Voidhold

Voidhold is a single-player sci-fi horde-survival roguelite in which you command a fireteam holding a position at the edge of the void against endlessly escalating waves. Three AI troopers fight alongside you—VECTOR, NOVA and ECHO—with the combat dog REX-7 and recon eagle-drone AQUILA in support. You shoot from a third-person, over-the-shoulder view and build your squad and weapons over each run.

Command your fireteam

The troopers are named and colour-coded, and gain veteran strength with each level. Each carries a fixed weapon: VECTOR uses the RG-4 RAILSPIKE, whose shots charge to full and pierce a line of enemies; NOVA fights at close range with the SG-12 SCATTER’s pellet cone; and ECHO fires area-of-effect bolts from the ARC-9 PLASMA LANCE. Comms provide arrival calls on every world, first-contact warnings and alerts when allies go down.

A command wheel lets you order the entire squad, including the companions, to engage freely, protect you, hold a position or focus on one target. The troopers and companions move, aim and fire on their own. Fallen squad members redeploy when you reach the next planet, so losses carry through the world as a setback rather than ending the run.

Survive the waves

The horde escalates across ten distinct biomes that loop endlessly. Each planet has its own type of horde; defeating a boss provides one brief respite before the waves grow stronger again. Every biome has a mini-boss in its middle and a boss at its end, drawn from five rotating archetypes: a demon bruiser, a green zone-caster, a charging juggernaut, an aerial dive-bomber and an ice brute-king. These fights centre on telegraphed weak points.

Enemies use different attacks and behaviours. The ASH REAVER flanks with a telegraphed ballistic leap, while ash lancers attack from range with their tridents. Deeper waves add mutated behaviours such as volatile chargers, mortar brutes, warded spitters and dive-bombing flyers. Elite-mutated enemies, marked by gold crowns and shields, are worth triple; break their shields before killing them. Deeper still, a higher rank of enemy appears, larger and tougher, with greater rewards.

Eleven special waves change the rules for an entire level: HARDENED SWARM, FLYER ECLIPSE, ELITE PATROL, VOLATILE CASCADE, MORTAR SIEGE, STAMPEDE, SHIELD WALL, CROSSFIRE, BREACH, LOW-G and RAZOR EDGE. In BREACH, one wall has fallen and enemies pour through it; LOW-G turns height into cover; and RAZOR EDGE makes hits more damaging in both directions. Boss fights can also have special twists: ROYAL GUARD shields the boss until its guards fall, IRONCLAD gives the boss heavier armour, and WAR PARTY adds another boss.

Shape each run

Seven mods—HOLLOW-POINT, SIPHON ROUNDS, ARC CONDUCTOR, KILL-DRIVE, AEGIS CORE, INCENDIARY and ADRENALINE—combine into 23 named synergies. These include EXECUTE, GLASS CANNON, CHAIN REACTION, SCORCHED EARTH, THERMAL CORE, BLOODLUST, VAMPIRE, APEX PREDATOR, MELTDOWN, BERSERKER, FRENZY, JUGGERNAUT, LAST STAND and FORTRESS. Committing to a lane compounds its effects and can transform a run, rather than simply increasing numbers.

Each run also earns SALVAGE, which you spend across seven PROGRAMS for permanent starting advantages: credits, a pre-fitted jetpack, charged shields, reinforced hull, weapon logistics, REX-7 and AQUILA.

Weapons and progression

You can freely swap between six weapons fitted to one arm-cannon: a carbine, piercing breaker, plasma lance, scatter, charge-railgun and incendiary. The shooting has weight and recoil, with kill effects described as “kill-juice.”

You can save a run at any planet boundary and resume later. Resumed runs do not count toward the high-score board, which records only unbroken runs. The game also has a local high-score board and Steam leaderboards for friends and worldwide rankings, along with 31 Steam achievements, from FIRST STAND to the 5,000-kill chain.

Challenge operations

Eight medal-graded challenge OPERATIONS each take place on their own world. They range from the boss-rush GAUNTLET to the OMEGA PROTOCOL capstone.