The Indie Informer

Sci-fi shooter is not typically the kind of game I fall in love with, but Luna Abyss has earned itself the honor. Its writing is artful and human. Its story is compelling and compassionate. Its setting is deadly and dark. And, y’all, the gameplay is masterful. Even if you, like me, don’t often dip into space FPSs, this is not one to miss.

I’ve been keeping an eye on Luna Abyss for years — my earliest preview was in 2023. And what I said then bears repeating here:

A couple of things draw me in. One, early glimpses I’ve caught of the game are unbelievably beautiful and I have to see if the real thing lives up to them. Two, every trailer thus far exudes the kind of haunting tone that often heralds an enthralling story. My time with the demo convinces me both elements are ready to deliver.

Now, nearly five hours of play time behind me, the tone and beauty maintain their brilliant shine. In fact, the first few minutes added depth to the story I had yet to encounter. Earth, a luminous blue dot in a sea of dark, is suddenly eclipsed by ominous black sphere. Its tension emanating in the form of jolting tremors, its suddenly bursts and in its place is a drop of blood-red rock. An alien moon looming like an evil, fiery eye.

Then, the games blasts two hundred years int the future, where we meet our imprisoned hero Fawkes — though that’s not her real name. Giving me something Citizen Sleeper-esque in its tragedy, the protagonist has been sentences to more than nine thousand days of incarceration on the crimson moon’s now-built penitentiary.

Dangling in front of her the chance to work of her sentence, Fawkes is voluntold to sever her consciousness and place it in an android-like shell. In this odd cage, she can take on missions that, when successfully completed, knock of a week or so of her sentence.

She doesn’t really have much choice in whether to accept missions, no matter how cheerfully her jailer/mission leader, Aylin, presents them. So, against her will, she slides down into the moon’s Abyss. Each level not only boasts striking art direction and design, but includes constantly creative and just plain cool elements.

One teleportation scene, for example, could have been a simple “here one moment, there the next.” Instead, it was a burst of energy and sound flooding through a long-dead space. There are also moments that make the world feel as though its experienced a long and unsettling history and make the player feel the awe of them. This is strong in the area called Warden’s Regret, which centers around a catatonic colossal that seems to look down on the landscape with such remorse it needs no words to communicate the feeling.

In my second hour, I received a major power up that changed the way I would move through the levels from there on out. It was awesome, and my first indication that Luna Abyss wasn’t simply a game with stellar art direction and fun gameplay. It was going to be a must-play.