moving forward, nothing too complicated. I can’t talk too much without spoiling, as most of the game will be spent in the void, but there’s some interesting variety later on.
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL
The Voidness It suffers from small and/or large problems that it has to correct. The game hopefully lasts three hours to begin with, but it has an infrastructure to be a hell of a lot longer. The objective of the game’s story is to go from point A to point B, and in that sense the duration is fine and the story is excellent, it tells what it has to tell without turning around. But I don’t know if the amazing scanning system could work in another game, maybe the story could be expanded and extended, but at the same time it feels enough for what it poses. I would have liked to continue exploring for at least two more hours.
There are other minor issues too, movement speed is frustratingly slow, another one of those games where running doesn’t feel any different from walking. As a “bug” I can report that, if we have to duck to go through a tunnel, we can get up at any time, and when we do, we get stuck, clipping and everything, until we duck again to continue. I also had all the medikits disappear from one chapter to another for no reason. But they are minor details that do not worsen the experience.
Something that bothered me personally is that the game repeats SO MUCH that the name of the planet is Tenebris “because it means darkness in Latin.” He does it too many times, as if he really wanted us to know that fact, as if no one was going to be smart enough to figure it out or realize it, but the developer thought it was super clever, one of those clever things that you don’t want to miss out on for anything in the world. . That being said, some texts have spelling errors, but are understandable if English is not the primary language of the developer. The dev also says in the game’s description inside the store that the game needs work, that they have patience since there is only one person working on it, and that any feedback would help them finish this project faster.
THE BEST
- A different proposal in a highly saturated genre with walking sims that are hardly scary.
- A different and very fun exploration system.
- A very well achieved setting, it is a game to which the space horror theme suits it very well.
WORST
- Although it has a finishable campaign and the story comes to an end, the game lacks work.
- Small bugs that luckily don’t affect the gameplay that much.
- It doesn’t feel like enemies pose much of a danger ever.