In Axiom Verge you play as Trace, a relatively normal scientist who suffers a fatal-ish injury after a lab accident, after which he wakes up in a strange, unsettling new world that is both high-tech and incredibly ancient.

You need to uncover the mystery of how that world came to the state it’s in and your role in it all. Similar to classic games like Super Metroid, Contra, Blaster Master and others, the gameplay incorporates a mix of exploration, hidden powerups, strange creatures to fight, and epic boss battles.

Powerups are the lifeblood of an exploration-based game. New abilities give you access to areas you couldn’t reach before and open up entire new sections of the game. They also open up lots of room for puzzles that can keep players challenged and thinking the entire way. It’s risky to talk too much about powerups, though, since it’s definitely possible to spoil some of the surprises along the way. So for now, I’m just going to focus on the first few powerups that you’ll find to give you a feel for the game.

The first one you’ll get is a new weapon called Nova. Unlike the first basic weapon you start out with, the Nova can be shot in 2 different ways. The basic way is just to shoot it like a normal weapon. It has a larger size, so you’re more likely to hit your target. But it’s slow. The second way is to detonate it while it’s in mid-air, making it split into 6 pieces. You can use this effectively to shoot at targets where you don’t have a direct line of sight.

Second is the drill. When you first get the drill (after defeating the first boss), you’re in a room where there are rocks blocking your path. This is to show players how and when to use the drill. Later on, though, I made sure to teach players that it’s not only rocks that you can drill through. Some other materials can also be drilled through. The more diligently you explore the world, the more likely you will be to find health upgrades and new weapons.

Later on, you’ll discover the address disruptor. I came up with this idea from the days of my youth playing with things like Game Genie or just finding glitches that weren’t originally intended to be in the game. I found it fascinating to uncover areas that I was never intended to see and corrupt different elements of the game to see how they would behave. I wanted to replicate this feeling of discovery by creating a sort of glitch ray that would corrupt the reality around you. Every enemy can be glitched, and they all respond in different ways. This opens up a lot of new puzzle ideas for people to explore by glitching every enemy to see what it does.

Features:

• About 8 hours of play time (depending on how much you explore)
• Over 60 items and powerups hidden throughout the world
• Over 20 upgradeable weapons
• Classic 2D graphics
• Gripping sci-fi storyline
• Pulsing sci-fi soundtrack

Axiom Verge will be available for download on PS4 for $19.99, with the Vita version to follow later in 2015.