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One of Interstellar’s most gut-wrenching scenes comes as Coop returns from Miller’s planet to discover the hours he spent there were decades back on Earth. McConaughey’s performance is titanic as he learns that time has escaped him and he’s missed so many years of his daughter’s life. The central conceit of Erosion reminds me of this somewhat, as you venture into a strange, time-warp to rescue your daughter; except if you die in an effort to be the world’s best dad, a decade elapses, and those precious years are lost.
With the promise of actions and choices that permeate through the ages, such as seeing a modest store owner you help suddenly at the helm of a giant empire, Erosion is an incredibly ambitious title for what is a small core team of around ten people.
Although I knew the broad premise of Erosion going into it, I was pleasantly surprised to hop on the sticks and discover it’s part open-world character-action and part twin-stick dungeon crawler. Of Erosion’s two distinct halves, it’s the overworld where a lot of the logic-defying, time-travel nonsense will be apparent. It’s topside where you’ll embark on quests, reshape the timeline you’re in, and unlock permanent upgrades to make your next visit to the Pillar better than the one before it.
In between runs, I was shown just how the timelines can be influenced by player actions as I collected a quest from Great ‘Ol Rooster, a chicken-loving cultist from the map’s northeast. His task is the retrieval of some precious cargo that’s being kept at a nearby town. To give the dilemma a little white to go with its black, a counter proposal is proffered by the shopkeeper in town to take the fight back to the cult. Not caring too much about my choice, being a demo and all, I blew the small, dustbowl town and its people away.
For the sake of showing me the consequences of my actions, we skipped ahead to discover that the cult had laid down roots in the town, taking it over for their nefarious purposes. Apparently, had I sided with the shopkeeper, he could have amassed an empire and reigned over the town. So, there’s a bit of fun nuance in the choices you can make and exactly how they’ll shape the future.
The other half of the game is the dungeon crawling, which, as I mentioned, is handled with twin-stick controls from an isometric viewpoint. Unlike something like Ruiner or Geometry Wars, the right stick is mapped to character direction, with the trigger being used to fire. Runs unfold through procedurally-generated dungeons, constructed entirely out of voxels, meaning things like cover can be blown to bits. Like other games of this ilk, keeping mobile is essential to a long, fruitful run.
Like any roguelike, you’ll find weapons and abilities that provide passive buffs. Completing tasks in the overworld adds items to the loot pool, but I managed to carve out a cool build that worked well for me—until I got to the boss, that is. Thrown into what is effectively a blown-up, interactive version of Snake that turns the titular snake into a bullet hell hose, collecting crates along the way to increase its length. If all of the game’s boss encounters lean on nostalgia in this way, I expect Erosion will appeal specifically to the older gamer.
After falling agonisingly short in my debut run, I was thrown back into experiencing what a late-game build might look like. It was a night-and-day difference, as I stormed through the same dungeon like an unstoppable war machine, harnessing a laser rifle that chains damage, orbital turrets that spawn after dodge rolling, and causing an unfathomable amount of damage. It was in this moment that the dungeon-crawling in Erosion sang. I kicked the door in on that Snake bastard and melted it this time, giving me a glimpse at the next dungeon, the only sensible follow-up to a rural dustbowl—a liminal, corpo office suite.
For such a small studio, Erosion has all the makings of a special roguelike. It delivers on tangible consequences for choice, reshaping its world time and again to reflect the level of agency on offer. The player’s burgeoning toolkit expands over time, leading to greater possibilities for a run to go from run-of-the-mill to batshit insane after getting a few blessed drops.
For a game about the fleeting nature of time, I can think of worse ways to fritter away the hours than with Erosion—a must-play for roguelike fans.