Summary
VOIN, currently in Early Access, focuses on battling swarms of enemies across a handful of levels, collecting loot, and upgrading gear to become more powerful. The HUB allows players to tweak the game’s difficulty by increasing enemy numbers, health, and strength, which leads to more intense challenges. Each area is vast, packed with secrets, hidden chests, and power-up orbs that reward exploration with rare and powerful loot. The randomized abilities on gear, such as projectile-shooting weapons, poison explosions, and berserker buffs, add depth and excitement to the combat. While the game currently offers only two areas and has a steep price for its limited content, a promising roadmap includes new areas, characters, enemies, and a final chapter slated for Q4 2025. As a solo developer project, VOIN's foundation is impressive, and its potential is undeniable. Fans of action RPGs should keep an eye on this game as it evolves—it’s already a thrilling experience with plenty of room to grow.
Developer – Nikita Sozidar
Publisher – tinyBuild
Platforms – PC (reviewed)
Review copy given by publisher
NOTE:
The following game is being reviewed in an Early Access State, the game may change after the release of this review, this review reflects the game at the time of publishing.
VOIN offers a fascinating twist on the action RPG genre and is currently in Early Access on Steam. I like to describe it as a blend of Elden Ring, Doom, and Diablo, taking some of the best elements from each to craft something fresh and exhilarating. Although the game is still in its early stages and doesn’t have a ton of content yet, there’s already plenty to dive into. Trust me—you’re in for a real treat!
You are Lightning, the pinnacle creation of a mysterious voice known as Master. After you awake, you crash down into a mountain and are given a simple sword and a few abilities to begin your adventure. As you kill monsters throughout the different lands, you will be able to find many different weapons and accessories that will provide you with a wide variety of different upgrades. Making your way down the mountain through a cave, you arrive at a HUB called Amarict. Amarict will serve as a base of operations and has gateways to different zones such as the Molten Cathedral where you can upgrade your gear, the Hall of Reflection where you can level Lightning, and then a section of portals that lead you into different lands to fight monsters and gain more treasures.
In terms of combat, you have a few different moves at your disposal from the start. Aside from the typical Light Attack and Heavy Attacks, you also have a Runic Strike. After a succession of attacks, you build up a few runes and can unleash the Runic Strike which vary by weapon. As you progress you will also come across special orbs that will allow to unlock a special attack that you can assign to a number key. These abilities can be things such as throwing your weapons in a whirlwind in front of you, causing a lightning strike, or power up your weapon with electrical attacks. All these attacks are super quick and flashy and the way the movement works in the game make it so much fun. Lightning moves quickly with his normal moving, but you can also do a quick dash to move a bit quicker and even teleport around the battlefield when your weapon is sheathed. I haven’t felt this powerful while playing a game in a long time. The rush of teleporting in the sky and crashing down on your enemies causing a shockwave of lightning to damage your foes and then cleaning things up with a whirlwind and quick slashes is an awesome feeling.
In this Early Access, there isn’t much of a story to the game and basically the game boils down to killing swarms of enemies in a few different levels and collecting the loot and upgrading it all to become more powerful. When you go back to the HUB you can increase the difficulty of the levels by increasing the number of monsters, the amount of health they have, and increase the chance of fighting much stronger versions of the monsters. When you enter the portal, the area is large and has a lot of secrets to uncover in the forms of chests and power up orbs. It really pays off to explore as much as you can because I found so many hidden chests that had powerful loot that helped me become stronger much faster. Items also have different rarity rankings and randomized loot abilities that provide powerful passive abilities to Lightning. Some of my favorite abilities are on the weapons. I found weapons that will shoot projectiles with heavy attacks, cause poison explosions on enemy kills, and after several attacks you enter a berserker rage moving faster and dealing more damage. Of course, there are other passive abilities on the other pieces of gear that can provide you with more health, increase your healing capabilities, and increase your speed of movement.
Of course, with most games at this stage, there is a bit of a waiting game involved with getting the most bang for your buck. There are only two areas as of yet and right now the price is a bit hefty for the amount of content. Obviously, this will change as time goes on and there is a planned roadmap of updates that has been provided. The roadmap includes new areas to explore, new characters to play as, and new bosses and enemies to fight. These updates are planned to include the final chapter of the story in Q4 of 2025. What is even more impressive about VOIN is that this is a solo developer project. The foundation here is an amazing start and I think there is a lot to love about VOIN. I am personally extremely excited to see how the game progresses this year and I hope you will consider giving it a try!
