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Axiomverge-secretworld

Inside the Secret World area

Description[]

A Secret World (referred to as "breach pockets" in one of the journal pages) is an alternate area in Axiom Verge that has a "glitched/corrupted" appearance.

While in this area, strong scan-lines will appear on the player's screen—as though the game is being viewed on a cathode ray tube (CRT) television with greyish static, occasional saturation reduction and vertical sync anomalies shown.

Upon entering a Secret World, Trace is warned by Elsenova to turn back. She tells him that this place is like an "artifact—dangerous flotsam and jetsam" (like wreckage) caused by the Breach. Trace conjectures that it is some kind of "dimensional rift" but that it may contain an item he needs.

Secret World entrances spawn in random locations throughout Sudra, based on a large pool of potential entrances. The layout of each Secret World is procedurally generated, and each one is different, being generated from a set of algorithms in the game code. Once entered, a Secret World will have the same layout when revisited from the same save file. The worlds sometimes contain false doors that appear to lead somewhere, but cannot be passed through. 5 Secret Worlds are created in each save file. 2 Easy, 2 Medium and 1 Hard. Each Secret World contains one primary, and one secondary item. Since only one hard Secret World is created per save file, only one secret weapon can be obtained per playthrough. (In Randomizer Mode, these weapons can be found outside of a Secret World replacing another item, and all 3 can be obtained in a single save.)

Easy Secret Worlds are found in Absu, Zi and Kur, containing primary items - Range Node or Size Node- and secondary ones- a Health Node Fragment. Medium Secret Worlds are found in Eribu, Indi and Ukkin-Na, with the same types of items as the easy worlds. The Hard Secret World can be found in Edin, E-Kur-Mah or Mar-Uru. They contain either the Heat Seeker, Scissor Beam or Fat Beam, as well as a Health Node Fragment. The Hard secret world entrances can be puzzles involving the use of the Red Coat.

Despite the difficulty of finding the entrances, Secret Worlds themselves contain no hidden items or secret paths.

Finding Entrances[]

The area around an entrance to a Secret World causes visible "scanlines" to show on the screen that intensify as Trace gets closer to where it can be entered. These scanlines are first visible on the health bar, but easily noticeable covering the whole screen when very close. At close range, the effect just outside of the entrance is at about half of what is shown inside a Secret World map.

These effects happen even when finding Hard world entrances. They can also happen in a different room, if the entrance is close enough to the opposite wall in the other room.

The easiest way to find entrances are to look for the interlaced health bar pattern, rather than shooting randomly at walls, as some of the entrances can be rather hard to detect.

Normal Screen
First Effects
Close Effects
Maximum Effect

Normal Screen

Normal screen with no scanlines

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First Effects

First indications of scanlines on health bar

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Close Effects

Obvious scanline and sweeping effects near entrance (fake wall at top-left corner)

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Maximum Effect

Maximum scanline effect next to entrance (fake wall at lower-left corner)

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Normal Screen
First Effects
Close Effects
Maximum Effect


Secretworlds Map color

Full list of potential entrances

Location[]

Five entrances are randomly created from the possible ones shown on the map in each save file. 2 easy, 2 medium and 1 hard.

Each entrance will have one of nine properties:

  1. PASSABLEWALL - Intangible, drawn in the foreground.
  2. DRILLABLEWALL - The Laser Drill or Drone Drill must be used to enter.
  3. MISSINGWALL - Wall blocks that would be there otherwise are missing.
  4. FLICKERINGWALL - Wall flickers between two different tiles
  5. CORRUPTEDWALL - Trace must use the Address Disruptor or Address Bomb to enter.
  6. WALLTELEPORT - Trace must use the Modified Lab Coat or its upgrades to enter.
  7. DRONEACCESS - Trace must use the Remote Drone - the vertical gap is too small for Trace to fit through.
  8. PASSWORD - Applied to gates in Passcode blocked areas?
  9. OVERCLOCK - Trace must use Red Coat to enter - way is blocked by destructible tiles beyond solid wall (might only be Hard areas)

Story[]

As mentioned in one of the journal pages, Athetos discovered and utilized the secret worlds in an attempt to hide certain sensitive items (secret weapons) from the Rusalki, reasoning that they wouldn't go in since the Breach interferes with their electronics.[1] Elsenova confirms this idea, saying the secret worlds are dangerous[2] and that the Breach cannot be passed through normally.[3] Travelling into the Breach is a trait rarely seen- seen only with Trace and Indra, though the latter requires an upgrade to go through.

The appearance of the Secret Worlds resembling the rest of Sudra implies that at some point, the Sagiga managed to traverse the Breach and build inside of it, much unlike how the Breach is seen on Kiengir, an entirely alien landscape.

Inspiration[]

"The secret areas are inspired by things like Super Mario's Minus World and Metroid's Secret Worlds, which weren't planned by developers, but glitches. The reason for the randomization is to replicate the effect you get of something that isn't designed by a human."[4]

References[]

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