Void Bastards

This game took me by surprise.  I first saw it in action on a quick look on GiantBomb. The cell shaded graphics, sardonic humor, and fun looting sold me on picking it up as soon as I finished the video.

The developers of Void Bastards have some pedigree, as the studio was created by former Bioshock developers.  I can't say I see a direct through line between both games, other than good quality and some solid environmental story telling.  On that front, the story of Void Bastards is pretty light.  In essence, you are playing a backpack. It's ok, I'll wait a little while that sentence rattles in your head for a few minutes.

You're back? Cool. The setup of the game is that a large ship carrying the desiccated husks of hundreds of thousands of inmates were attacked by space pirates.  The ship is left derelict. The onboard ship AI follows protocol and hydrates one inmate at a time, and tasks them to locate parts to repair the ship.  You control these inmates, doing first person shooting and looting through spaceships.  You go to these ships using a grid-like spacemap where you can see what goodies are on the ship as well as other attributes.  hen you die, the backpack the inmate is wearing takes their possessions and returns back to the ship, waiting for the next hapless inmate to be hydrated. Progression is maintained by building new items that stay in the backpack, as well as material found while looting.

The core loop ends up being, you get an inmate rehydrated, you board ships looking for specific loot to rebuild the prison ship, or make better equipment.  You do this until you die, and start over.  As you progress, you will start in deeper parts of space where you can make more powerful gear.  Small nuggets of the world can be gleaned from item descriptions and quips from the AI controlling your missions, but if you're expecting a grand tale, you will be disappointed.  That said, there is definitely some funny moments in the games comic book style cut scenes.

Through reading the bios of these inmates (whose crimes range from being terrorist, to bumping into a CEO), and listening to overhead announcements on ships, we learn more about this bureaucratic nightmare world. There was some kind of event that left many ships derelict, and full of mutated people who become your enemy.  The ships are kept interesting by random traits being added (some good some bad) such as more hazards, or perhaps enemies that become your ally, or less breathable air.  Your inmate also has random traits that help and hinder your progress.  One guy I had couldn't help but be overjoyed when looting, and would scream and attract enemies to him whenever grabbing an item.

The game took me about 15 hours to beat, the early part of the game had me dying very often while I struggled to come to grips with how I was supposed to play the game.  As time went on I became very efficient about tracking down just the things I needed and getting the hell out of dodge.   The ending was a bit sudden, but by the time I reached it, I was glad to be done.  Any longer and I feel it would have overstayed its welcome.  As it is I look forward to any additional content in the future.