Notwithstanding a prolonged period of consideration (more prolonged than one will dare admit), no game has proven as challenging to orchestrate an introduction quite like Void Stranger. So in the interest of illustrating where one’s thoughts currently reside in a way that just might keep you fixed on what I have to say, consider this the more reasonable attempt at such. Ready? You sure? Alright then, here goes: after countless hours of innocently-perceived Sokoban puzzle-solving, Void Stranger feels like the kind of game you’d see come into being if you were to shove Yoko Taro, Toby Fox, Jonathan Blow, Daniel Mullins and maybe 2000s-era Kojima together in a windowless, non-descript room with nothing more than a computer and the task of achieving some coherent form of a collaboration.
Back in the real world, this is but the latest creation from Finnish developer System Erasure – itself a mere two-man partnership – yet it’s hard to look at Void Stranger as anything less than some unfathomable reminder at just how ambitious and on occasion, delightful the medium of video games can be when not just one element works, not even two or three, but every single component goes above and beyond expectation. When a game works because it’s all-too-aware of its own self-prescribed stature and indeed the overall medium’s very nature. That this is not merely something you observe, but you physically interact with. That its darkest, most-prized secrets are those with which you accomplished. Not that expectations going into a game of little public notoriety and personal history alike were of high or severely low stature alike. Put a Sokoban-styled series of puzzles with their own internal rules, systems and means of evolution in front of me and I’d happily oblige. Do so in a way that subverts the very template and what you have is nothing short of a marvel of game design.
Maybe one has to concede that personal interest in the genre itself – as much a focus on such elements like gameplay mechanics, level design and that coveted middle-ground on subtly persuading your players to look deeper – is coloring things here. Even outside recent evidence of one’s coverage on what the genre has delivered to us over recent years. But this is exactly why the Puzzle genre is as championed and as interesting to follow on a personal level. The genre is in itself a testament to how unique video games are as a medium. That satisfaction can be found in more than just the visible, but the seemingly invisible alongside. That a game that isn’t prioritizing fidelity or some grander message to take away from, can be more impressive than those that [un]knowingly do.
Yet the irony is that for a game that, for long stretches, can be compared to that of a Game Boy title – from its monochrome palette to its restricted chiptune sounds – System Erasure still manages to evoke visuals, sound and indeed a world (narrative and structure alike) more engrossing than a lot of [alleged] AAA-branded titles. If it hasn’t already been made abundantly clear, consider this a firm and unwavered declaration of Void Stranger’s status as not just the best experience of 2023, but possibly among the best of the last decade-or-so. A game whose seemingly-bottomless rabbit-hole of secrets, discoveries and mechanic-laden revelations are as maddening (let alone deep) as the very void at the game’s epicenter.
It’s a conclusion that initially, you’d be hard-pressed to reach during the first few hours. A set-up that (obviously, built with deception in mind) comes across relatively simple to start off. Taking on the role of a lone, female wanderer presumably referred to as Gray, Void Stranger tasks you with conquering more than two hundred floors of Sokoban-style puzzles. Accompanied by a staff-like device that allows you to take and subsequently rearrange single tiles into any available empty, adjacent space, the gist of these puzzles is knowing where and when to make the exchange. Bridging gaps, building temporary paths, blocking/avoiding enemies who move and/or behave only when you do. It’s not just reliant on avoiding peril that becomes critical to success, on top of solving the puzzles themselves. Most surprising is just how crucial something as basic as which way you’re facing plays its part.
But as if this multitude of factors to consider and keep tabs on wasn’t enough, Void Stranger is, from the very off, not an easy endeavor and one that refuses to step in should the going get tough. As such, there is an argument to be made during its opening hours that the entry fee of sorts demands a much higher level of skill and awareness than the vast majority of prior Sokoban iterations. Too high perhaps – built around an objective that seems way too demanding. That being that one must complete the ordeal – an ordeal that, again, comprises more than two hundred floors – without incurring the game over state. Fall off a level or get hit by an enemy and you lose a life. Lose all lives and it’s back to the start. Fortunately the game offers some initial help in the form of collectible Locusts stored in hard-to-reach treasure chests that act as your currency of lives. The caveat of course is that personal judgment on whether it’s even worth going for those extra lives to begin with. Whether one might end up worse off than if one were to simply head to the exit the moment a puzzle is presumably solved.
Add to this the lack of an undo feature and a reinforcing on that notion of being certain on what moves to commit to and it’s understandable that for some Void Stranger can feel off-putting. A game whose punishments are more apparent than its rewards – if such a thing even exists – whatever they may be. Even with the promise of a game whose puzzle design not only consistently evolves and reworks the basic formula in delightful ways, but plays host to systems and mechanics that aren’t directly told but are inevitably discovered if deduction and assumption are properly applied. But on a pure puzzle design basis, Void Stranger nails the fundamentals and then some. But although that nagging counter-argument will no doubt persist in crying out, it’s hard to shake that early feeling that what the game demands has unfortunately taken one or two steps too far.
This is where Void Stranger’s added layers come into play. And as a consequence: the revelation at just how deep, surprising and altogether rewarding it feels to peel back each and every one of its layers. Prior assumptions that what one has witnessed is to be the end to the many reveals, debunked again and again. Surprise: it’s not. But again, it would’ve been impressive on its own that the game manages to provide an accompanying plot and sequence of world-building that is itself both interesting and entertaining to watch unfold. Characters shown in a series of flash-backs, who are little more than black-and-white sprites and similarly-pixelated profiles, but yet demonstrate more appeal and personality than the graphics may seemingly allow.
Moments that too even provide comic relief that funnels back into the overall demeanor as one that you end up both trusting and not trusting as to its real intentions. One that has you constantly guessing as to where it’s heading, where it’s leading, what’s lying around the corner. But one you cannot look away from. Story tidbits that are activated upon reaching one of the many “rest rooms” – accessed by way of resting at the foot of trees that also serve as moments of respite between certain groupings of puzzle floors.
Normally here is where a review of such a title would eventually conclude. That conclusion no doubt leading off with remarks on a puzzle game brimming with varied ideas, mechanics and even elements that go beyond the very gameplay itself. An accompanying narrative and soundtrack that plays on the prescribed comparisons to 8-bit, Game Boy-like throwbacks, but still finds ways to shake things up where required. If it were to end here, Void Stranger would already be considered an essential experience and one of the best games to release this year.
But as the game will inevitably show you: we are far from done and it’s here where Void Stranger cements its status as one of utter brilliance. Put it this way: it’s been seven years sinceThe Witnesswas released. Seven years since a puzzle game delivered unto us what might be one of the most incredible rug-pulls. One you can’t help but verbally react to when that moment happens (for anyone having played it, you probably know what I’m specifically referring to). It’s been a while…but Void Stranger is finally the one game to replicate that moment. A moment that, when it first happened six or seven hours in, caused me to stare wide-eyed at my screen and openly exclaim:"[Redacted] WHAT!?".
To borrow the exact words ushered in one’s review ofEverhoodtwo years ago: “contradictory it may sound for a review not to go into detail over such key events, you’ll have to trust me on this one.” Void Stranger is a game you must go into on complete media blackout and knowing as little as possible; any discussion you spot online, turn back from and avoid at all cost. Because it’s how the game further applies its mechanics in tandem with the nature of progression that is the kind of spoiler that one must experience first-hand without prior witness or knowledge to fully grasp the ferocity with which the game sucker-punches you. And then again and again without end. How too the all-round world-building, nature and very structure has players stumble into and stumble upon secrets that serve as some grander meta on working out what exactly constitutes this game’s truest, final form.
Secrets that at points allude to future pay-offs for those looking closer, but ultimately are revealed in such a way that still commands belief. The lasting response naturally being: “well of course that existed”. That Void Stranger can pull all this off – having its grandest reveals be both cleverly tucked away and staring you straight in the face – is a testament to how enigmatic Void Stranger truly is. How it manages to be a game built on “little more than simply moving tiles around” and yet one where short-term, medium-term and long-term decisions play a factor. Again, even muttering something as seemingly-broad as mere adjectives or verbs I fear may give one of the many great reveals away. What I’ll say is that this is a puzzle game with far more tactical and explorative nuance than your typical Sokoban game. One reliant as much on planning in advance (in more ways than one) as it is sheer mental agility on working around an enclosed space.
And so it keeps going; be that your prior, seemingly-innocent playthrough on muti-floor Sokoban conundrums – a game just about moving tiles around – or something more wildly involved. That ending you thought you’d reached? You’re not even close to seeing this game’s truest nature. A game brimming with ideas and novel takes on the Sokoban template, but one that loses none of its luster no matter how deep you wish to proceed in exploring the figurative iceberg its Game Boy-like, 8-bit aesthetic hides beneath. All the while, the moment-to-moment gameplay is lavished with a soundtrack that itself wants you scurrying from one polar opposite emotion or mood to the next. To say something as reductive as a music piece with vocals is delivered with such ferocity and clever timing, should go a ways to illustrating just how on-point System Erasure get it so perfectly with the smaller moments, as they do the grander revelations.
That I’m so willingly, freely avoiding going into specifics – or even drawing comparison to some memorable moments from great games of years past – should give you an idea that this game’s truest, most distilled joy is in seeing these moments play out for the first time. Better yet, how well Void Stranger can leap from one tone to the next and feel anything but incoherent. Comic relief and light-hearted tidbits are balanced superbly by moments of melancholy, anxiety and an overall suggestion that something isn’t quite right. The soundtrack again going a great ways to reinforcing the uncertainty and discomfort at what you’re witnessing. Itself shifting from one motif or genre pull to another, all while feeling relevant to the moment.
Closing Comments:
A constantly-rewarding, brilliantly-structured and simply mind-blowing series of rug-pulls, Void Stranger isn’t just special, it’s a phenomenal showcase of what might be some of the best design in a puzzle game for some time. That on its own, the Sokoban-themed formula delivers truly clever, sneaky and genuinely-challenging ordeals that evolve, alter and ask more of the player. It’s what the game provides around and in-between such moments that in many ways, speaks to younger days of note-taking, theory-crafting and generally getting lost amid the spectacle put before you. Indeed, so long it’s been that a game has demanded all but the entirety of one’s time and so easily, but justifiably, received it. An enigmatic premise with just-as-sprawling a delivery, Void Stranger is a triumph and easily the year’s most engrossing gaming experience.
