Void Crew is a co-op Simulation Game for up to four players from Danish studio Hutlihut Games, and published by Focus Entertainment, built on the Unity engine.
In the distant future, humanity has - for the most part - cast off their mortal shells, the first to do so being Metem. But this has come at a great cost, and what remains of humanity is beset by hostile forces on all fronts. Players are cast into the role of "Ectypes", immortal warrior clones who jump from body to body using the Silver Thread system, and must crew varying configurations of Metem warships in an effort to push back the Hollow and Remnant, and aid their fellow NPC Ectypes in the struggle for survival. Missions take the form of one to three primary objectives in a chain, sometimes with optional side objectives.
Think FTL: Faster Than Light meets Deep Rock Galactic and you're not too far off the mark. Sort of.
The game was released in early access on Steam on September 7, 2023.
Void Crew provides examples of:
- 2-D Space: To help mitigate potential confusion and chaos in an already confusing and chaotic game, there is an absolute up/down; you can ascend and descend, and pitch the ship somewhat whilst climbing or diving, but you cannot roll whilst piloting or when outside of the ship.
- The Aesthetics of Technology: Remnant ships are crude, boxy metal with industrial designs, whilst Hollow ships are sleek, glossy primitive shapes and ominous purple glows. Metem ships land somewhere in the middle, balancing industrial components with elegant gold plating.
- All Caps: In subtitles, METEM, HOLLOW, and REMNANT are always rendered in all-caps.
- Anti-Armor: Kinetic weapons are generally better against armoured hulls and weak against shields, with the Orison Heavy Autocannon in particular being well suited to shattering the heavy plating on Hollow ships to render them vulnerable to other weapons.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- It's not possible to 'deadlock' yourself by accidentally running out of biomass; it'll just massively slow down the respawn and healing rates of the sarcographs, giving whatever killed you more time to blow up the ship (and thus actually end the run for you). This means if your crew has a couple of accidents whilst spacewalking it's not a total run-ender.
- Artificial Intelligence: The Hollow appear to be some form of self-replicating artificial intelligence, though since they communicate only through trying to kill you, it's hard to be certain exactly what's going on. They do not appear to be human made, which only makes things more concerning.
- Asteroids Monster: Hollow Assemblers are cuboid structures which gradually produce more Hollow units. On top of steadily spawning in random Hollow units (usually fighter swarms, heavy fighters, or minefields) once aggressed, destroying the primary core will cause it to split into two sub-cores which also are now spawning more enemies; Metem Command even explicitly tells you to pace your efforts to avoid being overwhelmed. Better hope no Summoners are around either, or else you'll be swarmed in no time at all.
- Asteroid Thicket: Massive asteroids in fairly sizeable clusters provide terrain for your missions, granting cover and restricting movement. Even worse you may have to deal with asteroid storms from time to time, which can damage the ship's hull with the impacts.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Blowing armour plating off of certain ships can reveal glowing red weak spots that cause the target to take twice as much damage from any direct hits, until the weak point itself is destroyed. Most easily demonstrated with the Hollow Cruisers.
- Bling of War: Metem ships are absolutely slathered in filigree'd gold, both inside and out. This is sometimes at odds with their more industrial components, but somehow never looks painfully jarring.
- Body Backup Drive: The 'silver thread' and sarcographs, which are used to explain how players can die and be revived mid-mission; a clone is flash-grown, and then the player character connected to it via 'metempsychosis', giving them control of the body.
- Bottomless Magazines: The basic Benediction Autocannon is supplied with enough ammunition that it's not even a concern, apparently, and its autoloader system means you don't have to stop to reload. You have to manage shot spread and heat buildup instead.
- Brain in a Jar: The B.R.A.I.N. (Bio-Robotic Automation Interfacing Neurosystem) auto-turrets use cultured, conditioned, and optimized brains-in-jars as part of their targeting and control systems. There's also homunculi like the Voice and the news presenter, but they have a vestigial body to go with their brains.
- Character Class System: There are (presently) four loose classes you can specialize into; Scavenger, Pilot, Gunner, and Engineer. Scavenger skills increase jetpack performance, Pilot skills increase ship speed and maneuverability, Gunner skills increase the effectiveness of the turret you're currently operating, and Engineers are better at performing various repair tasks.
- Church Militant: The Mentem have a distinctly religious vibe, referring to sortes against the Hollow as Pilgrimages and their ranking system being quite ecclesiastical. Unlike most potrayals, they are also very scientifically minded and take pride in the practical reasoning behind the tenets (for example, Hollow Prisms are blasphemous creations to be destroyed on sight...because they allow the xenocidal machines to track down human FTL and annhilate them if they aren't destroyed themselves).
- Cores-and-Turrets Boss: The Hollow deploy specialized "Prism" Void jump detector arrays that are protected by clusters of dormant shield, turret, and spawn nodes; the shield nodes give it an invulnerable energy shield whilst active, turret nodes will fire volleys of projectiles at you, and spawn nodes will summon additional enemies to harass you. As you reduce the main array's health, more of these nodes will wake up, so you need to balance which ones you destroy. The Remnant also have Comm Arrays and Freighters, which have various sub-components that can be shot off.
- Cyborg: According to dialogue added with the Christmas event, Remnant ship crews are barely-living husks fused with their gunnery stations and control systems. Ectypes are presumably augmented to some degree as well considering the silver thread link, but seem to be mostly organic as progression is via "gene points".
- Death Is Cheap: Died mid-mission? No problem, just wait whilst the ship's Sarcograph prints a fresh body and the Voice reads you some motivational quote, and then you're right back into the action! Well, assuming you had enough spare biomass stored up that is.
- Deflector Shields: Ships can be outfitted with Arc Shields that can protect three of the ship's four facings depending on where they're installed; an Arc Shield installed in a rear-facing slot won't be able to shield the front quadrant of the ship, or vice-versa.
- Destructible Projectiles: Hollow Bombers shoot four slow, poorly-homing projectiles that deal significant damage but can be shot down. This tends to be easier than avoiding them, given they are quite persistent. Some other enemy projectiles (particularly the volleys of purple rockets fired by Hollow fighters) can be shot down too, but this is much harder and best left to point defense turrets.
- Diverting Power: Your ship has a fairly low base power output, which can induce this for more careful players... or you can just overdraw from the reactor and juggle the breakers instead. Certain components can also be overcharged to increase their output or performance, which is followed by a lengthy cooldown period.
- Energy Weapon: Shuriken Carronades, Energy-Gatlings, and Recuser Beamcasters provide potent anti-shield weapons, though their damage output against hull and heavy armour is subpar.
- Escort Mission: Protect missions see you linking up with a group of friendly Metem ships and then escorting them as they travel to a jump point so they can spool up their void drives to escape.
- Explosive Instrumentation: Metem ships do have circuitbreakers, but it won't protect you from various internals catching fire, exploding, or arcing electricity into the deck plates and hapless nearby ectypes. Nevermind that sometimes valves just pop open and start venting fire into the interior!
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Via void drives, which everyone seems to use. Using them takes you through a big greenish space tube. Oh, and remember to strap in - unless you have enhanced magboots.
- Freeze Ray: Hollow Frostmorphs project a beam that does no damage, but steadily lowers the internal temperature of your ship. This is relatively harmless by itself, if not for the fact that your life support absolutely cannot keep up with this forever and lower temperatures will cause you to start taking health damage.
- Hitscan: The Recuser Beamcaster is a powerful long-range energy cannon with pinpoint precision and a quick charge cycle. If you can get the rhythm down to maximize the firerate it's an absolutely devastating weapon, capable of quickly knocking out shields and dispatching lightly-armoured enemies before they can be a threat.
- Hostile Weather: Hostile Space Weather, at that. Expect periodic meteor(ite) and ice shard storms in certain zones, which can dramatically limit visibility and cause serious hull damage as well as cause exposed ectypes to quickly overheat or freeze. Also frustrating are electrical storms, which can randomly shut off ship systems (including the helm controls) and cause interior malfunctions that need to be repaired. You can also run into pockets of superheated/supercooled gas, or have to deal with solar storms which will rapidly heat the ship and cause anyone outside a derelict to start roasting.
- Metal Slime: Hollow Collectors are small targets that meander around the mission zone, doing nothing of import... until you shoot at them, at which point they'll attempt to make a run for it. If you manage to shoot them down before they jump out, though, they tend to drop some nice rewards.
- Mini-Game: There are many various tasks you can perform, either to increase system performance for a short time, or to enact repairs. Some require arrow-key inputs a la Helldivers, whilst others simply require you hold or repeatedly press a certain key. Failing the input sequence for repair tasks will shock/burn you though and deplete your health, so it's best not to rush them.
- Mission Control: Two. First is the feminine Voice, which claims to relay the will of Metem and also acts as a general announcer for ship status updates. Second is Metem Command, a masculine-voiced figure who delivers most of the actual mission details.
- Mook Maker: Hollow Assemblers, Hollow Summoners, and Remnant Freighters possess the ability to produce (Assemblers) or summon (Summoners, Freighters) reinforcements to assist in combat. Fortunately Summoners are fairly fragile and can't fight at all themselves, and the Freighter's comm array can be destroyed to stem the tide, but Assemblers need to be taken out fast to avoid being overwhelmed.
- More Dakka: For short-range combat, the Litany Chaingun dispenses rapid streams of ballistic projectiles - if you can keep up with its voracious ammo demands. It's not very accurate, of course. Its energy-based cousin, the Shuriken Energy-Gatling, is much more accurate but has its own issues - namely that it overheats extremely quickly.
- Our Homunculi Are Diffferent: The Wetware CPU of your ship and autonomous turrets are called Homunculi, resembling human figures with enormous brains in jars. They are pretty chill about it, and the Mentem treat them as valued members of their society, with the main one being your Mission Control. One even serves as the hub news anchor.
- Overheating: The standard Benediction cannon has unlimited ammo, but will quickly overheat if not outfitted with Heatsink mods. The Shuriken Energy-Gatling also quickly overheats (even with heatsink mods) but is highly accurate on top of providing energy-based More Dakka.
- Perfect Reload Command: The Litany Chaingun is a textbook example; it needs to be manually reloaded every 300 rounds fired, steadily drawing belts from its ammo reserves. If you hit the Reload key again whilst it's in the marked portion of the bar, it'll reload much faster.
- Precursors: Progenitors, the previous human civilization before they became the Mentem. Retrieving their records of fighting the Hollow is a common mission.
- Regenerating Shield, Static Health: Arc Shields regenerate, but only a portion of hull damage can be repaired by patching breaches; any part of the ship's health bar that isn't marked with a hazard-striped portion is gone for good.
- Rogue Lite: At the end of a mission you lose everything acquired except gene points, experience, and unlocked cosmetics, regardless of whether you win or lose. However, you gain greater rewards for material surpluses, and for each objective completed.
- Shoot Everything That Moves: The Hollow and Remnant have no compunctions about shooting helpless ectypes caught outside the ship. Getting back aboard before your O2 runs out and without getting used for target practice can be a harrowing experience.
- Sinister Geometry: The Hollow's main schtick is that all their ships are simple primitive shapes, and few things in the game are more imposing than the sleek lines and hard angles of a Hollow Cruiser (or worse, Reclaimer) coming to say hello.
- Socketed Equipment: Turrets can be upgraded with a variety of mods to enhance their performance (range, accuracy, firepower, cooling rate, and so on), with the number of mod slots varying between Marks. These mods can be removed and replaced easily. There are even a few special mods that you can't print, only find, such as Relentless Assault which massively increases the turret's firerate at the cost of reduced accuracy.
- Space Is Cold: Forget your jetpack when you're out in space? Enjoy quickly freezing to death!
- Space Mines: In standard, shielded, and stealthed varieties. Not particularly dangerous individually but very hazardous if ignored, as they'll steadily home towards any nearby targets. You can also summon friendly mines, which are useful for ambushes or attacking stationary objectives.
- Stalked by the Bell: Once you engage with the mission phase's primary objective, you have fifteen minutes before a Hollow Reclaimer arrives to put a stop to your antics. Work fast!
- Subsystem Damage: Most larger enemies have armoured sections and sub-components that can be shot off or destroyed to deal more damage; Remnant Freighters are a particularly notable example of this, with their giant orange-red cylinders, gun turrets, and reinforcement-summoning comm arrays. Your ship can also take "superficial" damage to various systems that impede performance, such as reducing a turret's rate of fire or making respawning take longer..
- Teleport Interdiction: Spend too long in the Void Tunnel, and the Hollow might detect you and use one of their specialized interdiction systems to drag you out! This forces you straight into combat (an unpleasant prospect for any crew that might have been trying to repair the ship in the downtime) and you need to take down the interdiction platform in order to make your escape. The only way to avoid it is hope someone is close enough to the helm to set a destination (if one wasn't already set) and pull the void jump lever before the interdiction sequence completes.
- Tractor Beam: The Gravity Scoop can slowly retrieve (and store) up to three items at a time. It's essential for efficient recovery of loot in space, especially in the slower Destroyer.
- Universal Ammunition: Whilst it makes a modest amount of sense that the Litany Chaingun and Kinetic Point Defense share ammo to ease logistics, and thus any Small ammo you print in the fabricator works for both, you can just find Small ammo crates whilst exploring and these will work in them just fine too. Their ammo isn't interchangeable with the larger Orison Autocannon though.
- Virtual Paper Doll: You may be a faceless, immortal warrior clone of indeterminate gender, but that doesn't mean you can't look good whilst destroying the enemies of humanity! One of your main rewards from missions are lootboxes that contain items to customize your avatar's spacesuit; alternate helmets, chestpieces, patterns, colour schemes, and visor projections, amongst other things.
Inertia effect imminent. Please be seated to avoid involuntary ejection.
Three. Two. One.
