Void Bastards is worth Buying for the Aesthetic Alone

I had heard about Void Bastards a while ago, but what really got it on my radar was when Xbox announced it would be launching on Game Pass. I am a huge advocate for Game Pass (I use to think it was worthless), so I downloaded it as soon as I could. All I knew was it was a first person shooter and it looked rad as fuck.

Tuns out it’s a rogue-lite, first person shooter. Combat is quirky, with weapons ranging from a pistol to a distracting robot cat bomb. It almost does not entirely fit with what Void Bastards is going for, but it also takes nothing away from it either.

I’ve definitely been enjoying the gameplay, but the graphics for this game are absolutely gorgeous. It’s in a comic book art style, but in creepy spaces that feel like a cross of Bioshock and Dead Space. When you approach doorways you can tell if there is an enemy walking around in that specific room because you’ll see a variety of words like “tap tap tap” or “shuffle shuffle”. When you blow up an enemy, you’ll see “KABOOM!” Details like this is what really brings the style together.

Outside of this, the UI is pretty solid. There are a lot of items and scraps and stuff you have to pay attention to, as well as how much fuel you have in your ship as you jump between different vessels to raid. I have not ran into an issue with collecting fuel or food, but I’m sure it might be harder to find more supplies the deeper you get into your voyage.

Enemies can be creepy. Big hulking dudes called Skrews are tough to take out, turrets are actually pretty annoying, and the small annoying citizens can overrun you in a second. I keep seeing dudes in trench coats in certain ships and I would like to stay away from them for as long as possible

Rogue-lites often fall into the issue of becoming repetitive and stale. I haven’t ran into this issue quite yet, even after dying and coming back as a new character three times. I can absolutely see the space ships getting kind of boring though. Each one still has the same sort of rooms. The layouts are different of course but even with the different colors they still have the same sort of stuff.

The main thing keeping the game feel fresh right now is unlocking new weapons, taking on new enemies, and the multiple mods each ship has. Mods on ships are things like none of the turrets will attack you, or enemies have half health. There are bad mods too like it’s extremely dark, or the power will randomly turn off. These things make each ship feel different, even if it has the same sort of stuff inside it.

Have you gotten the chance to play Void Bastards yet? If not, Game Pass is absolutely worth subbing to for the month just to try the game out. Then, come back here and tell me what you thought of it!