Voidwrought - Switch Review

Steve Whiting -

Voidwrought is the debut title from Powersnake, backed by the publishing might of Kwalee. Marketed as an action-packed metroidvania with a focus on combat and exploration, Voidwrought certainly looks the part. With a quasi-cartoony art style, it really reminds me of Hollow Knight in its visuals (which I PROMISE will be the last time I’ll mention Hollow Knight in this review), and as a result, it’s certainly obvious where the developers of Voidwrought have got their inspiration from! Let’s dive in and see how it compares to many of its counterparts.

The Good

Voidwrought is set in the Gray City, a decaying world full of different biomes offset against cosmic biomechanical infrastructure. You play as a simulacrum (yes, I also had to Google what that meant) who is tasked with collecting Ichor, which is the blood of the gods that has been stolen by various beasts and monstrosities. I won’t lie; the storytelling in Voidwrought is pretty feeble and when sitting down to write this review, I realised I didn’t really know the WHYs and the WHATs of the story... So if you like to have a thematic purpose in your game, then perhaps this isn’t for you. That being said, if you like meandering through dark environments and taking on big, grotesque bosses, then there’s plenty of that  too!

The Gray City, Voidwrought’s game world, serves as a superb playground for any exploration-mad gamers like me. It almost constantly feels like there are dozens of choices to make on where to go next, and pretty much every nook and cranny houses one of the many collectibles and power-ups you can find. You collect the aforementioned Ichor as the main currency when you defeat enemies, and then there are relics that give you special combat abilities (both passive and active) and of course health power-ups. My personal strategy/life hack for noting down where to revisit in a metroidvania is using the Nintendo Switch screenshot function; I personally find it a bit more fun and a better record than using map markers! After about an hour of gameplay, I must have had dozens of screenshots piling up, as there were so many 'Ooh, I can’t get there yet’ moments. The satisfaction of going back and accessing said areas when you unlock abilities is one of the main tropes that really gets my juices flowing in a metroidvania, and Voidwrought absolutely achieves that and then some.

More on the combat in Voidwrought; it absolutely pops. The simulacrum is agile and there’s really satisfying feedback when you attack enemies both in terms of VFX and SFX. The boss fights also don’t disappoint and are pretty epic. They’re tough, but not ridiculously so. Amongst all of this, Voidwrought runs incredibly well on the Nintendo Switch. In my playthrough, I experienced zero bugs, crashes or framerate issues, and the load times are almost nonexistent. This is sadly quite an unusual feat on the Nintendo Switch these days, and it makes the action all the more enjoyable in this case!

TL;DR

  • Beautiful hand-drawn environments
  • An explorer’s dream
  • Fast paced action and runs smoothly on Nintendo Switch

The Bad

By and large, Voidwrought hasn’t given me much to grumble about as a metroidvania fan; however, there are some minor annoyances. For example, when you’re low on health, there’s little or no feedback to let the player know; as a result, I definitely died a few times with available health to heal with, but in the heat of combat I didn’t notice the state of my health and died.

I’ve already touched on the lack of story in Voidwrought and this will certainly put some people off, especially in the early parts of the game. There are some journals and lore you can collect, but even those are quite hard to relate back to what is actually happening in the game. Personally, it was serviceable enough for me, but I just wanted to mention this for others!

TL;DR

  • Low health feedback isn’t clear
  • Lack of story will deter some players

Final Score: 9/10

I recently helped Switchaboo compile a Top 10 Lesser Known Metroidvanias video and I honestly think if Voidwrought was out at the time of making it, then I would have included it. 

Voidwrought’s strongest traits are its exploration, game design and combat, all of which I feel are the true archetypes of metroidvanias. When all three are executed so well, you have something like Voidwrought—a fun and challenging tableau full of exploration. Bravo!

Thank you for checking out our Voidwrought Switch review, thank you to Kwalee (via Renaissance PR) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support: