Section 9 Interactive Details End of Abyss's Design Ahead of October 1 Launch
Section 9 Interactive's Marcus Ottvall details End of Abyss's shift from action shooter to atmospheric metroidvania ahead of its October 1 launch.
Section 9 Interactive's debut game, End of Abyss, launches October 1 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via the Epic Games Store, and the Malmö studio marked the eve of release with an unusually candid developer diary on Xbox Wire walking through how its small team turned a prototype shooter into a top-down metroidvania. The post was written by studio co-founder Marcus Ottvall rather than a platform editor, giving it the texture of a genuine behind-the-scenes account rather than a marketing recap.
The game casts players as Cel, a combat technician sent to investigate disturbances inside a sprawling underground facility, who ends up fighting to survive as she and her crew push deeper into its collapsed levels. Section 9 Interactive was founded by three former Tarsier Studios developers who worked together on Little Nightmares and Reanimal, and Xbox Wire ran an early hands-on look at the game's combat and exploration back in June, ahead of this week's launch.
From Action Shooter to Atmospheric Horror
Ottvall's post traces a development arc that will sound familiar to anyone who has watched a small studio find its game mid-development. End of Abyss started life as "an action-based top-down shooter" before the team's growing interest in exploration and tension pulled it toward something slower and more dynamic. Somewhere in that shift, the studio noticed a gap it wanted to fill.
- Early builds emphasized fast combat over atmosphere
- The team gravitated toward metroidvania structure as exploration became the focus
- Section 9 Interactive settled on the combination specifically because they had not seen many top-down metroidvanias with action-horror elements
That gap became, in Ottvall's words, "our driving force" for shaping the rest of the project.
Building a Weathered, Analog World
Much of the diary is devoted to End of Abyss's visual identity, which the team says draws on the "films, games, comic books and anime" its members grew up with. Ottvall specifically cites the rougher, more manual visual effects of 1980s and 1990s media as a reference point for the facility's worn-down look, while the team still aimed to keep the world feeling new rather than simply ruined. Section 9 Interactive says it balanced that realism against a slightly stylized sense of scale in both the environments and the creatures that inhabit them, so the facility reads as unfamiliar rather than merely decayed.
Early prototypes, Ottvall writes, already had Cel's core movement and equipment along with a handful of small test levels, but the project lacked a clear visual identity until the team began sketching references and building updated prototype enemies and environments to chase a specific mood. That process of trial and iteration is presented as the real turning point between an early tech demo and the atmospheric game launching this week.
Enemies Designed Around Gameplay First
The studio's creature design process worked backward from mechanics: the team would settle on a gameplay function it wanted to test, then design a creature to fit it, using rough animation mockups built in Unreal Engine to prototype behavior quickly before committing to a final design.
"What started as an action-based top-down shooter, developed into a slower, more dynamic and atmospheric experience as we became more interested in exploration and creating a stronger sense of tension," Ottvall wrote of the shift that defined the project.
“What started as an action-based top-down shooter, developed into a slower, more dynamic and atmospheric experience as we became more interested in exploration and creating a stronger sense of tension.”Marcus Ottvall, Co-Founder, Section 9 Interactive
Where to Play
End of Abyss launches October 1 for $29.99 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC through the Xbox Store and the Epic Games Store, with a PlayStation Store listing confirming the same day-one date for PS5, including DualSense trigger and vibration support and a full suite of accessibility options. The game had previously surfaced at Summer Game Fest in June with a release-date trailer setting the October launch window months in advance.
A Small Studio's First Swing
For a three-person founding team with roots in one of the last decade's more distinctive horror franchises, End of Abyss represents a departure in genre but a continuation of tone. Whether the finished game lives up to the atmosphere Ottvall describes will become clear once players start descending into the facility themselves on October 1.
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Theo covers the business of games for Gamers6: studio moves, platform strategy and the press releases nobody else finishes reading. He files most days before the coffee is cold.
