VoidExpanse Review (PC)

Flying around in space, blowing up pirates, undergoing missions to aid the rebels against the Empire, and maybe engaging in a little bit of fair trading and smuggling, were all things I used to fantasize about as a kid.

Back then, I had to use my imagination a lot, what with space flight being the stuff of science fiction. Thankfully, in the meantime, a lot of people used their imagination a lot too, making computers powerful and accessible, so I wouldn't have to strain my brain anymore.

VoidExpanse is an indie title that combines all of these aspects, letting you travel across star systems, making a name for yourself, while also helping in the battle against a mysterious alien race that threatens to destroy us all.

It's a top-down open-world shooter, where you can hunt down space pirates, become a prosperous miner, engage in trading, join one of the factions vying for control of the known universe, and eventually, when you're tired of all the vastness of space, end it all by completing your faction's quest line, offering you a nice feeling of closure.

Close encounter with a star

The ships

While you can clearly tell from the first few moments that VoidExpanse is a low-budget production, it fortunately feels pretty smooth to play. The interface is functional, the graphics pleasing, and at first, there is a lot to do.

The ship is one of the most important things in a space adventurer's arsenal, and ships in VoidExpanse are, unfortunately, a mixed bag.

There is a significant degree of customization, there are several ship classes with different types to choose from in each of them, allowing you to pick and choose something that fits your play style, but at the same time, things are pretty restrictive.

Outfitting your spacecraft is easy to do, there are several different categories like engine, radar, shield, where you can use different parts, and an extra one, the hull, which is pretty much the most important one, as it dictates what your ship can do and what kind of weaponry it can carry.

“The top-down shooter mechanics are fun, but VoidExpanse seems to lack enough meaningful content, and gameplay starts getting really repetitive.”

The weapons are divided between energy, missiles and projectile, with the three categories having a ton of options between them, from long-range, fast-moving directional rockets to close-range wide-spread radius space shotguns, and a ton of continuous and pulse lasers in between.

The bad thing is that each ship type has certain pre-determined weapon type hardpoints, so while you can fit in your best or favorite parts, you can't choose what type they are, which is a bit of a bummer.

I would have liked for the choices you have to make to offer a certain degree of complexity, like having a tonnage criteria that you have to meet or to be able to mix and match weapon types and modules.

Instead, you just fit in your best pieces and you're pretty much done, with a few exceptions that pop up further down the road, like switching from good maneuverability drives for ones that offer you a maximum speed advantage when you're transitioning from dogfighting to traveling to distant star systems.

All of these components you find either in the smoking husks of the ships you destroy in space, or while browsing the wares of merchants. Each star system is procedurally generated, based on threat and technology levels, translating into how many enemies you can expect to find and the range of available equipment that you can find for sale at star bases.

The skill trees offer a solid feeling of progression

The captain

I really liked that there are several skill trees that you can specialize in as you advance in your adventure, offering you slight benefits to weapon range, mining speed, or the price of refueling, letting you progress in what interests you most.

You can distribute skill points in Piloting, Combat, Engineering, and Social, and depending on your preferred play style, you have the option to make everything more streamlined.

Those little bonuses tend to add up as your level increases, offering a satisfying feeling of progression. Although the mechanics are pretty simplistic, they're also quite enjoyable, and in spite of their repetitive nature, they can hold you captive for quite a few hours at a time.

You gain experience from mining, blasting enemies out of the skies, and doing missions, ranging from seeing what base commanders need to be done, to faction-specific missions that can advance the story.

The bad thing is that, once you've seen one, you've seen them all, as they're only a handful, and the progression system starts feeling like less of a real space adventurer saga, and more of a grind to unlock another class of ships or stronger weapons or module boosters.

The existence of the skill trees is a definite plus, but I would have liked for the game to have more options, and more meaningful choices, not just small bonuses that make in-flight consumables restore 3 percent more shield points, or a 2 percent upgrade to whatever per tier, without anything unique.

This way, while it does improve the overall experience, it doesn't add an extra bit of flavor, such as becoming a fighter in order to gain access to some exclusive maneuvers or skills, or an engineer in order to be able to fit more stuff on your ship or create your own tweaked gear.

Blowing up pirates is fun

Battles and all the rest

Apart from engaging in the age-old engine of progress, trade, by buying low and selling high, you can also mine and dump your load at any nearby star base. If you're feeling on the aggressive side, you can hunt down pirates and alien ships, and get upgrades and loot to sell from what they drop, in order to ensure a steady flow of credits.

You need to make credits somehow, and thankfully, it's up to you to figure out how. You can mindlessly mine away in a secure area while watching TV, or engage in dogfights and blow everyone up.

You always have something to work for, from different ship hulls to devastating weapons, but the game starts to feel a bit lacking once you do get them.

Missions are very simple and linear, you mainly have to go to a certain point and either kill or rescue someone from debris, or harvest a certain number of resources. The faction ones are better, introducing a bit of variety and excitement, but it still feels like there's not enough.

The top-down shooter mechanics are fun, but VoidExpanse seems to lack enough meaningful content, and gameplay starts getting really repetitive.

There is some lore to read, but after you go through the listed dialogue options with one non-playable character, all subsequent interactions will go the same. At a certain point, you feel like you're grinding for some skill points and cash, instead of adventuring, curious to find more about the fate of the galaxy.

The battles also start to feel the same after a while, especially if you happen to only like lasers, due to the fact that you don't run out of ammo. You find one or two ships flying through space, ram into them and try to zerg them down before your own health expires, rinse and repeat.

There are no large-scale engagements, and there is little strategy to fighting. You can't customize your ship in order to have it perform in a certain way during fights, you just do some basic maneuvers and spam pellets and missiles that usually move very, very slow.

On top of that, you can't zoom out too much, it feels like you're restricted to a close-up view that's only a little bigger than the range of your weapons, making battles involving several ships difficult and unsatisfying.

Having this much freedom is great, but there simply isn't enough content to keep you engaged, once you get past the initial excitement.

Play Video

Sound and visuals

We've already established that VoidExpanse is a low-budget production, so you shouldn't expect any miracles from it.

The graphics are pleasing, the emptiness of space is filled with planets and vast, brightly colored nebulae, and when you get close enough to the stars, you can even see their molten surfaces explode in a continuous atomic dance, before dying a brutal death, irradiated and scorched.

The design is pretty simplistic overall but also very functional, and that seems to be the over-arching theme of the game. The ship and base models aren't particularly eye catching, but they do a pretty good job of conveying what space vehicles might look like.

Some doughnut-shaped bases simply float around in space, while others are built on asteroids, ships vary in size and shape but feel overall bulky and functional, without reflecting the usual pop culture propensity toward aerodynamics, as there is no friction in space.

The ambient music is okay, but not great, and you might find yourself changing it to something that feels more appropriate, more lively when you feel like playing space privateer, and more meditative when you're mining, all alone in a quiet sector of the galaxy.

The sound effects offer all the aural feedback you need, from the sound of your engines humming to projectile-based weapons making a fun shotgun blast, complimenting the entire experience. The one you'll hear the most though will most likely be that of the shields exploding when you get into a head-on collision with an asteroid for the umpteenth time.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion