Torn from their home, stripped of their identity, and imprisoned for reasons beyond their control, Fawkes finds themself thrust into this new life at the beginning of Luna Abyss. Released on the twenty-first of May, developed by Kwalee Labs, this is a first person adventure that takes the Metroid Prime formula and splashes a bit of Doom into the combat. Haunting visuals and a by-the-number story tie this all together in a pretty decent experience that won’t break the bank to play.
Luna Abyss has you playing as Fawkes. Fawkes is doing time for some unnamed crime, sentenced to just shy of 25 years. 9,125 days to be precise. That isn’t the name they had on Earth, it’s the label given to them as a prisoner on the Martian moon, Luna. Assigned to watch over them is a prison guard named Aylin. Aylin monitors Fawkes and issues them assignments from the All-Father – person in charge of the prison and the absent-yet-always-present big bad of the game. Every assignment completed has the chance of whittling down the time on Fawkes’s sentence. The assignments will send them into the infinite megastructure called the Abyss. Fawkes isn’t sent in personally, in fact they never leave their cell at all. Instead Aylin transfers their consciousness into a body that’s already inside the Abyss called a Warden. But, of course, things aren’t as they appear. The Abyss isn’t just some monster-filled labyrinth. It’s the desolate shell of a once thriving society. Yes, there are monsters called Adrift waiting to jump out at those who dare to enter, but there’s also former inhabitants who can’t or won’t move on, and other Scouts like Fawkes tending to their own assignments. Some of those who remain may have a thing or two to reveal to Fawkes about the secrets of the Abyss, and their connections to those responsible for their imprisonment.
First thing you’ll notice about Luna Abyss is that it’s very red. Fawkes and Aylin’s eyes are red, red signifies your path when you’re in big, open rooms wondering where to go next, red is the go-to color for when some of the more surreal visuals hit you in the cutscenes. The next thing you notice is how everything looks absolutely desolate. The scenery is a strange mix between gothic horror and Giger-esque alien architecture. A corruption called the Scourge covers the land in a sludge that eats at infrastructure, mottling everything in explosive boils. Of course the inhabitants aren’t immune to the Scourge. If they get corrupted, they become Adrift, twisted and enraged by it.
Luna Abyss is a chapter based game. Seven in total including the prologue. There’s a loose formula that is barely followed that involves the real Fawkes receiving an assignment from the All-Father through Aylin before they’re transferred into the Warden they control in order to fulfill said assignment. For story reasons you won’t end up back in Fawkes’s prison cell after each chapter, instead moving from one area to the next, following the breadcrumbs guiding you closer to the answers to the mysteries presented to you. Admittedly the story is a bit silly, a bit basic. Fawkes is imprisoned by the All-Father, with Aylin being tasked to monitor them. In the opening dialogue, Aylin shows that she is able and willing to torture Fawkes into compliance. Given all this, when met by a stranger in the Abyss who is offering genuine help to you, they still choose to side with their captors. As you play through and you see how things unfold, it doesn’t get much better.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been using a lot of “they/them” pronouns in reference to Fawkes. Gender fluidity is an unspoken theme of the game. Not just Fawkes’s chosen pronouns, which is specified in a dialogue. You’ll come across a number of characters, always the friendly NPC’s, who portray traits that are traditionally attributed to one gender or another. One example is a character who is a human torso sticking out the top of a giant, mechanical spider body. A spider with huge fists in lieu of its two front legs. The torso I mentioned will have a lot of very feminine features, but the voice is very deep. There are other examples, but that gets the point across. This article will be releasing during Pride Month, a coincidence that didn’t escape me in the course of me writing this. Just thought I’d give it a mention.
The game looks great, albeit with a silly story. How does it play?
Whenever you have control of Fawkes, you’re in the Abyss. All the running, gunning, and platforming is done in the gloomy, titular megastructure. Sure the game is first person, and sure you do a lotta pew pew when enemies appear, but you’ll find that the platforming and exploration are huge elements, as well. Arguably more important than the combat. Combat is isolated to designated areas that are connected by long portions where you’ll be navigating the depths of the Abyss. At first all you can do is jump from one platform to another. You do gain more abilities as the game progresses. You got the usual double jump, a dash that can also be performed midair, and a grapple shot that can pull you to far off areas. Luna Abyss also has itself a possession system. Wardens come in all shapes and sizes and many of them lay decommissioned about the Abyss, waiting for you to assume control for a limited time. Yours looks very human, but that seems to be the exception instead of the rule. I mentioned the mechanical spiders with the torso growth. There are kaiju Wardens and these other ones that can only be described as large balls covered in eyes. All the phrasings I could think of for that were dirty, by the way. It’s also the most common you’ll be able to possess, using them to pass through fencing, climb heights, or cross gaps you wouldn’t be able to traverse otherwise. The kaiju and spider hybrids can be possessed, too, when prompted. Doing so will briefly change up the gameplay style while you’re borrowing someone else’s body.
Combat has a targeting system instead of an aim down sight system. Like most FPS, the strategy is strafing, dashing, jumping, sliding, and using cover when available to avoid enemy fire while returning your own. There are a few combat-specific abilities you’ll have at your disposal. There’s the deployable dome shield because sometimes you need to create your own cover. The other two abilities can only be used on an enemy on the verge of death, but both are equally useful. They are called Drift Kill and Drift Surge. The difference between performing them is pressing or holding the assigned button. With the former you’ll absorb a bit of the enemies health, giving you a needed boost to keep going. And the latter causes the enemy to detonate in a powerful explosion that damages other enemies and penetrates their defenses. The structure of the fights is pretty simple, and in the early game you’ll get through them with relative ease. The heat turns up pretty quick.
Boss fights are multi-tier events that have you utilizing all the tricks you’ve learned up to this point. You’ll whittle down their health until something grants them invulnerability. The source is always obvious, so it’s a matter of destroying it so you can hurt the boss again. Rinse and repeat. Visually the bosses never disappoint. Towering monstrosities that are there to eat up everything you can throw at them until they can’t eat no more.
Aside from a shield technique that only has application in a fight, there’s a bit of a Venn diagram relationship between the platforming and combat in Luna Abyss. And I’m not just talking about the above mentioned abilities that help keep you nimble when dancing between enemies’ projectiles. That overlap also exists with the weapons. There are four in total: Scout Rifle is your assault rifle type, a shotgun called Shieldbreaker, there’s a high powered rifle called Monarch’s Lance, and a salvo launcher called Atom Splitter. Shieldbreaker and Atom Splitter will be used outside of combat to get through certain obstacles. In combat you’re encouraged to jump from one weapon to the next. Ammo isn’t an issue since all the weapons utilize an overheat system. Fire enough times and your weapon needs to cool down. Each weapon is allocated to a direction on the Dpad, making swapping between them a breeze. By the late game when you have all four weapons, the combat finally reaches its full potential. Utilizing everything from the abilities to the weapons has a flow that feels really good to fall into.
The narrative isn’t my only complaint, just the only one really worth mentioning. In case you’re curious, the in game codex feels incomplete. Biggest thing missing is a list of the abilities you gain, like the double jump or deployable shield. Normally this isn’t a big deal unless you’re a reviewer who took incomplete notes on a game that doesn’t have nearly as much online chatter as it should, so you need to replay the first few chapters for accurate information. 99.999% of you out there won’t give a modicum of a thought to this, nor should you. Seriously, though, Luna Abyss is a Buy It. At full price it’s only $30 . It’s available on Steam, PS5, and the Xbox Series systems. If you’re playing on the latter with Game Pass Ultimate, you can fire it up right now. It’s already at a bargain price, and the quality contained far exceeds what you’ll pay. Your time in the Abyss may not be long, but it’ll be fun. And don’t worry, this Abyss only stares back if you let it.
