| \n | \n Polygon<\/span> \n Summer Game Fest 2026 \n Live game reveals, world premiere trailers, and what\u2019s next from 40+ developers, publishers, and hardware makers.<\/span>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Dive in\u2192<\/span>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n | Nearly six years after its 1.0 release, Supergiant Games\u2019 Hades<\/em> still stands as one of the most innovative narrative-driven roguelikes ever released. While the genre had historically minimized bespoke narratives, leaving storytelling to emergent moments, Hades<\/em> proved you could piece together a compelling story across repeated runs to create an unforgettable narrative.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since then, many other roguelikes have echoed Hades\u2019<\/em> approach to storytelling, but few have continued to innovate it further. Erosion<\/em>, a forthcoming roguelike from The Last Case of Benedict Fox<\/em> developer Plot Twist, is shaping up to be the next game that could evolve storytelling in the genre, leaning back into how those emergent choices can inform a narrative.<\/p>\n That\u2019s according to a recent demo of the game I played at Summer Game Fest. The demo, which spanned 30 minutes, mostly focused on Erosion\u2019s<\/em> tightly designed twin-stick shooting combat. And even in that brief period, I could tell that the game is doing something special with its structure.<\/p>\n In Erosion<\/em>, the main character\u2019s daughter has been kidnapped and dragged to the bottom of a dungeon. Players have to delve into the dungeon and fight to get her back, but time progresses forward by a decade after every three deaths when attempting to clear the dungeon. There\u2019s a vast overworld outside said dungeon, and as time passes, the decisions players make there will radically change the overworld as the main character\u2019s daughter also gets older, too.<\/p>\n Most of my time with Erosion<\/em> was spent in the dungeon fighting enemies. Unlike Hades<\/em>, my character and the bosses I encountered weren\u2019t constantly talking or quipping at each other to make the plot move forward. Instead, the gameplay was given room to take center stage, and it impressed. If you enjoy twitchy twin-stick shooters like Enter the Gungeon<\/em> or Turnip Boy Robs a Bank<\/em>, then you\u2019ll feel right at home playing Erosion<\/em>.<\/p>\n It felt silky smooth to move around the game\u2019s procedurally generated dungeon levels, weaving between enemies as I unloaded attacks on them with everything from a whip to a laser gun. After every encounter, I was rewarded with some sort of buff or modifier to make me a little stronger, whether that be through increasing my own character\u2019s stats or allowing my attacks to ignore any armor enemies were wearing.<\/p>\n Erosion\u2019s<\/em> voxel art style supports its destructive gameplay, and it was a retro-inspired visual spectacle to see parts of the environment fall apart every time they got hit with my laser. I got some pretty good RNG luck on my run, too. The shopkeeper appeared twice, which I was told had only a 3% chance, and I got the laser gun very early on. (Ironically, a powerful late-game build the developer would later show me before wrapping up the demo was pretty close to the one I gathered in my own run.)<\/p>\n If Erosion<\/em> solely offered this satisfying twin-stick shooting gameplay, it\u2019d already be a very good roguelike. What truly intrigued me, though, is that time moves forward when the player dies too often. For the purposes of my demo, I let a developer do some time-jumping for me.<\/p>\n In one decade, I cleared a bandit camp on a farm. In the next, the farm lay desolate and abandoned. Marketing for the game has shown that the farm can grow into a giant bandit compound if left unchecked, a major divergence based on the different choices players might make in their playthroughs. As there\u2019s a vast overworld players need to explore to unlock new weapons to find in the dungeon, I\u2019m sure there will be no shortage of world-impacting actions for players to take.<\/p>\n Conversely, really skilled players might never interact with this system. While Erosion<\/em> is very difficult and upgrading throughout decades gives players a much better chance at succeeding, the developer showing Polygon the game did confirm that it\u2019s possible to beat the game on the first run. That proves to me that Erosion<\/em> will have a very dynamic-feeling story delivery, without my demo ever needing to mutter a single word of dialogue.<\/p>\n Hades<\/em> achieved narrative innovation for the roguelike genre through clever writing and tricks of presentation. A playthrough of that game truly feels like your own because you encounter well-written and meaningful dialogue exchanges in a way that feels unique to your journey. In comparison, Erosion<\/em> puts less focus on writing and more emphasis on player choice, as the player\u2019s actions in the overworld and success in the dungeon will directly have an effect on how their journey plays out. It\u2019ll be equally as innovative for roguelike narratives, but in a more emergent way that harkens back to the genre\u2019s roots.<\/p>\n I only got to see a very limited slice of Erosion<\/em> in action, and already loved what I saw. I can\u2019t wait to see how it impacts the roguelike genre.<\/p>\n Erosion<\/em> will be released on Windows PC and Xbox Series X in early 2027. If you want to try it, a public playtest will be held on Steam between June 23 and June 30.<\/p>\n |
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