Things I like:
-Not much RNG
-You can manage your deck before every fight
-A lot of content (challange points, impossible mode, cosmetics)
-Very nice developer

Things I don't like:
-My life

I have played:
-slay the spire
-monster train
-trials of fire
-steamworld quest
-rogue lords
-oaken
-library of ruina
-inscryption
-griftlands
-fights in tight spaces
-alina of the arena
-across the obelisk
-roguebook

And vault of the void now. If you enjoyed a lot of those titles like I did, then you will likely enjoy this one too.

EDIT: requested rank list ; updated for across the obelisk and roguebook. .

#1 Griftlands = The girl you meet in some serendipitous romcom moviesque fashion who fits in with your friends, has the enthusiastic approval of your parents, is objectively out of your league, works as a doctor. You swoop in for the kiss, pushing her hair back as you scoop the back of her head like a responsible dog owner, revealing a "no regerts" tattoo behind her ear. You then realize you're kissing with your eyes open like a psycopath.

#2 Slay the spire = The band you like inexplicably makes worse music with every album so you keep coming back to the classics. Better music videos are poor substitutes for good lyrics. Old is gold, and their songs always on your workout playlist.

#3 Fights in tight spaces = Your curiosity about peanut butter on bananas masquerades as feigned disgust. You get the sense you'll like it, but experience significant cognitive dissonance until you actually try it. You cannot discern whether the appeal is in the novelty, in the exceeding of low expectations, or its inherent synergistic merit, however, the last time you considered the potential of a banana this deeply it was being fellated by your ex girlfriend.

#4 Roguebook = You take the red pill. You realize you were little more than a capitalist oinker in Jeff Bezo's pig farm keeping the drones in the amazon warehouse moving. The electric battery powering Elon Musk's Telsa. You feel at peace with a reality that finally appreciates your wardrobe: trench coat and shades. Your neckbeard and fedora are still not in vogue, but hey, this is reality, not paradise. In the midst of your somewhat anticlimactic moment of nirvana you encounter agent Smith. Is this really reality? You’d swear on a stack of mangas this guy was an Elf in some alternate universe, father of the only 3D woman you’d ever get a bodypillow of.

#5 Vault of the Void = You're at the theater. Not the movie theater, but an actual theater. While you are remiss to think of yourself as an armchair elitist in a velvet smoking jacket with a glass of moet, you do harbor the modest notion of being an "above average" scholar and lament the trivialization of the craft in public high schools that implicitly champion the notion that all meaningful poetry contains "hath" and "thou". You're at odds with the baritone of the soprano but you're able to suspend your disbelief recognizing this is the opening act. He hits some notes that turn your nipples to diamonds and you feel compelled to hone your poultry tenor in the shower after the performance.

#6 Monster Train = You're on a trip. The Airbnb you're staying at has a good view and rustic charm. The bathroom is surprisingly modern, which you find out by accident after dropping what are tantamount to rabbit pellets courtesy of the vegan diet your wife frogmarched you into and the toilet spritzs your sphincter with a blast of water. You're slightly disturbed, but also slightly aroused.

#7 Dark Mist = You're transported back in time to your elementary school's science fair. You know your volcano is just vinegar and baking soda, but you're still impressed when it erupts, and so are the judges. You have their attention long enough to distract them from the fact your poster presentation is completely missing.

#8 Across the Obelisk = Your girlfriend’s love language is quality time and yours is physical touch. In the usual logic defying fashion prototypical of a relationship, consensus takes the form of compromise, and the only clapping you’ll hear tonight is from the studio audience of the bachelor. Long after the relationship ends because you made the fatal observation that her sister was hotter, you continue watching the bachelor. The vitriol and poison of reality TV scratches some itch at the ass end of your depraved soul. Masochist that you are, you persevere through countless seasons of cookie cutter plot and hackneyed motifs. The producers have somehow conflated two bachelors in one season with innovation as if more of the same makes it different. It occurs to you, with some degree of self loathing, that there will always be an obligatory quirky animal costume introduction because middle aged housewives are both the target audience and enamored by banalities.

#9 Alina of the Arena = You're at the bar and you can't tell if dejavu is the name of the drink in your hand or the experience you're having. The warby parker mixologist that's tending the bar procures a cheeky drink that's enjoyable, but notably light on alcohol. And mixer.

#10 Trials of Fire = You're on the cusp of LARPing to some D+D in your mother's basement, but you are not able to suspend your disbelief and become fully immersed because the dungeon master is not trying too hard and your cousin is. You swing your sword and occasionally remember its made of cardboard and the basement isn't a dungeon despite the many haphazardly scattered mementos of a somehow more illustrious childhood.

#11 Inscryption = You are immediately smitten by a pretty little number. She keeps you guessing, you look forward to every date. Eventually she invites you up to her apartment for coffee. She goes to the bathroom to slip into something more comfortable, then comes out in a latex body suit reminiscent of the gimp from pulp fiction. Your stomach turns, but you liked her because she was quirky and give it a chance. You enter the bedroom and realize its a BDSM dungeon.

#12 Rogue Lords = It's turkey day and the extended family is here. Your grandpa tells a war story you've heard before, but the details are different. You pretend it's interesting, you know it doesn't make sense, and you pray he's embellishing details of his glory days and not going senile.

#13 Steamworld Quest = You're watching Nemo with your niece. You appreciate the effort to layer in adult themed content and can recognize the quality of the production, but it's still talking fish.

PREFACE: Coming from the perspective of someone who wouldn’t stop playing Slay the Spire & Monster Train until I had made myself more than comfortable with Ascension 20 / Covenant 25, I had a lot of hope for Vault of the Void, because I’ve had numerous people telling me that I needed to play this if I was that deep into the aforementioned. And after playing Griftlands and Inscryption in recent times, I was itching for the intense replay value that lacks in those two; don’t get me wrong, I love them to death, but I enjoyed them more for their atmosphere/story-telling more than I did the moment-to-moment plays of each run. I guess what I’m saying is: I’m someone who obsesses over the build-depth of Arkham Horror LCG (on Tabletop Simulator if you can’t do it in real life, btw) and wants to see one of these roguelite-deckbuilder games come close to capturing that orgy of mechanics and satisfaction-from-success.

I think we’re extremely close to being there, now.

I didn’t want to put a stamp on Vault of the Void until I felt comfy enough at assessing all the playstyles in a way that feels consistent, so I dove in deep until I had finished impossible runs on every character at least twice, and there’s something that needs to be said: This is a game that pushes you to succeed. That isn’t to say that its cousins, Slay and Monster Train, don’t push you. It is to say that those games are all about responding to whatever is dealt to you. In other words, I don’t know if I’m going to be running a specific build archtype until I see what is dealt to me, and then respond accordingly. If I can assess that I’m getting more and more of the right cards I need? Then cue your favorite fanfare music. Those games challenge your ability to improvise your deck, which is where the satisfaction can come from. At the same time, however, there’s always going to be those runs that either feel dead-on-arrival OR will feel unearned because “Oh, the game decided to give me ALL of these insanely powerful tools? Cool. Free win, baby.”

Here, you barely have any reacting, because nearly all information is given to you; it actually took me my a few losses at Impossible mode to realize this, but the Map Rewards icon + the Route Planner are 100% necessary to streaking Impossible mode, unless you’re so good at the game that you can’t even get aroused anymore without streaking ten Instability-50 runs before getting into bed with your partner (Hey, everyone’s got a kink, don’t judge these glorious fellows).

The bottom line is that since you know all the rewards from the routes up-front, and you are freely able to modify your deck with God’s (aka Josh Bruce’s) gift to man in the form of an actual side-board for these games, there is a lesson in acceptance to be had. There is only one person to blame after reaching the final boss, only to realize that over-committing to defense means tickling the Void’s shadowy balls rather than stomping on them: That’s right, it’s time to blame Jos—You and only you.

So now you have three options after those initially embarrassing losses.

1. You rant on community hub/discords that classes and/or abilities seem over/under-twinked resulting in your under-deserved loss. You also make sure to hyperbolize your statements by referring to everything you won’t try as trash.
2. You leave a negative review that is under 10 hours and reflects the obvious fact that if you can’t win, then clearly it’s a bad game, and there is no God, only Josh.
3. You realize if there are people who can’t get aroused anymore without streaking ten instability-50 runs, then maybe streaking impossible shouldn’t be a problem if you decide to spend more than 10 hours learning where you-dun-goofed.

So I chose option three, and I’m now indoctrinated into this game as a willing cult member, eager to learn how, I, too, can streak instability 50 ten times before having sex. I highly advise this game to anyone who is willing to buckle down when it comes to roguelite-deckbuilders. It isn’t easy, but you might get an erection when you win a few Impossible rounds or maybe that’s just me.

Post Early Access Addendum: This was an Early Access review, and my one nit-pick was the soundtrack variety. This has since been addressed, and after touring the post 1.0 content after consuming its last few months of update and enjoying the subtle tweaks, I can safely say Vault of the Void not only should be played: It deserves to be played.

Thank you, Josh.

I play and try a lot of deckbuilder. Gordian Quest, Banners of ruin, Pirates outlaws, etc...

Slay the Spire is still king in my eyes and I'm always on the look out for a comparatively well designed game but with a spin on it.

At first, Vault of the Void felt overly complicated, and I played a bit but wasn't convinced. Lots of effect, keywords, mechanics. The threat system seems a bit counterintuitive. And tbf the game is one step above in term of complexity than StS and the learning curve is steep. But all this complexity isn't just fluff, and after learning the mechanics by playing the different archetypes one by one, I see it all take place into the gameplay. I am now very fond of the game.

What is the main difference with other StS wannabe is that you just have a lot more control over your run. You know what rewards you will get from fight, what card you'll meet and you can choose to use them now or later. Even the Insanity/ascenscion (difficulty scaling) is controlled by the player.

During fight, you have the same level of control : you can retain cards and energy from a turn to the next one if you want, you know what your ennemy are gonna do next turn.


It's really a differente experience from StS, offers a lot more visibilty, less RNG overall, more control and at the same time a different set of restriction that keep the game very interesting. Runs are a bit longer because you always have the choice to think a bit more.

I think one of the main issue of the game is that it takes a little while to grow on the player, so I'm hesitant to just say to people, try it and refund it if you don't like it, because it took me a few more runs to really enjoy the game and see it's real potential. But it's not that expensive, and it really worth the try.

Plus, the game is very well supported ! The dev is still balancing, adding more challenge and cards/relics.

So if you are looking for a deckbuilder with more control, a little more complexity, huge replayability with 4 VERY distinct character, I would recommend this for sure. I am now sure that I'll play that game for the years to come.

I did not like this game.

However, It is absolutely no surprise that so many people like it. You can see the care and effort the devs put into the game. The sound design, thought process, the artwork. Everything comes together and blends so well. This is why Im leaving it as a positive review. This is an amazing game. Just not for me.

If you love card games this is likely up your alley, but personally I felt too stressed the 3 hours I was playing as I was constantly feeling I was learning new card synergies for the exact same set of cards and still could never win a single time on the lowest difficulty.

So I've played Deckbuilding games, and Roguelikes, and Roguelites. All my life, I've loved them, but I must say at this point Vault of the Void has taken the crown away from all of them.

This is by far the most interesting Deckbuilding Roguelite I've played, for one primary reason: it's focused on deckbuilding & planning. Unlike common games in the genre, you're not at the mercy of entirely unpredictable RNG when it comes to what you're putting in your deck, and the control you have over your play session is remarkable.

It's a deckbuilding game before it's a Roguelite, and that makes it stand out.

A variety of points, in no particular order:

- You pick a class, and a specialization for that class, and so begin with a strong deckbuilding orientation.
- You acquire cards each run with "boosters" that get added to your character's backpack, forming a pool of cards you can use depending on the situation.
- You can tweak the deck when outside of combat, whenever you feel like, and can prepare for each encounter accordingly if the need arises. This strongly rewards a deep understanding of the game & your loadout's flexibility.
- You can upgrade cards, and even socket them with Void Stone to enhance them.
- You can change your "spell" (i.e: hero power) as you find new ones.
- The game shows you card rewards available for specific encounters, which lets you plan ahead.
- You're given choices & options for rewards when beating Elites/Uniques, not merely random stuff.
- The in-game play loop is focused on control & risk/reward management, not simply praying for RNG to work for you. It is the best execution of the core loop I've seen in a Roguelite Deckbuilder.
- The Mana/Resource system is built on player agency, management, and strategic timing: you generate energy each turn as you'd expect, but also "discard" cards to generate Energy. The energy carries over across turns, letting you set up short & long term play lines.
- After beating the game with a class, you can Master one of its cards, which means you can add it to your deck at the start of a future run. This is a solid way to tie runs together & let you direct your experience.
- The game hilariously has cosmetic card backs & boards unlockable with in-game progression, for completing certain achievements or accumulating Void Points through play. I find that rather unique for a single player game, and they look great.

As of this review, which is posted immediately after the Early Access release, there clearly needs to be a lot of work done on UI/UX elements, as well as wording/templating. But gameplay-wise? This is it for me.

If I had to play a single Roguelite Deckbuilder for the rest of my life, this is the one I'd settle on.

As much as I love Slay the Spire, Griftlands, Monster Train, and all other manner of games in the genre, none of them capture the Deckbuilding as much as this one. And that, to me, is a gamechanger.

Here's to the future of Vault of the Void.

I've put more time into this game than Elden Ring since Elden Ring came out.

Jokes aside (though it is true), Vault is a Deck Building Roguelike that stands on its own compared to others of its kind. Don't let the Early Access tag fool you, Vault of the Void is a complete game at this point. The developers are only doing a final pass on all the characters and adding in more options and such (ultra widescreen support is on the way for example). If you've played other games like Slay the Spire or Monster Train, you'll have an idea of the basic run down. However, it separates itself in a few key ways:

-It has a fantastic mix of knowing your rewards ahead of time to create and go for a specific strategy while also not abandoning opportunities to surprise you with moments to turn a run around or change up your plans.

-Being able to build a collection of cards and change your deck between each fight brings a lot of planning and actual deck building to the game. It also gives you opportunities to collect situational cards and not have them be dead in your deck like in most of these other games.

-Void Stones (earned by dealing damage) and upgrades allow you to further alter your cards towards your desired strategy. These two things give you loads of options on how you want your cards/deck to work.

-In combat players have above average control over what is in their hand because, unlike in other games, you don't discard your hand at the end of the turn. Instead you can choose to discard cards for extra Energy (resource used to play cards) or keep them around for your upcoming turn. Because of the way damage works in this game you'll often have a pretty good idea of what you do and don't need for the next turn.

-Complex enough to really get you thinking and trusts the player to learn on their own. It has an introductory run that serves as the tutorial, but I'm more referring to how it lets you make mistakes for not paying enough attention or planning out effectively enough. This makes it a satisfying title to get better at. Again, not that it throws you to the wolves or anything, if you don't understand something, hovering over anything will bring up a tool tip explaining it. There's also several difficulty modes so you can play at whatever level you prefer.

All of that mixed in with loads of content, all of it great. There are 4 unique characters and each have their own mechanics and cards as well as 2 different starting decks and a different spell for each. Several difficulties with the highest having a modifier system where you choose the modifiers you'd like to go up against. A ton of "challenge coins" that are challenge runs with either interesting or wacky rules, and each one has the same difficulty options. I've put over 260 hours in this game and I'm still not done with everything or even tired of it. I highly recommend it!

The game is good for those familiar with the genre, the developer is extremely responsive on Discord, and it deserves a positive review. That said, there are some extremely important things you should know before you jump.

Vault of the Void suffers from an extreme amount of keyword bloat and overwhelming card complexity that requires at least 10-15 hours to mostly get over. The developer has gone so far as to say "it's just the way the game is" in response to present-day criticism of this issue, so understand what you're getting into. The UI/UX of the game is lacking as well, and basic information is either hidden in weird places or missing entirely. Even the core mechanics of the game (ie. purging, class features, card interactions) are much more complex than anything else out there. All things said, this should definitely not be your first roguelike deckbuilder, and instead you should start with Slay the Spire and/or Monster Train.

Furthermore, the community that has cropped up around this game is very insular at the moment. They've been providing feedback for a long time, they've been involved with the developer a long time, and the game at this point is basically made for them. Breaking into this community is essentially impossible if you disagree with their point of view, and balance/improvement suggestions get shot down pretty quickly. Expect to devote an unreal amount of time to the game if you want to have any meaningful impact on it at this stage. Speaking a bit on balance, I will say that it's overall decent, but with a lot of head-tilters, pointless upgrades, and overstacked cards you just always take.

If you're an expert veteran of the genre, however, then you will find this the natural genre progression you want to see as you look for more and more thought-provoking gameplay. Runs are long, planning/routing is intense, deckbuilding is nuanced, archetypes are strong, and difficulty ramps to unbelievably-hard levels if you're willing to push it. I suspect that I'll be playing this for a good, long while.

Look, it's a good game. The shortest of reads: If you're here, there's a reason, and games don't in general just get overwhelmingly positive overall for no cause. If you like complicated rewarding gameplay, deckbuilders, roguelikes, or similar, it's absolutely priced at the impulse buy end of the scale.

Slightly longer review:
I found this game about a year ago from some random comments by a friend, and then a brief listing in a Penny Arcade newspost. It has only continued to go upwards in my experience.

While there are a lot of games in this genre, from the omnipresent Slay the Spire everyone's heard of to some terrible ones that languish deservedly in obscurity, this game is one that deserves the praise it gets and more. It goes pretty light on the meta-progression systems, each run being much the same as your first few runs of the game, where it really shines is the long term strategic thought and planning. I suppose I should briefly touch on key differences, as a lot of the basics are the same (randomly generated maps, random enemies, random events, play cards you draw from a deck and use up energy). However, some notable differences-

You do not discard at end of turn, or zero out energy and refresh it, instead gaining energy with every new turn and 'purging' cards to generate energy, and drawing to 5 at the start of every turn. This means if you have a big combo half set up, you can hang onto key pieces in your hand, purging other cards for energy for your next turn to unleash a huge attack, allowing you to plan ahead.

Very few surprises, in general. You can see the damage that is going to be coming one turn ahead, letting you plan out future turns more effectively. You can also see the general rewards of cards from normal fights on the map as soon as you start a floor (you cannot see content of booster packs of cards, you cannot see the rewards of special events, you don't know which 3 relic choices you will be offered from elite fights, etc), letting you plan your route- and there's even a built in tool to help you with that.

Instead of a trim/add mechanic for the primary deck building, your deck is always 20 cards (+ penalty or special event cards). You are free to swap cards in and out of your deck any time you are not currently in combat, which means you are not penalized for taking a few cards 'to swap to later' once you complete the key portions of your deck (in theory fight per fight swaps are possible, but in practice tends to be too much of a hassle- at least at my current level of difficulty).

Post 'primary' game flexible difficulty, a la Hades, where you can step up challenge levels as you get better by gaining less health back -or- general trash fights having more health/damage -or- certain mechanics working differently. The ability for you to decide what sort of challenge you want to engage with ties back heavily to the general theme and feel of the game, allowing you the control that it feels like so many games lose sight of in hopes of leaning into 'roguelike randomness!' as a pure strength- it's not fun to be handed a slingshot on one game after just playing with a tank, and feeling powerless to enable that. There's 'just enough' randomness to force you down paths that you usually haven't done, but leaving the majority of control firmly in your hands.


I considered writing out a lot more about things like the 4 classes (with 2 'starter' decks apiece) because I think the delta between the Enlightened's future strike and delayed block synergy setting up damage/defensive cascades turns ahead contrasts with the daughter of the void's hyper-controled methods of cycling her entire deck multiple times, but honestly it's more of a wall of text and probably wouldn't be helpful for people sitting on the fence. I like how different the classes feel, I like the choices of starting decks and 'class cards', the upgrades to cards midrun making a significant difference in playstyle and feel, and the gems altering situations, but past a point you really have to give it a shot to see if you like it.

While it is still technically early access (at the time of me writing this), it certainly doesn't feel like it. Critical bugs seem to be addressed extremely rapidly, and features and similar seem to be added at an extremely quick pace (there is a beta build anyone can opt into as well). There's a minor cosmetic currency that isn't of itself reason to keep playing but is nice enough to do some light unlocking for fun visuals.

Oh and I almost hate to mention this because it's more fluid and flexible than most other things so this might not be the case 2 years from now, but the community and discord (as well as the developer) are extremely active and helpful, from people struggling to make card x work to 'what is a good strategy for this elite with this sort of general deck build?' Offhand comments I've made have been implemented more than once, and even if they choose not to go with your suggestions people seem more than happy to talk about the ideas and reasons.

I don't write a lot of reviews for games in general, even ones I particularly care about, but this rambling mess is because I have really enjoyed it thus far and I think that most people even slightly curious would find it extremely fun. Hey, there's always steam refund if you just hate it.

The true successor to Slay the Spire. There have been good tower defense esque roguelite deckbuilders (e.g. Monster Train) and many good party based RLDBs (e.g. Chrono Ark). Vault of the Void is closer to Slay the Spire than those games, but differs from it in key ways and at this point, after years of early access, surpasses it. The biggest mechanical differences are that you can purge (discard) cards from your hand for energy and that you don't discard your hand at the end of your turn by default, and that you block damage on the turn after it's dealt to you rather than the same turn. These departures from the StS formula breathe life into the genre and allow a huge breadth of options. Every one of the four characters currently in the game (there will be at least two more eventually) plays massively differently, with the closest analogue to StS being the Hidden, which is a bit similar to the Silent.

tl;dr If you're at all a fan of the genre this game is a must play.