I was born just after the original Doom craze, and I wasn’t technically old enough to enjoy the series until 2011. However, a cool-yet-irresponsible uncle practically raised me on Doom and Quake throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, and they’re now some of my favorite video games. You just can’t beat that 90s nostalgia.
So when I installed Post Void on my PS5 and booted it up, I was a little taken aback. In The Year of Our Lord 2023, I’m hands-on with a game that makes me feel like I’m [redacted] years old again, sitting next to my uncle on his big couch, playing something my brain can barely process other than recognizing that it’s wonderfully violent. For better or worse.
On first boot, Post Void throws you into a tutorial before you even see the start screen. I tend to like this approach, and the short but sweet tutorial combined with the ominous, Lynchian intro to the game’s world and story are effective. This game doesn’t really need a narrative setup to be effective, and the little bit that’s shared before you get into the actual game is just as strange, unsettling, and off-putting as the rest of the game.
But in a good way.
Post Void wears its Doom inspirations on its sleeve, presenting itself as a 2D shooter in 3D levels, but you won’t be shooting your way through dark halls and gray corridors in this game. Oh no, this s**t looks like the 90s puked a nightmare, with bright colors and loud patterns that give the game a very specific visual texture in every procedurally generated level. If you can conjure up an image of a ToeJam & Earl loading screen, you have a pretty good idea of what to expect.
Combine those entrancing/eye-searing visuals with Post Void’s need to GO FAST, and you have yourself a goddamn video game! I thought the original Doom moved pretty fast for my eyes all those years ago, but even games like Ghostrunner and Doom Eternal couldn’t have prepared me for Post Void. Standing still means death, but (for me at least) going as fast as you can and trying to shoot things when it’s convenient also means death anyways. Level completion in Post Void isn’t about how many enemies you kill, it’s just about making it to the end. Your head idol holds a liquid that correlates to your life force, and that thing drains at a constant rate. Killing enemies adds liquid to the idol as it depletes, so after some time I viewed the enemies more as health packs rather than creatures that absolutely need to be killed, which helped me make some progress before beefing again.
Shooting with the default weapon feels good, and every time you complete a level you are given three upgrades to choose from for the next level. I saw a handful of these, but there are nine in total that can give you things like ricocheting bullets or a bigger idol for more health. These options can also include new weapons like a shotgun, an Uzi, and a knife for melee attacks, all of which have their tradeoffs.
I checked HowLongToBeat to see what the average completion time is for Post Void, and the general consensus is just under two hours for the main story. I played it for around three hours on and off over the course of a weekend and I never saw that ending. I’m going to blame poor eyesight rather than admit I’m just terrible at the game, but here’s an interesting piece of information: I never got tired of restarting in Post Void.
Whether you die in the first level, or level five, or even make it to the final eleventh level before kicking the bucket (good luck), you start all the way back at the beginning and have to claw your way back. Usually, this would annoy me and result in a swiftly deleted game, but Post Void moves so fast, the levels are so bizarre, and the enemies are so wonderfully strange that I kept coming back.
If you’re looking for something that is weird, fast, and challenging enough to put you in your place, you can’t go wrong with Post Void. Boomer Shooters are all the rage these days, and this one certainly sits high up on that list with some of the best to come out in the past few years.
Post Void
$5.99
Pros
- Radical 90s visuals
- Good gunplay
- Nightmarish enemy designs
Cons
- Get wrecked if you have epilepsy
- Small number of weapons
- You’re gonna die… a lot
