Few games warrant more than a single playthrough, let alone the 15+ I put into Void Stranger. While the time required for these is shortened to extreme lengths after only a couple, Void Stranger excels in tying its themes of repetitions and cycles into a gameplay loop of uncovering the secrets of the Void—more often than not in front of the player's face the entire time—while delving into a greater narrative at hand, whose power is built into its intentional melodrama and required piecing together of its disparate sequencing. No puzzle game since The Witness and Baba is You has reached a depth in experience and discovery that System Erasure have developed here, and it is by no small margin (despite my love for Resident Evil 4) that Void Stranger is (until Alan Wake II's release) 2023's game of the year.