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I am a knight made of lightning and black steel. Perched on the parapet of a vast gothic tower, I spy a dozen shambling undead in the valley below. I leap into the air above them, then plummet into the mob, exploding like a thunderclap, arcing electricity and shattered zombie bits in my wake. Sometimes it’s cool when a videogame is just a big dumb power fantasy, and Voin—a first-person action RPG just launched into early access—is exactly that, and feels like a solid first step on a year-long roadmap to a full release.
As it stands in early access, Voin is pretty much exactly what the launch trailer shows, no more, no less. You are a cool magic knight. There’s a lot of nasty undead in a (very scenic) dark fantasy kingdom. You go out, you kick asses, you get loot and levels and you do it again across several non-linear, semi-open world maps. There’s some fun aerial movement, some spectacular spells and skills (I especially like the anime-as-hell ‘backwards slow-mo leap to plunging sword strike’ ability), and a satisfying slow-mo dodge mechanic. It’s good, dumb fun—just don’t expect much story in this initial early access release.
Weirdly, despite the great aesthetics (which shine through in the launch trailer), the game looks like a low-fi, bitcrushed mess in the store screenshots. By default, the game scales down its resolution and heavily reduces the colour palette used, and while this look can work for some more overtly retro stuff, I don’t think it quite works here—it hides a lot of impressive map design. Fortunately you can turn all of this off, and I recommend you do so, as you’re missing out on some great vistas and detailed hyper-gothic architecture. Both in the maps and in your hub fortress, where you get to diegetically cleanse cursed items using a huge magical bell in a lava-filled forge, and level up by passing through a mirrored portal.
One thing I do hope for in the full version (or at least later in early access) is more structured questing and goals. Right now the game offers some pretty environments and lots of enemies to hack up, but not much structure beyond kicking ass, hoarding loot and gaining power. There’s some solid combat and spectacular environments here, but not much connective tissue. Oddly, despite the heavy metal visuals, the game’s music is fairly understated too. Perhaps more soundtrack is coming later, but I feel this deserves a playlist of the most doom-laden dark fantasy metal around.
While some early access games feel almost fully formed on day one, Voin feels more like a utilitarian foundation for things to come. An entertaining and great-looking one at that, with a year of additional development already planned out for a late 2025 final release, but perhaps not worth jumping on immediately unless the black metal album aesthetics really speak to you. But if that’s enough for you, Voin is out now in Steam early access for £15.07/$17.99, with a 10% launch discount that’ll be running until Christmas.
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Kurt Indovina
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