Call of the Abyss

We're launching Round 1 of our public playtest next week.

Access is limited, and by request, not everyone gets in immediately, and that's intentional. We want real feedback, not a stress test. Small batches, proper responses, fixes pushed between waves. One big update a month, a few critical fixes throughout the demo.

What You'll Play

You'll get access to the opening section of our Vertical Slice:

• The Abyss - the intro sequence that puts you in the world and in the exosuit

• The Docks - your first proper location, first real enemies, first time understanding what "above and below the waterline" actually means

• Environmental interactions - you can interact with the world in combat and outseide of it. Try to exploit it the best wway you can.

• A mini-boss encounter - a proper wall. If you haven't been paying attention to how the combat works, you'll know it here.

The world premise: humanity built its civilization deep underground, running on hydraulic machinery powered by Init ore — a toxic substance so compressed it can release an ocean's worth of water in seconds. Something ancient lives even deeper. You play as a noble engineer whose body was weakened by early Init exposure, moving through a decaying industrial world in a self-built exosuit that keeps him alive and lethal at the same time.

It's a souls-like. It punishes. It rewards attention more than reflexes.

What We Actually Need From You

We'll be honest - this isn't just a hype exercise. We worked on it for a long time and finally got to the point where we ask people we don't know what they think of the game.

After you play, you'll receive a short questionnaire. Please fill it in; we read every single response. The answers directly influence what gets patched, what gets reworked, and what gets cut.

How to Get In

Click Request Access on this page. We'll be sending out keys in waves over the next few days.

Round 1 runs for one month. We'll push small fixes and updates throughout, so if something bothers you early on, it might already be patched by the time you write about it. Check patch notes.

Didn't get in this wave? We see you. Slots open up as the round progresses.

Want to get closer? Join our Discord server, where you can share more and talk directly with us

What Comes After

This playtest closes out Pre-Production. Full Production starts in December. The public demo, a larger, more complete version, comes after that.

We've been making this for a long time. Having actual players tell us what's broken and what feels right matters more than we can express in a Steam post.

Pressure above. Abyss below. Know the rules. Break the right ones. See you down there. NOVA64

HYDROPUNK