Developer Plot Twist and Publisher Lyrical Games have revealed Erosion, a new spaghetti western open world rogue-like with several neat twists, be it the destructible, voxel-based world or its curious time travel mechanics. We were treated to an early look, and came away super impressed!
A Vengeful Voxel Journey
Per the developers at Plot Twist, who previously worked on The Last Case of Benedict Fox, ‘Erosion‘ is a time-jumping, open world, twin-stick shooter rogue-like that sees you set out on a mission to save your daughter. As a grieving and vengeful father, you’ll be tasked with taking on various combat-focused dungeons within in a spaghetti-western overworld.
There are a couple of neat twists here – firstly, the game is entirely voxel based, meaning an insane amount of destruction is possible, in a way that other games can’t quite compete with.
“It all started with voxels. We do love voxels, we always did. And in order to pursue this aesthetic, we’ve devised a production pipeline that allows us to make assets very quickly, to create assets – and to destroy them. Enemies – and most of the environments – are fully destructible. We know how much players love destroying things. So we made sure we’ve created a lot of assets that they can fully demolish.”
Game Director | Bartłomiej Lesiakowski
Per Game Director Bartek, the way the team have approached creating Erosion is with a focus on voxel-based destruction in mind, and because of this, they can make a variety of assets quickly, reacting to player feedback or future crazy ideas. And this game assuredly a mixture of crazy ideas, because voxels isn’t the only unique twist here.
A Wild-West Driven by Choice
Erosion blends several genres together in what looks to be a delightful medley. It’s set in a distant future, in which a seemingly sentient rock formation known as ‘The Pillar’ is eating away at the remnants of civilisation. We’ve got a sizeable overworld that while given a Wild-West tone, is also replete with neon signs, hovercars and other quirks. The overworld itself is split into a variety of biomes, filled with unique characters, stories and environments, from deserts to swamps, ruins and ancient cities.
This large region serves as a ‘dynamic’ open-world hub of sorts, allowing the player to explore and take on quests. Plot Twist aren’t afraid to have a little fun here – there are plenty of activities to enjoy, from playing poker in a Wild-West Casino to earn ‘cheddar’ (or you can shoot up the place) hovercar racing, sand fishing, hunting and more.
“We like to play with pop culture. So from one side you have Wild West, but you have also hover cars, you have zombies in submarines, a Baba-Yaga Hut, and you have ‘Al Casino’, a place where you can play and earn some cheddar…Even from the Snake Boss, the DanceDance Revolution, or some other bosses that you will encounter – We have really fun delivering those and creating those. So we hope that players will have also some fun with that.”
PLOT TWIST CEO | Tomasz Gawlikowski
As you explore, you’ll make choices which, when time jumps, will directly affect the world in a variety of ways. One example we were shown took place in a small village. We had a choice – help a seemingly friendly shopkeeper save his farm by killing some chicken cultists who have taken over; killing the shopkeeper and helping the cultists – or we could eliminate both parties.
Each choice had a dramatic affect on the world – with the cultists gone, the shopkeeper expanded his lands into an empire, and became ruthless tyrant who ruled over the village. If we chose to help the cultists, they took over the village, and the shop was closed permanently. If we went on a little murder spree, the village became a dilapidated ghost town, overrun with aggressive squatters.
A Bullet Can’t Stop Time
As I mentioned, the other aspect that drives Erosion is time. While you’re on a mission to save your daughter, every death you suffer makes time leap forward a decade. The world will change, reacting to your choices, and your daughter, taken from you as a child, will age too – take too long to get to her, and you may find her an old woman, or worse, that she’s already passed.
That certainly puts a bit of pressure on the player, but the developers, despite being keen to avoid spoiling the plot too much, suggested that while there is some sort of limit to the time travel element, but there’s no full ‘fail-state’ in Erosion.
Each life and dungeon run against ‘The Pillar’ will also have you travelling through different biomes and appropriately themed enemies to take on, and you’ll work to uncover the mystery at hand and of course, save your daughter.
Plot Twist want players to experiment with the world and the systems available to them, and have fun powering themselves up. The player will have a ‘Camp’ which can be kitted out as you progress, and there are a huge variety of weapons, active skills, passive skills to create either absolutely lethal or incredibly silly builds for your character.
The bosses you’ll encounter when fighting through these procedural voxel dungeons will also feature plenty of riffs on popular games across a variety of genres, from DanceDance Revolution to Snake. The developers referenced the cartoon ‘Adventure Time’ as one of their inspirations, and with the voxel technology foundation, allows them to iterate new ideas very quickly.
Early Access Begins Spring 2026
Erosion will be releasing into Early Access to give players a chance to have some say on the final release, but like many players that might be wary of Early Access games, it’s planned to have a relatively short time in Early Access.
Initially, the game will be available in Game Preview on Xbox PC and Steam, before coming to consoles as a 1.0 release later that year – at least, that’s the current plan.
When asked about potential for other features, from post launch content to a possible co-operative mode, Plot Twist indicated that this was all on the cards, and that there are plans to explore a two-player co-operative mode during the Early Access period. With regards to post launch content, the team shared they have plenty of ideas of different IP they can riff on to make things ‘really whacky’.
We don’t want to be too long in Early Access because Early Access is a very specific way of publishing and delivering game. There are some games that are like years in early access, and that’s definitely not our plan, but we don’t have an exact moment right now that the game will be launched on consoles later on. But we hope that it will not be too long, really. But we also plan to have a very robust plan for Early Access to deliver some new things to the players, new biomes, new enemy types, new skills, and so on – and new timelines!
PLOT TWIST CEO | Tomasz Gawlikowski
After this short preview, I can’t wait to go hands-on for myself
Erosion launches in full later in 2026 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, Steam and PlayStation 5, but is also coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2026.
