Review: The Void

Once in a blue moon, there comes along a game that renews my hope that one day the medium will be recognized as more than a pastime—perhaps even, dare I say it, art? I would be so bold as to classify Ice Pick Lodge’s The Void as the closest to art a game has ever come, and I don’t write that lightly. But therein comes the dilemma: how does one review art? With that, I must preface my review by saying that there is little enjoyment to be found in The Void. The time I spent in it would be very difficult to describe as “fun,” and there were times when I wondered if I would even have the will to finish it. That being said, it is my firm belief that The Void is one of the most, if not the most, significant game of the decade thus far, bar none.

Let’s start off with the basic premise. You have died (maybe?), but you are stuck in purgatory (kind of?), built by an artist who has now fallen into apathy-caused death, all of which may or may not be completely symbolic. Do you see my problem here? There is really nothing in The Void that is especially clear, or anything you can be completely sure about.

You play some kind of mute, amnesia-afflicted soul, exploring this “void.” It is populated by Sisters, who are bound to their chambers, waiting for you to bring them color. You see, everything in this world revolves around color, and it’s quickly running out. There is color to be gathered from the small amount that manages to bloom into flower like plants. Gardens of trees could blossom into color, if only they weren’t so dead. There is still more color to be found buried deep within the rocky walls of the Mines, but one would need the means to break through to it.

You will be spending much of the game struggling to harvest as much of this color as you can, because without it your soul cannot survive. As lifeless, desperate and desolate as the Void is, there is a worse fate: absolute death—what awaits souls who cannot keep themselves filled with color. Every moment you spend in the Void, color drains out of you. There is no rest, and survival is a constant battle to manage your resources properly.

Color is everything; it is your means of attacking Predators, vicious creatures intent on consuming as much color as they can, and it is how you interact with every object and character. Mistakes are fatal: waste too much color on a particular task and you could feel the consequences long down the road. Even more ominous is the fact that no more color is entering the Void. There is only so much that will appear before the Void itself ends.

As you find your footing, learning the ways of harvesting color, your secondary objective comes to the forefront: the Sisters I mentioned above. Progress in this game is marked by your progress with the Sisters. Feed them color to gain their trust and unlock their hearts. Unlock the first, and she’ll give you access to her chambers, where you might be able to find more color. Unlock the second and she’ll allow you passage through her realm, so that you can continue on to meet additional Sisters. You are hence warned not to attempt to unlock any more, lest you incur the wrath of the Brothers. Oh, you didn’t think your journey through the Void would be pleasant did you?

The Brothers are easily one of the most stunning pieces of the art design for the game. Horrors ripped straight from a nightmarish imagination, the Brothers are going to be the bane of your existence: traveling from chamber to chamber, spouting their rhetoric, making threats, and worst of all consuming your precious color. I hesitate to reveal anything more about the game or its world—half the experience is in the discovery, and the mistakes you make on the way.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable things I have come to understand about The Void is how much it is about failure as it is about progress. You will spend a majority of the game in a state of absolute uncertainty, not only about the game’s plot and world, but also about the very gameplay itself. Is this what I’m supposed to be doing? What exactly does the game want from me? Where should I go to move the storyline forward? Who should I be listening to? How the hell am I supposed to know what to do? These are questions I found myself asking myself over and over again. Uncertainty is the name of the game, and I have never seen anything quite like it. The tension and the atmosphere it creates is simply amazing, and contributes to one of the most inspired game-worlds I have ever seen.

The world at first seemed dull, lifeless, and uninspired, but as I made my way through the game, I was frequently floored by the pure imagination of the art. I don’t believe I have ever seen such a combination of gorgeous visuals and flawless sound, music and voice-acting.

But enough about the abstract, what about the gameplay itself? Does it hold up to the uniqueness of the setting? Could it ever hold up? Well, like most things in The Void, there is no simple answer. It is certainly nothing like any first-person game I’m sure you’ve played, but it is without a doubt one of the most tedious systems I’ve ever seen. Like I’ve said before, survival is a constant struggle, and every edge you can get will benefit you in the end. Sadly, this often means a constant balancing act with the colors you have and could obtain, and way too many hours in my opinion are spent trying to micromanage. Some people will get a kick out of the numbers game—I did not.

On another negative note, the ending is extremely underwhelming. As I have stated before, the journey to that conclusion is an arduous, draining one. As I approached that final stretch of gameplay, easily the most difficult since the bewildering first hour, I was incredibly ready for a mind-blowing finale. I felt like I had earned such an end. My anticipation was palpable. I was ready for some answers to my burning questions, some clarity to my confusion, some meaning to the struggle. And to put it simply, I felt let down, and more than a little bit betrayed. While the ending was certainly not terrible, it sure felt like an after-thought on the developer’s part.

However, with a game such as this, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine where the art ends and the flaws begin. It crossed my mind many times whether or not the tedium or disappointment or headdesk inducing moments of gameplay were completely intentional. Art does not have to be fun, enjoyable, or pleasant in any way, and it does not appear if one could ever know what was truly intentional or not. On a technical note, there were a number of glitches and bugs, but none that affected my experience in any significant way.

The Void is a journey: an arduous, exhausting experience fraught with frustration, disappointment and confusion. Regardless, these “flaws” are more than made up for by the game’s entrancing story, incredible atmosphere, moments of sheer brilliance and wonder. There are times during my gameplay that I wanted more than anything to stop playing, to drop the game entirely. It was just that tedious, that frustrating, that ridiculously difficult. However, seeing through the game to the end has provided me with an extraordinary experience. It is a game that transcends gaming, a trip through a world of imagination and ideas, and one that will stay with me far longer than any game in recent memory.

I would not, in good conscious, be able to award this game any less than a nine. I only regret not being able to score it any higher. Regardless, The Void may not be for everyone, or for very many for that matter, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the most unique and unforgettable game I have ever had the privilege of playing.