Game Rant spoke with Happ about the new mechanics and influences that shaped Axiom Verge 2. The result is a sequel with a distinct approach to puzzles, combat, and exploration, despite its shared metroidvania heritage.
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Varied Inspirations
The original Axiom Verge told a high-concept sci-fi story with themes of transhumanism, the fungible nature of reality, and an ambivalent race of biomechanical aliens. Many of the same themes are present in Axiom Verge 2, though the game also owes a debt to some new influences.
The works of Alastair Reynolds, an astronomer and physicist turned hard sci-fi and space opera author, can be considered the connective tissue between both games. Both of Happ’s titles and Reynolds’ works incorporate huge spans of time, near-ubiquitous nanotechnology, and space opera themes akin to those found in the Mass Effect franchise.
It isn’t hard to guess how such a story could incorporate themes and mechanics from Horizon Zero Dawn, which also deals with extinction, transhumanism, and geological scales of time, but the first influence Happ mentioned seems like a bit of an outlier. A Link to the Past, one of the best-known and most highly regarded entries in Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda franchise, tells a story across two versions of the same overworld via fantasy magic.
Dual Dimensions, Hacks, and Melee Attacks
Unlike most sequels that simply build on the systems of their predecessors, Axiom Verge 2 features several notable departures from the original Axiom Verge. Happ mentioned three primary changes to the new game’s formula.
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A Link to the Past’s primary influences are mechanical rather than thematic; Axiom Verge 2 has players bouncing back-and-forth between two overlapping worlds for puzzle solving and navigation. While players can find a ranged weapon in the form of the Gishru boomerang in Axiom Verge 2, the high-caliber sci-fi armaments that typified Axiom Verge’s arsenal are noticeably absent. Instead, players will need to rely on a menu-based hacking system to co-opt and corrupt enemies. Even though both games are metroidvanias, Axiom Verge 2 often feels more like a stealth and puzzle title than a more combat-oriented platformer, as was the case with the original Axiom Verge.
There is still a sense of continuity between the two titles, however. Axiom Verge’s glitching system was a revelation, both in terms of combat and puzzle solving, and remains one of the most distinctive systems seen in a modern metroidvania title. Giving players more options than a straightforward binary adjustment system opens up the game in a number of ways. Enemies can hijacked, slowed down, and rendered vulnerable in other various ways depending on how the hacking system is used.
A More Intimate Tale
In addition to the new mechanics and inspirations, Axiom Verge 2’s narrative features something of a tonal shift in terms of its storytelling. Rather than continuing Trace’s story in the alien world of Sudra, the sequel features a new protagonist, Indra, with a deeply personal motivation. While Trace is thrust into his adventure via a catastrophic lab accident (in the vein of Half-Life and countless other sci-fi stories), Indra is proactively exploring an alien landscape to rescue her missing daughter.
Indra is an intrepid technological billionaire who heads to Antarctica after receiving word from a shady source who claims to know something about her daughter’s whereabouts. In many ways, this new core of the story shifts the narrative from a cosmic scale that it is almost abstract, to a poignant journey with an emotionally tangible goal: reunion. Players hoping for answers about Trace’s story may be disappointed, however. While the events of AV2 provide new context for Axiom Verge, it is not a direct continuation of the original’s story, leaving many questions unanswered, and more stories to be told in the Axiom Verge universe.
Axiom Verge 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, and Switch.
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