Void Reaver – Preview

The latest playable demo for Void Reaver introduces new characters, skills, weapons, and items, giving players a much better look at what the final game might have to offer. At its core, this is a sci-fi take on the popular roguelike, wave-based survival genre popularized by Vampire Survivors, but it tries to stand out through its inventory-management system. 

The demo does not really take its time to set the scene; gameplay here is the main focus. That being said, the premise is simple: you’ve crash-landed on a dying alien planet and must explore a mysterious tower while scavenging gear and trying to survive increasingly dangerous enemy waves.

The demo I got to play features four playable characters, with placeholders suggesting that more may be planned for the future. There is also only one single playable biome available to play, while two additional locations are visible but grayed out (one of them doesn’t even have a proper location name yet). There are also multiple difficulty options available, though not all from the start. 

The four characters each encourage different playstyles. One specializes in melee combat, another focuses on ranged weapons, a third revolves around turrets and drones, and the final character is more of a “damage-over-time” character. And while they all have access to the same item pool, their stats and unique skill encourage you to build them differently.

The gameplay loop is relatively simple, and anyone who has played Vampire Survivors will immediately understand the basics. You move around the map while your weapons automatically attack the endless swarms of enemies surrounding you. It is one of those games that start out with slow attacks against weak enemies, but as the run progresses, you should be taking advantage of synergies to easily clear the increasingly stronger and more numerous enemy waves coming for your dead body. 

Void Reaver does add a couple of active elements, however. Each character has one active skill that can be triggered manually, alongside a dash that helps with positioning and survival.

But these types of games are not for everyone, as the moment-to-moment gameplay is rather passive, and isn’t always particularly engaging on its own. You’re basically just moving around while watching numbers fly across the screen; kinda like incremental games to some extent. You don’t even need a second hand to play, as all three actions (moving, skill, dash) can be performed with the mouse alone. To keep players invested, these games need interesting progression systems or unique mechanics.

For Void Reaver, that mechanic is inventory management paired with a roguelite game structure.

You begin each run with a fairly small grid-based inventory. Every item you purchase occupies some of that limited space, forcing you to think carefully about what you keep and what you discard.

But it’s not about simply buying the best items… It’s about arranging them correctly within your inventory, too, as many come with several attributes that interact with other item types. Building a powerful character therefore becomes a hunt for synergies. For example, an item might gain bonuses from any adjacent item carrying the “Elemental” attribute. As a result, every run turns into a balancing act between finding good items, and arranging them efficiently inside your inventory. There are also Artifacts that increase some of your stats, but don’t synergize with your offensive weapons. Do you favor an increase in attack speed over an additional turret? 

Adding to the challenge, you only have two temporary slots available for stashing items while reorganizing your setup. You can expand your inventory over time, but every additional grid square costs valuable currency that could otherwise be spent on new gear.

It’s a clever system and easily the most distinctive aspect of the game.

Items can be upgraded by combining duplicates, which creates an additional layer of progression during a run. Unfortunately, I found one aspect of this system frustrating. Only completely identical items can be merged, which also means they must share the same rarity. In practice, the shops continued offering basic items even relatively deep into a run. With inventory space being so limited, it’s difficult to justify buying a low-rarity duplicate and holding onto it in the hope that you’ll eventually find enough copies to upgrade it into something matching the stronger version you already own.

A successful run consists of 20 waves total. After each wave, a shop opens where you can spend the currency earned from defeating enemies, purchase new gear, and reorganize your inventory. As the run progresses, Elite enemies begin appearing. These are significantly tougher than regular mobs, but arrive in much smaller numbers. They act as dangerous threats that force you to pay attention amidst the chaos.

Everything culminates at Wave 20, where a boss finally appears.

The boss is an enormous creature with a substantial health pool and serves as the final challenge of the run. This giant has a multitude of attacks that cover large areas, and is accompanied by an endless wave of the same enemies and Elites  you’ve had to deal with up to this point. You cannot simply take on the boss face-on, you gotta look for opportunities to get close enough to deal damage. And you need to be careful doing so, as you don’t have access to your inventory during the wave itself.  

And after defeating the boss? The run simply ends. At least in the demo.

It’s entirely possible that the full release will allow players to continue beyond this point and face increasingly powerful bosses, but currently the Wave 20 encounter acts as the conclusion.

Now, besides killing enemies and collecting their dropped currency, there are other elements to look out for during a run. 

Occasionally, chests appear that can be opened by standing inside a designated area for a period of time. Unfortunately, in my experience most chests didn’t give any noticeable rewards whatsoever. In many cases, risking damage just to open one didn’t feel worthwhile.

There are exceptions. Sometimes you’ll receive a shield, which is always useful, or a magnet that instantly pulls all uncollected currency toward you, but these rewards were extremely hard to come by. 

The larger event objectives are much more interesting. These include challenges such as destroying a large turret or defeating a specific number of enemies within a highlighted area. The game clearly communicates these events through UI markers, making them hard to miss, and the rewards generally justify the effort required to complete them.

Now, unlike Vampire Survivors, Void Reaver actually features permanent progression between runs. Depending on how far you survive, you’ll earn skill points that can be invested into a skill tree between runs. These upgrades improve your character(s) permanently, granting bonuses such as increased health, additional armor, improved mobility, new starting weapons, and more.

Because of this system, players shouldn’t expect to defeat the boss (or even reach it) during their first attempt. The game simply isn’t designed that way. Failure is part of the progression loop. Every failed run contributes toward future success through permanent upgrades that allow you to start the next run stronger than the previous. Personally, I managed to reach the boss on my second run, but it still took several more attempts before I had accumulated enough upgrades to reliably deal with both the boss and the large number of elites and enemies accompanying it.

Interestingly, there are actually two skill trees: one shared across all characters and another that is character-specific. Both use the same pool of skill points, forcing you to decide whether you want to invest into a broader account progression or stronger specialization for a particular character.

What surprised me most about Void Reaver was how quickly it got its hooks into me.

Even after failed attempts, I found myself wanting to start another run. Part of that comes from the permanent progression system, as I thought that “now I might actually have a decent chance!”, but a lot of it also stems from the inventory mechanics. Every run offers new opportunities to experiment with item combinations and discover stronger synergies.

The demo is still limited in scope, with only one biome, four characters, and a single boss encounter currently available. There are also a few rough edges, particularly regarding item upgrading and the underwhelming chest rewards.

Still, the foundation feels solid. The inventory management system gives Void Reaver a unique identity within the genre, and the constant chase for better builds makes each run feel different enough to remain engaging.

Most importantly, it left me wanting to play “just one more run”, and that’s probably the strongest compliment a run-based game like this one can get.