When Lyrical Games reached out to us to book an appointment for Summer Game Fest I was stoked because I was definitely looking forward to playing Valor Mortis. I knew about that game because of the fantastic Ghostrunner titles they made. However, they also offered a look and an upcoming Western Action Roguelike called Erosion that I never heard of. If you’ve read any of my past roguelike reviews or western reviews, you know I love both of these genres and after taking a quick look at the game, I was excited to try it out.

Needless to say, I went into the demo basically blind, and I was blown away at the depth of this game. Here I was expecting just a fairly standard roguelike with a silly western theme, but holy smokes is it so much more. The overarching story is that your daughter has been taken by a warlord and held captive inside some mysterious living pillar that warps time. You’ll need to dive deeper inside this place in order to find her, but there is a catch. Every time you die, the worlds timeline jumps ten years into the future.

Where are you taking my daughter!?

Why does that matter? Well, there is a whole apocalyptic western overworld to explore in Erosion with unique characters, missions, mini-games, and everything you do impacts how the world changes in the future. Doing these quests, or just exploring, unlocks better gear for your runs inside the pillar. However, depending on the decisions you map in the quest, or who you may kill, will change what you may get in the future.

For example, one of the quests I did was given to me by a crazed chicken cult that worshipped the Great Ol’ Rooster. They tasked me in sacrificing everyone in the nearest town to their god for some great rewards. Using a specific weapon while I kill them will unlock that weapon for my future runs in the pillar. However, when you get to town, you can decide to not kill them and help the townsfolk instead.

Praise the Rooster god… or die.

I decided to kill them, praise the Rooster! When I died in my next pillar run I pulled up the game’s timeline and it showed a cool glimpse into its sprawling narrative structure. Showing my decision to kill the townspeople and it greying out the narrative branch of those actions, it was teasing what could have been. Going back to the town, it is now overran by the Rooster cult, redesigned to show all the praise to the Great Rooster. This was just one of the many storylines that we can expect from the game.

Besides main stories like that one, simply exploring things on your cool hover vehicle that reminded me of a Landspeeder will have you run into random encounters as well. There is sand fishing, buried treasures, bounties, duels, gambling, races, and so much more. Clearing out camps, interacting with shops, and doing mini-games or accidentally killing someone all have permanent consequences to the story and overworld. Dying in the overworld or the pillar makes you and your daughter older, but it will make you stronger. Will you be able to save her before you die of old age?

Fights are hectic and will keep you on your toes.

I have been talking a lot about Erosion’s overworld roguelike structure, mostly because I think that is the most unique thing about it. However, its isometric twin-stick shooting gameplay is very solid as well. There are a ton of weapons, tools, and modifiers in this game. From your classic six-shooters to whacky rooster guns that shoot bouncy eggs, there is a lot of variety and silly humor to some of these. The overall structure of the level designs, at least the ones I played, weren’t anything crazy special, but seeing how creative this game has been with everything else, I’m chalking that up to it being an early dungeon.

One thing I did like that was mentioned was boss fights take inspiration from classic games. Being huge game nerds they wanted to inject their love for games into Erosion and one of those ways was with the bosses. The one boss I fought was a spinoff of the game Snake. I could shoot it to get shorter making it faster and angrier, or if it eats to many of its mechanical parts it can grow and overwhelm you. It was a fun and hectic boss fight!

The large voxel art style is also down very well here with just about everything being destructible. Environmental objects and enemies all blow up in hilarious cubed fashion and really adds to the chaos. It’s smartly though that it doesn’t distract from the gameplay and make it hard to see what’s going on on screen. Combat is fast, frantic, and requires a ton of movement which is exactly how an isometric roguelike twin-stick shooter should play!

There will be lots to do in the overworld, all of has an effect in the future.

While I went in knowing nothing about Erosion before Summer Game Fest, I left that demo a complete fan. I loved how passionate Bartłomiej Lesiakowski (Creative Director) was talking to me about the game and the ideas for the rest of the game I was going to experience. While there isn’t a release date yet, you can sign up for the Steam Playtest that will be running June 23rd through the 30th. Full launch is planned for PC and Xbox Series X|S.

*Photos provided by publisher