The Axis Unseen free demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1807810/The_Axis_Unseen/
It took about 3.5 years, but now it’s actually coming out in less than two weeks. I’m really excited to see what people think of it and it has been cool watching streamers react to the demo. Somehow my two story tall tree guy is really good at sneaking up on people. :D
original post on imgur
I played the demo for a few hours. Might be a solo dev, but his experience is definitely noticeable. Game looks great, albeit unoptimized. Progression is simple and fair. Artwork is incredible for a solo dev. Combat is decent, and unexpectedly satisfying.
Someone else mentioned the excessive blood explosion - it’s the best feeling when you land one of those shots from across a field.
Looks interesting, but the music should hit WAY harder, IMO. Based on the visuals, I was expecting early 2000s Opeth, and I got late 2010s Opeth instead.
The music is all written by a member of ISIS, which is pretty heavy, but in an “atmospheric sludge/post-metal” way. So I can see how you’d think that if you’re looking for something more death metal (which would fit in the fight scenes, although atmospheric sludge or funeral doom would go pretty well in the rest of the game)
Oh snap thanks for pointing this out! Been a long time and I haven’t kept up with ISIS, but their Panopticon was damn near genre-defining for me at the time.
I’m glad to see they’ve turned a corner in their careers. Last I heard they were mostly producing beheading videos.
Lol yeah, name became a wee bit unfortunate thanks to those angry rascals
So it’s not a nasheed
Thx
Not really all that related, but if you like Panopticon by ISIS, you might also appreciate the best Appalachian atmospheric black metal I’ve ever heard, Kentucky by Panopticon.
Buddy, “Appalachian atmospheric black metal” is a weird combination of words I’ve never seen before and I’m stoked to give it a whirl. Praise Satan for keeping metal interesting.
Add Blackbraid to that list as well. Amazing one man native black metal from the Adirondack region.
Now find more metal by a band Kentucky
Absolute all-timer of an album IMO
This record, a few by Neurosis, and one or two by Cult of Luna were such a vibe. We knew some knuckleheads who even started a joke ish band called Cult of Neurisis lol
Check out Battle of Mice, Deafheaven, and Oathbreaker if you haven’t. They lean pretty heavily on the depressing side of metal, but they have some killer vibes.
Oathbreaker’s Rheia is one of the most moving records I’ve ever heard, truly a masterpiece with no wasted moments, missteps, just basically flawless in my opinion. On the other side Deafheaven just hasn’t worked for me at all. Taste’s so fickle lol.
I’ll check out the third tho!
Fair warning, Battle of Mice can be tough to listen to. Song 6 of “A day of Nights”, titled “At the base of the giants throat” has 911 call audio from 7:00 ish to the end of the song.
Rheia is so fucking good. It’s a perfect example of music driven by emotion and backed up by incredible execution of the music itself. Glad to see that other people dig it. As for Deafheaven, I loved it when I first heard of it and listened to it all the time, but it’s become one of those bands that I can’t listen to anymore because of the association to that point in my life, which was not great to put lightly. I remember it being an incredible band, but it’s been close to 10 years since I’ve listened to it, so I can’t say whether I’d think it’s good today. Maybe I wouldn’t like it today if I was just hearing it the first time.
Edit: my favorite Battle of Mice song, Sleep and Dream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k74EB4XVp0
I recently got into slug metal. Would you have any recommendations for sludge, funereal, and/or doom metal?
Pallbearer and Ahab are both pretty good for funeral doom or death/doom (depending on who you ask).
I like a little bit of “epic” doom themes but trad doom, power metal, and actual epic doom are a little too cheesy for me, so I lean toward Conan (very heavy, approaching a sludge-drone hybrid) and Khemmis (who describe their sound as “doomed heavy metal”)
I actually usually skew more psychedelic doom or stoner/prog doom, which has a lot of great stuff in the past few decades. Sleep’s Holy Mountain (classic stoner metal), Grief’s Infernal Flower by Windhand (psych doom), Clearing the Path to Ascend by YOB (heavy stoner/prog), Lore by Elder (very proggy but still catchy).
Also, I assume you’ve seen the most common recommendations for classic sludge, The Melvins (especially Houdini and Bullhead), Eyehategod, and Side B of My War by Black Flag. If not, get started there
edit: Obviously I’ve got lots of other fun options in each of these veins, so hmu if you want more
I’ve been on a non-stop yt metal rabbit hole after googling some of these bands. Thanks for re-awakening the wide world of metal. It’s strange how you go through different types of music throughout your life.
Happy to get you excited with some new music! I’ve listened to heavy music for decades but it had definitely gotten a little stale for me. It was only in the last 2 years that I discovered stoner/doom as a sub-genre, so I’m not all that far ahead of you. Some really great stuff that is frankly just as heavy but much catchier than most other metal subgenres. I mean, I love me some black/death metal, but I’m just not really getting obsessed with those bands/albums/songs the same way as I can with this slow riff worship you see in stoner/doom.
Dude, Windhand’s Forest Clouds is so freaking sick. What a vibe—the album art, the track names, and ofc the sound is so awesome. Man, it feels so hyperbolic, but I honestly haven’t had this feeling listening to music in sooo long.
For sure, I dig some death/black metal stuff a bit, but I’ve always been a nu metal plebian that having this convo on reddit would just have die-hard gatekeepers take a dump on me, tbh. I’ve always hated how gatekeepy metal has always been. Thanks for the recs and interesting genre info! All the genre names are so hilariously awesome xD
Windhand was my gateway into this whole world, and I couldn’t agree more. The first time I heard their stuff, it just blew my mind in a way I hadn’t experienced in probably a decade.
I came into metal from metalcore, and there’s no faster way to get yourself banned from the metal subs than posting metalcore, so I feel you in the gatekeeping, too. The doom scene really does pull from all sorts of influences and tends to be pretty accepting of a ton of fringe bands and sounds so you get people that are excited to talk about music instead of just shitting on other people’s taste. So you get “doom wop,” stoner rock, doom ‘n’ roll, fairy doom, witch metal, caveman battle doom, and so on.
Have fun exploring it all! There’s a ton of good shit out there, and for my money, to this day, nothing hits like that first time hearing “Forest Clouds”
Thanks for sharing all this. I go through phases with music and it’ll be great to have some new bands to check out.
Back in the day I got a kick out of this site and would send it to people who were just learning about and starting to get into metal: https://mapofmetal.com
This would be a neat site if it displayed properly.
slug metal
Also, may I introduce you to our slug metal overlords, Slugdge
Dopethrone by Electric Wizard
Isn’t Dopethrone Doomer/Drone/Stoner? How many names are there for the same subgenre?
It’s considered doom metal or stoner metal. Metal has a huge number of related subgenres. Sludge metal has more screaming. Stoner metal has more guitar riffs. Doom metal is like stoner metal, but heavier and with lyrics about Dungeons and Dragons.
Old thread but felt I had to mention the Dance of December souls & Brave murder day albums by Katatonia
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Could check out High on Fire if you haven’t.
Saw them open for Mastodon in 2009 (I think). Fucking excellent on stage.
Started the night off with Fireface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2HFUePNKDs
Ahh, a game dedicated to being a stealth archer, fuck yeah, I’m in.
I know right. He knew that was the best way to play Skyrim. This game looks bad ass.
There were other ways to successfully play base Skyrim??
Stealth and daggers backstab could also eliminate having to interact with the actual combat of the game, making for a better experience.
Yeah, but…that sounds like effort. Much easier to slap a stabby bit on the end of a stick and only occasionally accidentally kill a random goat.
I never used any ranged weapon in the game, did I miss out?
If you like being OP, definitely.
Why the f I see vertical gameplay of someone playing 16:9?
Still took less time than Elder Scrolls 6 to come out
Think we know why (this guy quit)
You’d think it would be a blow to Bethesda that their sole programmer quit, but fortunately the creation engine is so cutting edge that I’m sure they’ll lean on it just as it is for years to come.
GPU: 4 GB VRAM GeForce GTX 980/Radeon RX 580
Dammit, my iGPU has more than enough computing power but only half of the VRAM.
iGPU’s can use system RAM to supplement VRAM. Might still be doable
I forgot about that. A bios setting, right?
I believe so
back in the day I had an ATI system that shared system ram through the iGPU to the GPU(both ATI). turned my 2gb GPU into 4gb and saved me from building a new system for like a decade.
not sure if they do it anymore, but it’d be nice.
There is a demo, so you can see if it will run well enough for you before you buy it.
a demo in this day? dev knows what’s up
Remember getting demo discs in magazines? Great times
as a poor kid living in the sticks demo discs were the only way I could play many games.
if it weren’t for them, I would have never gotten into games, nor computers, nor my career that has elevated my QOL.
could say demo discs saved my life from many hardships.
I feel like credentials such as used to work at Bethesda, aren’t as good as they think they are… Or is it just me?
You shouldn’t dismiss someone’s 14 year career, including a game of the year, because you don’t like the studio he came from.
Length of time isn’t a credential to me
It is to the real world, it’s called work experience.
I don’t blame the devs for bad AAA games, with like 300 people working in one game, if it becomes shit it’s management fault.
Okay but I don’t see how it’s a net positive credential, how it even actually means anything?
😞
What specifically are you disagreeing with? Bad games are bad largely due to design and monetization reasons, both of which developers don’t participate in deciding. But, they do witness all of the good decisions that get cut from the design. Buggy games are one thing you can partially attribute to developers, but saying Bethesda devs have a net negative credential without explaining is willfully obtuse and borderline troll behavior.
Good developers CAN make good games but good games require more than being just good at development… And bad developers can produce fun buggy games
Are there shitty restaurants with good chefs?
Idk, you concider the food of a videogame the code or the story and lvl design?
Sure.
Well, at least he is able and have experience to work well in open world sandboxes with fps mechanics. Something people tend to like. I didnt olqy starfield but y es new vegas, and if a game like this is bad is more because the level desing, progresión, npcs and such are bad done, and any of that things have something to do with a developer.
I understood it as “they were fed up with the henhouse and proved they could do better alone”.
Yeah but it’s like, ok so you’re a programmer. Neat. Working at a company for a set period of time just doesn’t tell me anything. I guess that’s just me
if they were a lead game designer or writer I would agree. but I think this guy did environmental design, and Bethesda has had pretty cool environments in their games. though not all of them are very believable (in feeling lived-in), they sure do provide some spectacle, and memorability. in fact many of their games have been mostly carried by environments.
It’s just you. That a company makes terrible decisions tells not that much about a dev. If a dev says he worked on multiple projects does tell something about the dev regardless of the company. Don’t forget that Bethesda sold their soul to MS and now has a lot more “steering” at the top, devs don’t participate in that.
Edit: a word
Everything but starfield seemed like a plus to me
Well he mostly worked on starfield of he was recently employed there
Especially if we are going back only 14 years. So what did they work on, skyrim remasters or Fallout 4 remasters?
Starfield. Active development started 9 years ago.
Meaning the last 6 years of his career there were on starfield, which he wasn’t a manager of, if he quit 3 years ago.
This feels like a standard toxic gaming community thread where dismissing someone’s achievements is for some reason fair game.
Dude held a job at a huge publisher for 14 years, then quit and developed his own thing.
Good on him!
You’re missing that he quit during the development of that crappy game, which gives him extra points for judgement.
To address your point of toxicity, I didn’t get the impression. In fact it’s the first thing that popped into my mind as well.
Bethesdas reputation is just that tarnished.
Yeah I dunno. Journalist who worked at cnn 20 years quits to make own newspaper wouldn’t do it for me either
Flip the conversation. What WOULD show a level of experience that equated to quality to you?
What specifically he worked on, really.
He could’ve been the UI/UX programmer, he couldn’t been the enemy AI programmer or etc etc. I know that programmers wear many hats but I can say I am a 3D modeling software developer for 12 years, but the fact that I worked mostly on moving data between languages and API creation means that I wouldn’t have the correct set of skills necessarily to create good 3D software
Journalism on CNN is alright, it’s the political commentors that have been bought.
Nah I’m just ragging on the fact that Bethesda has released only like 2 new games in a decade and a half. And then updates of the old goodies like every year.
Its not about the developers it’s about how shitty Bethesda is.
That… Still doesn’t feel like a positive thing to mention.
Mashing x to doubt…
That timeline was trotted out to make it sound pre no man’s sky during marketing. Inside sources had it’s real development time as way shorter, hence it’s so terrible even for a Bethesda game
Depends on their tenure. If they’re old school Bethesda, nah that’s just you. The people who built the older TES games had much more skill than the people churning out schlock or the 473rd rererelease of Skyrim. The newer people, yeah that’s not a feather in their cap really. Starfield is meh at best, and doesn’t hold a candle to stuff like Morrowind.
Great interview, thanks
This looks like skyrim sneaky archer: the game.
Definitely gunna play this.
Looks fun. I cracked up when dude shot the deer thing and the blood exploded. I’ll definitely check this out.
Is that heavy metal music actually in the game, or is it just for the trailer?
Turok 2024
Consider me intrigued.
Can I play a stealth archer
This, in fact, seems to be the only option.
What about an archer that is stealthy?
Worth giving it a shot!
It’s a long shot, though.
I’ll be the only barbarian relentlessly bludgeoning my prey with my bow.
What is publishers role anyway in digital age of 2024? Marketing?
Financing.
Marketing and distribution (physical copies)
Ah just Windows, at least on the demo. Wine and such have never had great results for me either. Shame.
I think you must be doing something wrong. Proton has been able to play pretty much everything without unsupported anti-cheat for a long while now.
Could just be a specific combo of hardware/software issues too.
Yeah, I’ve started playing around with Proton and Heroic Launcher(Proton or Wine) and have had pretty good resaults. The only games games I haven’t been able to get running were very old games with who knows what going on. I don’t know if I should be surprised that HROT works without any issues.
Eh? I have a Steam Deck and I rarely ever run into a game that performs badly or has issues. Proton and GE Proton have done amazing things for bringing mainstream gaming to Linux.
Give him a bit to respond. He’s living in the past.
Seems to be not so great on Linux atm: https://www.protondb.com/app/1807810
That’s one review from Steam Deck. Game just might too resource hungry and/or unoptimized for it at the moment. The user also didn’t state what Proton version they used. I’m going to install it on my other Linux PC and report back later.
Edit: Works fine on my PC, running latest version of Nobara (Linux distro focused on gaming) and Nvidia drivers. I also used GE Proton 9.11 in Steam.
I had it auto-detect graphics quality (seemed to be about High settings) @ 1080p, and enabled Fur Shadows. I set DLSS to Balanced. Averaged 60-70FPS, dips down to 45ish when I entered an area with heavy rain. Played for about 15 minutes and entered the open world area after the intro. I was playing on my HTPC hooked up to an older spare TV, so I apologize for those that use 1440p or 4k since I cant test the performance at those resolutions.
My specs are:
-Ryzen 5700X
-RTX 3070 FE
-16GB DDR4 3200
-1TB nvme SSD
Edit 2: Played for another 30sh minutes, no issues. Performance did dip a bit in some open world areas, but I never saw it go below 45 FPS.
My quick review: The game has some interesting ideas, but the combat and presentation are pretty jank. Many of the early monsters just ram you like a goat, which launches you in the air and gravity is kind of floaty, so you can end up getting repeatedly tossed around. Their animations are very stiff, so sometimes it looks as though the monsters are just gliding at you versus running. The aesthetic/style of the world looks great, though. The giant tree/Ent thing stomping thru the forest was intense and surreal, I enjoyed trying to hide from it and failing.
The UI is not good, not awful. All of your important information is in the inside of your bow shaft, but it isn’t presented in a clear and easily understood way. Not being able to easily tell how many arrows you have in the middle of combat is frustrating. I also think the wind direction should be easily referenced without needing to hold down a button, sort of how Ghost of Tsushima did it.
Lastly, and this is subjective, the music is not very heavy metal IMO. I was expecting something like Doom 2016, but with Cannibal Corpse, Cradle of Filth, or even Slayer type heavy metal. Instead, it’s more ambient and slower; not intense at all.
If you’ve only tried wine from like 10+ years ago like I have, I’d suggest giving it another try now. Running windows software on Linux has been better than ever with Wine/Proton/Bottles
