Dear wanderer,
hello and welcome to… VOID.VOID is a small tribute to one of my most beloved antagonists from Ecco the Dolphin, a villain no one really expected at the time: the Vortex Queen.
I still remember how much I loved playing that dolphin game as a child. Back then, I couldn’t even solve some of the levels properly, because my father had brought the game home as an import from a trip to Japan, and I didn’t understand a single word.
Luckily, in those days you could simply enter level codes to jump ahead. I think it was with my cousin that I entered the code for the final level. We desperately wanted to know what had happened to Ecco’s family.
And then… we found something completely different from what we expected.
Instead of a giant shark or some kind of kraken, there was suddenly this enormous alien presence. Cold. Unfamiliar. Wrong. We were so shocked that we turned off the console immediately. I think many children — and maybe even adults — felt the same way back then. Who would have guessed that a cute game about a dolphin would hide something so deeply unsettling?
Years later, I developed a fascination with the Alien films and the Xenomorph. And suddenly, I remembered Ecco. When I saw the Vortex Queen again, I noticed an extreme resemblance. The elongated head, the alien silhouette, the biomechanical feel — it all felt strangely familiar.
But the more I thought about it, the clearer the difference became.
The Xenomorph kills. The Vortex Queen devours.
The Asterite — an advising force through the game — explains that the Vortex have forgotten how to sustain themselves on their own world. Whatever they once were, they no longer are. Every five hundred years, they return to Earth and drain the oceans of life. They consume everything. Not out of hatred. Not even out of simple instinct. It feels like something deeper — an endless hunger that can never truly be satisfied.
That is what makes her more than just a creature. The Xenomorph is a predator. The Vortex Queen is a cycle. A recurring catastrophe. An inevitable return.
From that moment on, I played through the Ecco games properly. What had once shocked me as a child now completely captivated me. The same fascination I felt for the Xenomorph slowly transferred to the Vortex Queen; but it became something different. Quieter. Colder. Bigger.
She stopped being just a childhood shock or a final boss at the end of a level. She became something iconic to me. A symbol of hidden horror beneath something seemingly harmless. A reminder that even the calmest ocean can conceal something ancient and starving.
VOID exists because of that feeling.
So... everyone is welcome here on this small, niche page dedicated to the Vortex Queen. However, the tribute itself contains a major spoiler, so I’m already sorry if you clicked through without knowing the game... this is definitely not for the unspoiled first-time experience.
I would also be thrilled if you left a comment in the guestbook — it’s always wonderful to hear from fellow fans.
Part of Emotion