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Erosion Unveiled at Xbox Partner Preview with Decade Shifting Roguelike Twist
A New Roguelike Where Death Ages the World
A striking new project made its debut during the Xbox Partner Preview, as Lyrical Games and Plot Twist revealed Erosion, a timeshifting open world roguelike shaped around a unique punishment system. Instead of resetting a run, each player’s death advances the world by ten years. Characters age, settlements change, and the narrative adapts to every failure.
Erosion is set to enter Early Access in Spring 2026 across Steam, Xbox on PC, and Game Pass, marking a notable shift for Plot Twist as the studio blends bullet-heavy combat with a dynamic timeline structure.
A Race Against Time Inside the Pillar
The story takes place in a distant future where a sentient rock formation known as the Pillar devours what remains of civilisation. Players step into the role of a protagonist fighting to rescue his daughter before she is lost to time itself.
Each run in Erosion involves descending into the Pillar’s destructible dungeons, where enemies, traps, and bosses form shifting obstacles. Every lost battle accelerates the clock and reshapes the world. A peaceful farm may become a cult compound, while a shopkeeper the player once helped may have built an empire in their absence.
Plot Twist aims to create a narrative in which the consequences of death are not merely mechanical but also emotional, as entire communities transform over multiple decades.
Combat, Progression, and an Ever-Changing Wild West
Erosion‘s combat is built around fast-paced skirmishes and chaotic bullet-patterned encounters. Players can experiment with an arsenal that ranges from ritual bows and homing firearms to stranger options, such as weapons that fire bouncing eggs or tools that summon cats to fight.
More than one hundred skills and modifiers allow for elaborate character builds and unusual combinations. Choices made during each descent into the Pillar affect everything from combat style to long-term character development.
Outside dungeons, the overworld offers a post-apocalyptic Wild West with activities that include bounty hunting, duelling, racing trucks across salt flats, joining cults, and gambling in the Al Cashino. Every completed quest contributes to permanent upgrades that carry across future timelines.
A Fully Destructible Voxel World
One of the game’s most distinctive features is its destructible voxel-based environments. Cover can be destroyed, walls can be obliterated, and entire structures can collapse during battles. This creates fluid encounters where terrain constantly changes and improvisation is encouraged.
The combination of bullet-heavy combat and physics-driven destruction gives each run its own sense of chaos, reinforcing the game’s focus on unpredictable outcomes.
The game’s decade-jumping mechanic, layered progression, and shifting overworld position make it one of the more experimental roguelikes to emerge from the Xbox Partner Preview lineup.
Erosion is scheduled to launch in Early Access in Spring 2026.
