In late November, Xbox hosted a partner preview showcase of upcoming games from its publishing partners. Among those was a brief reveal for Plot Twist — the Polish studio behind 2023’s indie gem, The Last Case of Benedict Fox — and new indie publisher Lyrical Games.
The collaboration between these studios is bringing a new, wild-west-themed roguelike titled Erosion to Xbox and PC in 2026.
The premise of Erosion is fairly simple: the protagonist’s daughter is kidnapped by an evil warlord, who drags her into a living Pillar capable of warping time itself. She needs to be saved, and you’re going to do it. It’s a tale as old as time, but there are some unique twists involved in Erosion.
Each death comes at the cost of actual time, pushing the world forward a decade and changing the open world around you. Your daughter, too, ages with the world, effectively putting a limit on the number of times you can die during your time with Erosion if you want to actually save her. Take too long, and you might not have a daughter left to save.
The trailer for Erosion highlights this gameplay element. We first see the hero being greeted by an excited little girl, happy to be saved by her daddy, only for her to morph into an agitated young adult who asks, “What took you so long?” The final transition shows an elderly woman collapsing into her father’s arms before transforming into flower petals and blowing away.
The passage of time is not only reflected in the age of the protagonist’s daughter. Erosion offers players a massive wasteland as a sandbox in which they can explore, but this voxel art world can be impacted by player actions and choices.
Destroy a building during a shootout, and it might not be there when you return a decade later, for example. In fact, the entire village may be nothing more than just a ghost of its former glory.
It’s not all death and destruction, though. You can opt to help out the locals you encounter in Erosion, often with humorous unintended consequences. Helping out a store owner early on might lead to that shop becoming an empire later down the road. You could also cause a small farm to become the home of a new cultist compound that worships the Great Ol’ Rooster.
It’s all a gamble in Erosion, really, especially when you visit Al Cashino, the local casino, where you can gamble until your little heart’s content.
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The overworld of Erosion is vibrant and lively, with plenty of opportunities for trying your luck. The sands of the world are ripe with fishing opportunities, letting you uncover strange buried creatures from beneath the dunes. Steal a fresh new ride and take it to the salt flats for a high-risk, high-reward race.
Become an accomplished bounty hunter, taking down criminals for your own gain. Or challenge your foes to a duel — remember that death pushes time forward a decade, though, so be sure to aim true.
Speaking of aim, Erosion features dozens of weapons to choose from, with the opportunity to build out your protagonist with more than a hundred skills and modifiers that come together for some really crazy synergies.
The voxel art world of Erosion is yours to toy with as you please. Rain down orbital ferrets and watch the wiggly little fellows tear the town down to nothing more than little cubes of rubble. Equip the Ebony Rooster and take on the warlord with its arsenal of bouncy voxel eggs. Or simply settle for flipping a few poker tables.
Erosion challenges players to master the world’s unique timeline, putting the control to rewrite the game’s future to experience every single possibility. Exploring the world and completing quests can help you unlock permanent upgrades so that you can experience and shape the story based on your experiences and choices.
Plot Twist and Lyrical Games are taking the 11 bit studios approach to launching Erosion, opting to release the game into Early Access on PC via Xbox PC and Steam in early 2026. A console port of Erosion is expected for Xbox Series X|S later in the year. A price has not yet been confirmed, but Erosion is heading to PC Game Pass on day one as part of the subscription plan.
What do you think of Erosion? Are you interested in playing? Fill out our poll and tell us more in the comments.
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