Void Sols is a pure distillation of what makes Dark Souls special
Praise the triangle!
It's hiding around the corner. What? You don't know yet. But something is there. It's waiting for you, waiting as you peek into the gloom, waiting to pounce.
That sense of tension and claustrophobia is what defined the early Souls games, at least up until Elden Ring's mostly wide-open spaces. I remember vividly stalking Boletaria Castle in Demon's Souls, tentatively tip-toeing around every corner, waiting for those zombie-like enemies to stab me in the back at every turn. Later games from FromSoftware then played with those expectations, all to prolong the sense of anxiety and unease.
Void Sols, from Finite Reflection Studios, achieves the same effect but with a shift in perspective. The world is viewed top-down, with every corner - and every obstacle - casting a pillar of shadow upwards, obscuring your view. The world becomes a chiaroscuro of light and shadow - no, not shadow, but a deep, impenetrable darkness that hides whatever atrocity is lurking. There's a palpable tension in Void Sols that had me slowly peering around corners, probing the darkness with care - or should that be the void?
It achieves this with simplified, abstract visuals. Your character is a mere triangle, a tiny three-sided shape with the odds against them as they slowly explore and battle against other, more complex shapes. It's remarkable how evocative a set of angular lines can be, really, but when the bright white outline of an enemy comes charging out of nothingness, Void Sols feels akin to a horror game as much as a Soulslike. That's also testament to its atmosphere: the gloomy prison hallways and shadowy forests of its still-available Steam Next Fest demo are heavy with silence until the clash of tiny weapons where colourful sparks fly. Lit torches gradually illuminate the safety behind, marking your route and contrasting with the darkness beyond. Lighting - and the lack of it - is everything in Void Sols.
Beyond that, the game has all the typical hallmarks of a Soulslike. Its combat relies on a stamina gauge, with multiple weapons to alternate between and a pleasing weight to each suggestion of a sword swing. Currency is lost upon death but regained through careful play. Your triangle can level up various attributes, which weapons are attuned to. And bosses put up a formidable challenge.
Still, it all controls incredibly smoothly and, with persistence, this is an approachable Soulslike - one that plays with mood more than difficulty. It's a generous demo too, and it left me itching to explore more of its murky, sombre world - a freezing mountain and the depths of a decrepit mine lay tantalisingly out of bounds.
As many Soulslikes can attest to, it's nigh on impossible to outdo FromSoftware. It's not enough to tick the genre boxes. But with its novel use of lighting, Void Sols distills the essence of Souls games into something minimalist and pure, but just as frightening. Perhaps the dawn of the Sols-like is upon us.