Erosion preview: a time-jumping roguelike that leans into emergent stories

Nearly six years after Hades reworked how roguelikes told stories, Plot Twist’s Erosion looks poised to push the genre in a different direction. The developer behind The Last Case of Benedict Fox has built a system that ties player choices and repeated deaths to a shifting world, letting emergent play drive the narrative rather than constant dialogue.

A 30-minute demo at Summer Game Fest emphasized Erosion’s twin-stick combat, which felt smooth and twitchy in the game’s procedurally generated dungeons. Players hunt through those levels to rescue the protagonist’s kidnapped daughter, with combat rewards in the form of buffs or modifiers after encounters.

Weapons range from a whip to a laser gun, the voxel visuals support destructible environments, and small moments of luck — like spotting a rare shopkeeper or finding an early laser — can shape a run. What sets Erosion apart is how time advances: every three deaths to clear the dungeon moves the overworld forward a decade.

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