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.
First off, this is not a first person shooter, there are no handheld weapons.That being said, this is a game where you run missions, get loot, upgrade ship, try and take on more missions, all the while your armor is slowly getting worn down till you die.How far can you make it?Lets find out!I highly recommend this, its fun solo but so much more fun with friends!
Other's have said it, sea of thieves meets FTL.I know it's fun to say that games like these make you get really angry with the people you play with, but oh boi there's so much more in the joy you get working together and building some space camaraderie with friends.Really looking forward to some more in this game from the devs. Would love seeing the main pilgrimage expanded or some more involved activities. I know that cost money though so good luck devs, I hope more people try this game out and things like that get invested into.
Very fun, can be challenging. Communication is key, people without microphones are a nightmare to play with and honestly microphones should be mandatory. Best advice I can give is, if you don't know, dont touch...someone has already figured it out for you. 10/10 will play again
I wanna say that this game is genuinely fantastic, nothing in the game so far is something I can genuinely find an issue with. However -
There just isn't enough content. You can pick from one of two ship models with varying pre-established modules per model. The two modules are fine but the lustre quickly wears off once you get knowledgeable of them. There aren't that many objectives, bosses, resources, etc etc. The game is just a bit barren. I genuinely love this game so far and I hope the devs expand upon it a hundred times over but for a roguelike it is just incredibly lacking for variety.
I've had nothing but fun in this game. Recommended if you like co-op games like Sea of Thieves mixed with Guns of Icarus style combat. Not one for flying solo (even though you can).
This was okay, refunded it because 95% of the games were private/locked. Understandable but it takes the adventure out of meeting new people and working together. I did not personally enjoy the game but maybe others will!
A fun game to play with friend but be aware, since the patch this stupid upscalling difficulty(wich is completly unbalance btw) make the game unplayable after two bosses has been defeated. Fun fact is that it also turn the save game purpose into quite a useless feature because you come back on to ennemy that legit almost one shot your ship(with MKIII Shields).Please remove or balance this "upscaling" feature because its really annoying getting legit instakill by Remnant ship that are also insanely overpowered.(PS: If the reason of this feature is because the game is a roguelite, then why the save feature ? It make no sense.)
Play it. Bring friends. Amazing coop. Feels like FTL and Sea of Thieves had a baby, but like a fun baby that you can fly around and make 'pew pew' noises. And the baby has a tempremental engine and can also vent you out into space. FUN BABY.
This game sucks. I seriously want my money back. Played with a full group. Boreing stuff. Its like someone said FTL is fun, what if we took the boreing parts and made you do all the NPC stuff. The ship is always the same. Enemies are unorginal. The enviornments are unpolished. Trash game.
[h2][b]Pretext and summary[/b][/h2]
I haven't explored all the game modes yet and only played the first ship. At 8 hours of game time (left the game open, that's why it reports it to be higher), I played four runs of which one was solo, two were with one friend and one with two friends.
The core gameplay focuses on communicating through a chaotic in a ship space shooter. It is filled with a lot of action and does that job well.
Some aspects of the game are a little bit too simple (see the rest of my review), however that didn't stop me from having a great time with my friends.
If they were to add some more in depth engineering systems, I would certainly be happy, but it's okay the way it is.
Good 7/10[h2][b]Gameplay loop[/b][/h2]
The main game mode is the backbone of the game. It's pretty simple: jump into void tunnel to work on ship, select the next mission out of 2 to 4 choices, jump to the mission and hopefully not get blown up and repeat. The easier missions will probably become a bit repetitive, but the more difficult one's are just illegally fun and thrilling.
When selecting a mission, you have the choice to play a safe and easy mission or pick more difficult one's. If you choose more difficult missions, you potentially get better rewards. To get those better rewards you will have to fight a lot of enemies that will also be stronger. A fight might seem easy at one point, but there will be a lot of wrenches thrown into your machine. A good example is when we were plowing through a mission, until we were engaged by an enemy that lowered our generator output. Our strategy relied upon using two types of weapons which we could only use at the same time if we have full power output. So now we are frantically trying to come up with a solution to the problem while our ship is about 5 seconds away from doing an emergency shutoff. Meanwhile we are bombarded by ships which would tear us to shreds if we didn't continue moving. We did end up tripping our energy grid and we lost power for probably twenty seconds. As we were trying to repair our ship in battle, someone fumbled the airlock so one of our crew was sucked out into space as well. It was so chaotic but also a lot of fun. The game is most fun when your plan doesn't work out anymore and you are scrambling to adapt.[b][i]I have one criticism about this part of the game[/i][/b]
In the mission select screen you will see the central mission reward and often times that central reward is a boost to your ship that will allow you to scale. Often times though those 'relics' give you benefits that don't match your play style, so we more often chose the easy mission which will give you crafting materials. Multiple times, this lead to us repeating missions that were too easy and therefore not as fun, as we felt it would give us a more usable reward.
[b][i]If a developer reads this:[/i][/b]
I would probably add the expected rewards from destroyed ships to the mission selection screen. This could lead to players taking the riskier approach if they know it would be more rewarding than the easy mission.
[h3]
[/h3]
[h3][b]Piloting:[/b][/h3]
The piloting of the ship is very simplistic, you can go left/right, up/down and turn left or right. There is no manual pitch control. This was very confusing for me, coming from Elite Dangerous or Store Citizen. It almost feels like you're playing with one hand tied behind your back, but I do see a good reason for doing this. For the turret gunners, keeping track of your surroundings is already hard enough, even though the game has only one plane of orientation. I can only imagine how challenging it would be to do this with full six degrees of freedom.[h3][b]Gunnery:[/b][/h3]
The gunnery is pretty simple, but don't expect to sit in a turret all day. As long as you don't have a full crew with dedicated tasks, you will have to jump out of the turret to haul ammo or energy magazines. Shooting is very simple with only a little bit of skill involved to time reloads or leading a target. The main difficulty is coordinating with the pilot and other guns to hit the same target and communicate if you need the ship to maneuver differently, in case the ship is masking your target.[h3][b]Exploration:[/b][/h3]
So far in my experience the exploration can have interesting wrecks, but don't expect there to be blown away by any environmental storytelling or anything like that. While on the E.V.A you will mostly be busy tracking your limited oxygen, and finding ways to bring loot to your ship. A lot of missions require you to E.V.A, and you will also find some wrecks to scavenge for loot.[h3][b]From the perspective of someone who prefers simulation games (Engineering):[/b][/h3]
The game's interfaces and mechanics are pretty simple and straightforward. As someone who like simulation games, I wish there were more intricate systems that require you to use more brain power to get them running. The task load often comes from the sheer amount of tasks that need to be balanced amongst the crew, yet the tasks themselves are usually as simple as holding a button on your keyboard or putting in arrow key sequences. I am the type of gamer that loves to have manuals for game functionality. I love to have so many buttons that you will eventually lose track of them and I like using checklists, even when they are not required. This game doesn't come close to scratching this itch, but that is not to say it isn't fun. If you have the same perspective though, you would probably want to be the shot-caller of the group, as it will be most engaging.[h2][b]Multiplayer aspect:[/b][/h2]
The game gets more fun and chaotic the more players you have in your lobby. You can do more complex coordination, swap roles on the fly and overall use the ships in the way they are intended to. Solo playability is limited, but I you can make it work with some downsides. I have played a solo run, and it was definitely more stressful, however the devs thought about this scenario and added automatic cannons and repairs to make it possible. You will definitely have to juggle your tasks a lot and there probably is a lower cap for progress you will be able to make. I wouldn't buy this game if you intend to play it alone. It definitely is possible to play a run in between waiting for your friends to have time, but you will miss out on a lot of fun.[h2][b]Scales:[/b][/h2]
---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☑ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ To infinity and beyond---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10---{ Author }---
☑ https://vojtastruhar.github.io/steam-review-template
Good: playing solo
Great: playing with friends
Awesome: removing half the mods from my list not because the update broke them, but because the update added them to the game
Bonus: runs great on Linux (tested on Mint and ZorinOS) (for other games check protondb)
Ever since Guns of Icarus faded into obscurity I've been dying for another game that scratched the same itch.Blackwake, Shattered Horizons, Sea of Thieves, if you're looking at this game, then you've probably made a similar circuit of the same titles.To you, I say: Void Crew absolutely scratches that itch.PROS:
- Speaking to the "short grind", each session has a good pace of progression that neither over- nor underpowers you, and keeps it challenging no matter what round you're on or what role you're filling.
- Between games, the "long grind" is faster than similar titles. Number-wise, "prestige" doesn't take long to level up.
- Visually, it is very well-polished.
- The controls for each role are tight and relatively easy to pick up, and each role brings a unique benefit to the team.
- Each role also has a balanced set of "things to do" which keep them busy AND engaged.
- Good variety of ship modules, and plethora of different ways to build out your ideal ship.
- Most builds are viable across most stages of play.
- Rock Paper Scissors emote. Chef's kiss.CONS
- In the overall sense, there is not much variety to the game. You go out and shoot the AI bad guys with a team. You grind levels to unlock cosmetics. It's a very good game, but it's missing the things that would make it an awesome one. They've made a step in the right direction with Survival mode, but I hope Hutlihut considers adding PVP and larger ship sizes (the recent increase to 6 players is a step in the right direction as well), they have a fantastic concept and could do some incredible things with it.
- As of right now, the game is out of Early Access and the space terrain (asteroids, space junk etc) still appears to be made out of toilet paper to anyone who isn't you or your ship. Snipers can pierce an asteroid to hit you, oftentimes a large, ungainly space rock that you then have to fly around in order to engage said Sniper. Point being, if it's an obstacle, it should function consistently.
- They might do well with a different voice actor to deliver the after-action newscasts, or telling him not to sound so "forced energetic"? I miss the old voice actor you guys used.
A good extraction shooter with different roles. It's really best with at least 3 players, and apparently 1 good pilot, 1 good gunner, and 1 good EVA minimum.
Amazing game to play with your friends but I love that you can play by yourself too, hope to see more options for Missions and ship in the future, but what he has right now is a game that you can play for a few hours enjoy the hell of it.
The game just isn't good.
You have 2 ship types
The Frigate is a good starter ship, but struggles with late-game due to the 8(3Star,3Port,2Aft) module count & 6 item storage.
The Destroyer is okay for multiplayer but isn't fun for a single-player experience because of long travel time(4Star,4Port,2Aft,2Bow) about 24 item storage
About 7 loadouts per ship
(Changed in V1.1.2)[strike]Modules are either super rare or non-existant as loot/rewards[/strike]Missions are extremely predictable
Missions do NOT have random events (Ambushes, faction conflicts, allies in distress etc)
The only random event is being pulled out of a void warp into a fight(Void Interdiction).
Void space is supposed to give breathing room, Void interdiction makes AFK risky, (Should be reworked to trigger when beginning a new mission jump)
Mission Risk VS Reward is rarely reasonable (An insane difficulty often gives a crappy relic worth 10 Alloys if scrapped, An Easy mission is very likely to give a 12 Alloy Reward)
really like the game, I can see the potential of it. My only two cents are about what makes the game great.
-the ship modularity is awesome and one of the most attractive pieces of the game, I wish they would introduce more customization into ship options so you could see a little crazier and more extreme glass cannons lol. Also this brings up the problem of there are only a few ship designs and strategies, that are already ridiculously broken and just melt bosses even late into the game almost instantly and make the late-game boring, so on the fly choices to incrementally increase the overall difficulty as you go would be good (IE some kind of high risk/reward mission that effects game-play overall but still rewards the player)
-secondly objectives and missions are fun, and definitely don't get boring very quickly but i think could use a little for variety. especially looting buildings in EVA is a pretty cool function that I don't think was fleshed out quite as fully as it could've been.
-any late game strategy pretty much always excludes the payload launcher, kinetic defense, booster charges station (makes sense if you know the meta relics), and battery charger station (if you play right you should have a stupid amount of alloys, just craft tons of extras).
-any good late game has always included in the frigate two lvl 3 shield generators and two lvl 3 power generators without fail.
-collision effects on items, the ship, obstacles, and with the player needs to be fixed, its the only thing that 100% prevents this game for looking completely polished. Funny at first but is a constant headache the whole game. probably unity being scuffed but idk.this inst a call to nerf anything or overly buff, but i think the functionality of these components of the ship could be tweaked so as to better compliment different kinds of builds, while maintaining the balance of the game.
Overall i think the game is enjoyable for a good amount of playtime, but I can currently see the burnout looming ahead. So far its been cheaper than a dollar per an hour of gameplay.TLDR: game is very fun but can use more expansion upon current goals and current weaponry and utility item functions.
This was a lot more fun than I was expecting it to be. I have to say we had a blast playing it.
If you have a good crew capable of working together and coordinate what needs doing, it can be a fun experience.The cooperation is pretty fun, you really need to work together to make it work.
Though I think our engineer worked the hardest. Need this, need that, power's down, reset my boosters.Unfortunately, it seems kind of limited in some areas such as ship availability and enemy variety. We were fighting the same enemy ships throughout our hours long session and there were only about 6 different enemies. And more missions would also be a plus, they seemed kind of repetitive from what we played only having tougher enemies to separate one from the next.You also start with preconfigured loadouts which I initially thought was quite disappointing not being able to modify it but it didn't take us long before we were stripping out those components and replacing them with upgrades.A shame there are only a couple of ships to choose from, a big ship and a small ship with nothing in between. If they added a medium sized ship that is functional with 3 people more suited to 4 or 5 and just about cramped with 6.But where it really shines is in the customization of modules for the ships.
needs some more flexible ships for different player sizes playing with just two people co-op is just too brutal unless your super synced and crazy quick not something for casual players for sure, but having more players is super fun indeed and becomes way more fluent in gameplay
