Void Crew is an exciting cooperative roguelite space adventure developed by Hutlihut Games and published by Focus Entertainment. Released on PC via Steam, Void Crew has quickly garnered a reputation for its unique approach to cooperative gameplay, where teamwork and strategy are essential. This review will explore the game’s features, mechanics, and overall experience in detail, providing insights into what makes Void Crew a standout title in the cooperative gaming genre.
Storyline and Setting
Void Crew places players in the distant future, where humanity faces existential threats from alien adversaries. As part of an elite crew of interstellar operatives, players must pilot and manage a spaceship while navigating treacherous space environments. The game’s narrative is compelling, offering a backdrop of survival and exploration that keeps players engaged. Missions often involve high-stakes scenarios such as retrieving valuable resources, defending against alien incursions, and investigating mysterious anomalies in space.
The storyline also introduces layers of mystery and intrigue, including ancient alien technologies and the remnants of lost civilizations. Players are driven not only by the immediate threats but also by the desire to uncover the secrets of the galaxy.
The setting is both expansive and immersive. Players are thrust into a beautifully designed galaxy filled with vibrant nebulae, asteroid fields, and enemy strongholds. The visuals and sound design work in tandem to create an atmosphere that is both thrilling and perilous, drawing players into the game’s universe. Every mission feels like a unique chapter in an unfolding space epic.
Gameplay Mechanics
The core of Void Crew’s gameplay lies in its cooperative mechanics. The game supports 1 to 4 players, allowing friends or strangers to form a team and pilot a spaceship together. Each player assumes specific roles, such as piloting, gunning, repairing, or managing resources, making teamwork essential for success.
Key Features of Gameplay:
Dynamic Roles: Players can switch roles on the fly, ensuring flexibility during missions. For example, a player managing repairs may need to jump onto the ship’s turrets during an enemy attack. This fluidity ensures that every mission feels dynamic and engaging.
Customization: Void Crew offers extensive customization options for both the ship and individual characters. Players can equip their ship with upgraded weapons, shields, and engines, tailoring it to their playstyle. Characters can also be personalized with unique gadgets, skill enhancements, and cosmetic upgrades, adding a layer of depth to progression.
Roguelite Elements: Missions are procedurally generated, ensuring no two runs feel the same. This design keeps the gameplay fresh and unpredictable, requiring players to adapt to ever-changing scenarios, from asteroid dodging to large-scale space battles.
Real-Time Strategy: The game’s mechanics require constant communication and strategic planning. For instance, balancing power distribution between shields and weapons during combat can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Players must also decide when to prioritize offense versus defense, adding another layer of strategy.
Resource Management: Beyond combat, players must manage resources such as fuel, ammunition, and repair supplies. Efficient resource use is critical, especially during extended missions where resupply opportunities are limited.
Visuals and Sound Design
Void Crew excels in its visual presentation. The game features:
Stunning Space Environments: The galaxy is rendered with breathtaking detail, including colorful nebulae, asteroid fields, and alien structures. The vastness of space is captured beautifully, making exploration a visual treat.
Detailed Spaceship Models: Each ship’s design feels unique and reflects the game’s futuristic aesthetic. The attention to detail extends to the interiors, where players can see functional workstations, crew quarters, and engine rooms.
Fluid Animations: From explosions to weapon fire, every action is visually satisfying. Enemy ships disintegrate in dazzling displays, and environmental hazards like solar flares are portrayed with stunning effects.
The sound design is equally impressive. The background score builds tension during intense battles, while sound effects such as laser fire, engine roars, and communication static add to the immersion. Voice lines and crew chatter further enhance the cooperative experience, making the crew feel alive and responsive.
Cooperative Gameplay Experience
Void Crew truly shines in its cooperative gameplay. The game’s design encourages players to communicate effectively and work together to overcome challenges. Missions often require split-second decisions and seamless coordination, fostering a sense of camaraderie among players.
Highlights of Cooperative Gameplay:
Shared Responsibilities: Players must divide tasks efficiently. For example, one player might pilot the ship while another operates the shields, and a third mans the weapons. This division of labor ensures that everyone has a vital role to play.
Emergent Gameplay: Unpredictable events, such as surprise alien attacks or system malfunctions, keep the experience fresh and engaging. These moments test the team’s adaptability and quick thinking.
Team-Based Progression: Upgrades and achievements are shared among the team, ensuring everyone feels invested in the group’s success. Players can collectively decide on upgrade priorities, fostering collaboration.
Social Interaction: The game’s reliance on communication makes it a great choice for groups of friends or online communities. Even strangers can quickly bond over the shared goal of surviving a harrowing mission.
Advanced Features and Strategies
For players seeking to master Void Crew, there are several advanced mechanics and strategies to explore:
Power Management: Players can reroute power between different systems, such as engines, shields, and weapons, depending on the situation. Knowing when to prioritize speed over firepower can be a game-changer.
Specialized Loadouts: Experimenting with different ship loadouts and character builds allows for unique strategies. For example, a heavily armored ship might excel in defense-focused missions, while a faster, lighter ship is ideal for hit-and-run tactics.
Crew Synergy: Developing a team strategy that leverages each player’s strengths can significantly enhance mission performance. For instance, pairing a skilled pilot with a sharpshooting gunner creates a formidable duo.
Exploration Rewards: Beyond combat, players can discover hidden treasures, ancient artifacts, and rare resources during exploration. These discoveries often lead to significant upgrades or story developments.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
Engaging Cooperative Mechanics: The game’s emphasis on teamwork creates a rewarding experience.
High Replay Value: Procedurally generated missions and extensive customization keep the gameplay fresh.
Stunning Visuals and Sound: The immersive environment enhances the overall experience.
Flexible Roles: Players can adapt their roles mid-mission, ensuring dynamic gameplay.
Roguelite Thrill: The risk-and-reward system adds excitement to each mission.
Advanced Strategies: Depth in mechanics ensures long-term engagement for dedicated players.
Cons:
Steep Learning Curve: New players may find the mechanics overwhelming at first. A more detailed tutorial or onboarding process could alleviate this.
Limited Solo Play Appeal: The game is best enjoyed with a full team, making solo play less engaging. While AI teammates are functional, they lack the dynamism of human players.
Occasional Bugs: Minor technical issues, such as clipping and connection drops, can disrupt the experience. These are likely to improve with post-launch updates.
Resource Scarcity: Some players may find the resource management system too punishing, especially in early runs.
Comparison with Similar Games
Void Crew draws comparisons to titles like FTL: Faster Than Light and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, but it sets itself apart with its emphasis on real-time cooperation and 3D space combat. Unlike FTL, which leans heavily on strategic planning, Void Crew demands active participation from each player during missions. Similarly, while Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime features cooperative gameplay, Void Crew’s more realistic and intense tone caters to a different audience.
Final Thoughts
Void Crew is a standout title in the cooperative gaming genre, offering a thrilling blend of teamwork, strategy, and action. Its immersive visuals, dynamic roles, and procedurally generated missions ensure hours of engaging gameplay. While it may have a steep learning curve and occasional bugs, the overall experience is immensely rewarding for players who enjoy working together to overcome challenges.
The game’s replayability and depth make it an excellent choice for gamers seeking long-term engagement. Whether you’re battling alien swarms or exploring the mysteries of the galaxy, Void Crew offers an unforgettable cooperative adventure.
Good fun - definitely better with friends.Being able to manage your spaceship down to the placement of your turrets and being able to EVA is a good selling point. I'm looking forward to playing this with more friends to see how we can manage a 6-man vessel
The only reason this game is worth playing is that there's a relative dearth of roguelite coop ship-piloting games.As a rougelite Void Crew is poorly balanced with very few real choices. There are not many good upgrades for your ship, even fewer that alter the way your ship plays. Meaning every game you will build the same things in the same ways with the only difference being how many of the good items you rolled. The bad items are so bad you won't even plug them in, meaning even bad RNG will not fundamentally change your run.As a coop ship-piloting game Void Crew is subpar. space is 2.5d. Your ship cannot tilt or yaw, It will always be flat along the x axis. The ship is not fast, neither are incoming projectiles, meaning the pilot's dodging is more sliding out of the way than it is action packed space combat. Gunners have very few ways to interact with their weapons, and most weapons are not really worth using, meaning they will be shooting the same guns, in the same ways, at the same enemies, from the same positions match after match. If you're short on power the engineer can have more to do with making sure the ship doesn't turn off, but they do not interact with the other classes much. So long as the ship stays on the other players will hardly notice the engineer. The scrapper is a worthless class. EVA is relatively rare and the times you are wanting for perks to make it faster are even rarer. You will not pick the scrapper if you have less than 4 people, and with 4 or more you'd be better off extra gunners.The only reason people overlook that this is a subpar roguelite and a subpar ship game is because it exists at the intersection between the two. The game runs fine and the servers are stable, so if that intersection is enough of a reason to play for you then you'll get what you came for.
With the right people this game is great fun. There are so many things you can come across that completely change the game. It is funny how different the game can feel run to run. Now that you can save when in the tunnel and have endless runs it means it is great for relatively short runs too.
Game is very fun but i would love to see pitch and roll added for ship movement and have ectypes inherit ship momentum when dismounting instead of just freezing in place
I liked it when my friend would disable the safety on the airlock because "no dude you sometimes have to" and then we would drop to -270c and lose all oxygen
If you get a good crew runs can last several hours. If you get a bunch of moron's at least it will be over quick :) The key to having a good crew is to be a good crew member. Focus on your job, don't try to be a One Man Navy. Listen to other more experienced players, ask before scrapping or spending resources. If you are new to the game let the rest of the crew know, most players are helpful and they will cut you a little more slack. When in combat comms tends to be terse and to the point. They aren't yelling at you, its just to keep the message brief so others can use the channel too.
Hours of endless fun. The game play loop is usually the same. Though there is enough variety to keep it interesting. I always play the engineer, so it keeps me busy running around the ship and pressing the button for that sweet sweet dopamine hit.
This game is so much fun except for one problem, as an avid enjoyer of the EVA and engineering side of the gameplay I constantly run into the issue that if im standing on the outside of the ship even with magnet boots maxed out one slight adjustment by the pilot will fling me 500m away from the ship essentially sealing my fate.
Really well executed game that balances the roles of the spaceship well and has good trade offs for power + energy + resources etc. Dogfighting is fun and being in wild spacefights where a ton of stuff is happening is great. Only downside I can say right now is that a lof of the missions will begin to feel similar/play similar after 5 hours. The relics that modify your ship builds are lateral upgrades so often don't feel that good or otherwise don't affect things dramatically. Also past the first few missions the game just plays the same because you naturally get the same modules that you like from the previous runs and then it converges to every other run that you've done, for the most part. I.e. not an insane amount of variety, but still a really well done concept and great with 4-6 people.
Very good PVE game. Not much to choose from in terms of weapons but even with that in mind everything just works very well. Kind of strange to see well built game nowadays. I only have 11h but I very much recommend to anyone who likes PVE star ship cruising.
To be honest, i thought this would be one of those "one and done" type games, the kind where your friend gets you to get the game saying "oh its so good!" and the game turns out to be a snoozefest. Key word was "thought" this game turned out to be overall a game i have returned to several times since i bought it a few days ago, it overall, is very entertaining. my two issues with the game is the lack of ships, two isnt much, but the presets make up for it a decent amount, and the lack of higher levels enemies and weapons, after around 2 hours into a run, if you keep going even though the server starts to lag a fair amount, you will just have nothing much to do overall, as you will have MK3 weapons, MK3 everything, and just shred through everything, i think there should be some sort of scaling for the enemies, or different level enemies (like MK2 and MK3) to really balance it out. other than these two issues, the game is perfect in my eyes.
The trailers make it look like a fast paced fun action game. In reality its a slow resource management sim game with a side of random action. Just exiting the ship is 5 step multi door airlock process.This looks like a high quality game and I see why some people like it. I'm only leaving a not recommended because the trailers feel like false advertising.
Solid coop. Music is 11/10. Ship management is enjoyable and engaging, exploration is interesting and intense, combat is hectic and exciting. Somewhat repetitive after 50+hrs but getting there was a delight.If you have a group of buddies who want to die in space together this is a must no brainer.
You can't play this game solo online, because if you have a random dc for some reason (even when you are just vibing and talking with people in discord), you'll just get booted to the main menu and your progress is just gone. Thank you devs for this wonderful always online system you have.
The tutorial does not do this game justice! After the tutorial, we were very skeptical we would enjoy the game but it's actually a ton of fun. It's just cooperative enough where you have to rely on your teammates to maximize efficiency but you can still feel useful independent of them. Have only played it with a group & I would imagine it's more fun as a group, not solo but I would definitely recommend this to people.
Single engine airplanes on Earth with gravity can roll but my space freighter in zero g can't. It just seems like not a lot of time was spent on the piloting aspect of the game which is a bummer since I would think that is crucial in a game centered around maintaining and piloting a ship in space.Edit: You also can't even pitch your ship so it's really not even flying at all. Piloting your ship really feels more like you are underwater piloting a submarine which would be fine if this game was considered a "Submarine Sim". Just feels like the devs spent more time on adding extra buttons to cycle the airlock instead of putting any effort into making space feel like space.
The game has a definite learning curve and it doesn't seem like you can play with less than 3 people. It tried playing with a friend and it was way too hard. The game doesn't seem to be properly balanced for 1-2 players. I don't always have that many friends available and playing with constant randos doesn't appeal.
Second run with my friends, take the role of the pilot, we get to the boss with 36 resources. We had previously found the blueprint for something called a "Void Harbinger," a payload with a range of 1500 meters, and a LOAD of damage. I assumed that the 1500 meters was the distance it could fly. I was incorrect. I killed the boss and us in one frame. Peak gameplay.
I'm pretty sure I got this in a Humble Bundle. I played the demo a while back and thought it was interesting, but didn't really like the progression and the lack of extravehicular depth. I own it, but I haven't felt compelled to ever fire it up.This ended up being what I was hoping for when I played the demo:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1757300/Jump_Ship/
I immediately stopped playing after the demo because I just couldn't get over how awful the ship flight controls felt.Interesting game, very poor execution.
