Voidwrought review for PC, Nintendo Switch

While we’re all patiently (?) waiting for the release of Hollow Knight’s follow-up game Silksong, it’s worth noting that there is no shortage of great Metroidvania style games being released this year. One notable example among them is the recent release of Voidwrought, from Swedish developer Powersnake, which launched last week on PC and Nintendo Switch. I had the opportunity to review the game, and having just completed it over the weekend, I found it to be a fantastic experience overall. I really, really had a hard time putting this one down, and I’m looking forward to whatever Powersnake has in store for the future.

When you first boot up Voidwrought, I think your immediate reaction is going to be that this feels and looks a lot like Hollow Knight. It’s not a 1 to 1 copy by any means, but there’s an aesthetic to the artwork, world, and sort of mysterious style of storytelling that I’m sure owes a bit of a nod to games like Hollow Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest, and so on. That said, I found that Voidwrought also offers up a sizeable amount of unique hooks and gameplay elements to keep it feeling fresh throughout, helping to make it stand out from other solid Metroidvania releases in the past year.

Set in a 2D world that’s had a fair amount of destruction, your playable character is sort of birthed from a cocoon at the onset of the game. From there you’re introduced to some weird priest style characters that hold your existence in high regard, and then you’ll set off on your adventure with just a couple of abilities at your disposal. Combat in Voidwrought is primarily melee based, with the ability to attack side-to-side, upwards, and downwards. You can jump and strike enemies below you to bounce in the air, and throughout the game you’ll gain additional abilities that improve both your combat skills and movement. There’s no shortage of upgrades in Voidwrought, some of which are pretty unique in the genre, along with more familiar abilities like a double-jump, wall jump, dash, and so on.

As your time in Voidwrought expands, you’ll be introduced to weird locations, like the ruined and terrifying view of The Surface, or the ethereal otherworldly pathways of The Void. Each section of the map, which is interconnected in multiple ways, feels distinct from one another. I really dug the variety of locations throughout the game, and while there can be a hefty amount of backtracking until you unlock the quick travel system, it never felt like a chore to explore the world. Especially as you unlock more and more of your movement abilities, which helps to make the exploration feel quick and interesting.

Voidwrought also offers up a large variety of basic enemies and bosses to encounter. Combat early on can feel a bit tricky, your limited moveset and lack of offensive abilities can make some of those early boss encounters feel harrowing. However, as you progress through the game and gain more abilities the difficult does dial down some, and by the time I was entering the end game of Voidwrought I felt like I could tackle anything that the game wanted to throw at me. The lighter difficulty side of Voidwrought might be a less appealing for some, but at the same time it never felt like it was too easy and I still had moments where I got a overconfident and paid the price for it.

Playing through the PC version of Voidwrought, my experience from a technical standpoint was essentially flawless. I had one crash that I can think of, and one bug that forced a restart, and that’s about all the technical complaints I can level at the game. I’d love to see support for Ultrawide monitors in the future, but overall my experience on PC was great. I have seen some complaints for the mouse & keyboard controls, but I played with a controller and had no issues, which does feel like the intended control set-up for the game.

I would absolutely recommend checking out Voidwrought when you get a chance. It’s a fantastic Metroidvania with some inventive abilities, and doesn’t overstay it’s welcome at a fairly tight 10 hours or so depending on how thorough you are with finding everything. I was really happy with the game overall, and if you have any affinity for these types of games, then I think you will be too.

Note: Kwalee provided us with a Voidwrought PC code for review purposes.