Nate Purkeypile, a Bethesda veteran who is also an indie developer, recently released a 2022 trailer for The Axis Unseen, his experimental fantasy hunting sim. This trailer and Purkeypile’s YouTube dev logs paint an exciting picture about a stealth-shooter who embraces classic immersive sim inspirations.
Purkeypile is currently developing The Axis Unseen using Unreal Engine 5. While the tech has received a lot of attention for its high-fidelity graphics, this is my first experience with UE5 art direction. Purkeypile’s dark metal albums really benefit from the “UE5” lighting. It creates a dreamy effect that is almost like an early morning.
His scenes are also striking and mysterious, which really grabbed my attention. I was particularly struck by the image of a triangular statue with reptilian hands reaching for a humanoid figure on the top of a staircase that leads nowhere. It reminds me of French comic artist Moebius. These environments are amazing and I would love to explore more of them.
This fantasy world promises some truly unique gameplay. Axis Unseen’s archery gameplay was almost a play on the Skyrim fan-favorite stealth bowarcher build, which Purkeypile created as a world artist. Your character is slow and cannot take too many hits from otherworldly fauna, such as the Ancestor Spirit of Elden Ring. Sneaking around is the best way to get arrows.
The game’s quarry can detect your presence via sight, sound, or smell. Wind direction will affect the range of this last one. The sound transmission of different surfaces can affect how fast you can traverse them, similar to Thief by Looking Glass Studios. Stone is more quiet than dirt, but dirt leaves tracks that enemies can follow.
It’s fair play, though. Players will be asked to keep up with the world’s creatures via audio cues and visually. Enemies leave tracks that can be followed in turn. The Axis Unseen does not require detective vision nor MGSV marking to identify enemies. It fully embraces the low-tech ranger fantasy of The Axis Unseen. VR technology is still far from being able to smell your enemies, so it’s a disadvantage this game’s magic harts, ent/leshen-type men, and other horrors have over you.
There are many other small touches that I like. It’s almost like a game book with pages that you can flip through. To see how many arrows are left, you must pull your quiver off of your back, much like the magazine checking for Wolfire Games’ Receiver series. A chunky, retro, over-designed UI is my preference over a minimalist, modern, abstract one. However, I really admire Axis Unseen’s dedication to uber minimalism.
Although The Axis Unseen is a unique take on stealth, fantasy exploration and other aspects of the game, we are still far from releasing it. Purkeypile has been working on the game for a little more than a year and recently shared a Twitter roadmap. You can now follow Purkeypile on YouTube and Twitter, as well wishlist the game on Steam and the Epic Store.
