It’s been a while since I’ve played Axiom Verge, and that’s for a good reason. While I loved the game, it never received any updates after its release. And now that Axiom Verge 2 was announced, I felt I’d never pick up the game again. Or so I thought, as out of nowhere, it’s been announced that a free update is being released for the game, at least on the PC.
According to the official Axiom Verge website, the game is set to receive its first free update, which introduces a Randomizer Mode. Simply put, this new mode will randomize the items you acquire throughout the game but won’t handicap you as the system knows that you’ll need specific items to proceed. For now, this mode is only available via the Steam and Epic Game Store versions, but once all the bugs are ironed out, it will also make its way to consoles.
To enable it in the EGS, all you need to do is install the beta version of the game, which will appear if you already own Axiom Verge. For the Steam version, you’ll have to right-click on the game, go to properties and then select “betas.” You’ll be able to select the randomizer beta from the drop-down box from there.
This mode is actually a labor of love that’s been in development, unofficially, by several people; NoReset Games, Chris Couture (aka VideoGameRoulette), Dimitrios Lianopoulos (GVirus), Mark Rawls (Willow), Lars Lehmann (Leemyy), Crowd Controls Matthew Jakubowski (Jaku), who worked on the randomizer mode. This is based on the unofficial Randomizer Mod by Pozzum, which was released several years ago.
The Randomizer Mode will feature several different difficulty levels; Beginner, Advanced, and Masochist; the latter sounds like something I’d play.
“Beginner” progression mode is really a bit of a misnomer. The Randomizer itself is for people who have beaten the game, ideally multiple times, and have explored the map very thoroughly. Beginner mode assumes that you will be playing through the game in much the same way that anyone would progress through it. For what it’s worth, this is the mode I play.
“Advanced” mode assumes that you’ll play through the game the way a speedrunner familiar with exploiting certain glitches may go through it. There are ways to skip the entire grapple hook area, for example, if you know how. Because the system knows what you expect to be able to get at which areas, it can make sure to accommodate this route.
“Masochist” mode is similar to Advanced mode, except that it assumes you’ll be doing a low % speedrun. As of right now, there are exactly 4 people in the world able to play this mode. If you don’t know that you’re one of them, you’re probably not. This progression mode is included primarily because the aforementioned people who developed this mode include those masochists in question.
Lastly, this update won’t last as several other ideas for Axiom Verge are already being tossed around. It’s nice to see that it’s starting to see some official updates despite the game being four years old.
Axiom Verge is available on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and the Nintendo Switch.
Source: Axiom Verge Blog
