
I’ve been looking forward to making this announcement for a long time. When I announced Axiom Verge for PlayStation 4, I also said that not only was it coming to PS Vita as well, but that it would be Cross Buy. It took far longer than I expected to make good on that commitment, but that day is finally near.
I’d like to give a little bit of context on what took so long. When I started development of Axiom Verge, I was using a development framework called XNA. Support for XNA was abandoned, so the community created an open source version of XNA called MonoGame. Sony told me they were working to get MonoGame supported on both PlayStation 4 and PS Vita. I knew that Axiom Verge would be great on a handheld, so I jumped at the opportunity.
Tom Spilman from Sickhead Games was in charge of the porting process. Porting an engine to a new platform is an incredibly complicated task, yet he was able to pull it off easily for PlayStation 4. After the PlayStation 4 version was done, however, porting it to Vita turned out to be a lot more challenging. Optimizing an engine is slow and painstaking work. As the months ticked by, Tom was feeling a great deal of pressure to get MonoGame working.
One analogy that I like to use when describing getting Axiom Verge working on PS Vita is that of a lightbulb. For months, Tom Spilman was putting in all of the wiring, but until it was fully connected, the light bulb just couldn’t turn on. And finally, about a month ago, Tom Spilman was able to make the final connection. The build went from not running at all on Vita to running almost perfectly. There were a few bugs here and there that needed to be tweaked, but most of that was fairly minor and easily handled.
We discussed with Sony, and we have settled on a launch date of April 19! And as promised since the beginning, it will be Cross Buy, so if you already own the PlayStation 4 version you’ll get the PS Vita version for free.
Oh, and one more thing – just to thank everyone for their support and patience, both versions will be 10% off for the first week after the PS Vita version launches.
Axiom Verge – 1 Year Later
I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing one year ago today. I was sitting in my living room, continually logging into the PlayStation Store to see if it had refreshed, backing back out, and repeating. The reviews for Axiom Verge had come out the day before, and they surpassed all of my hopes. USgamer’s Jeremy Parish, whose writing I had followed for over a decade, called it the best game he’d played in years. Jeff Gerstmann, the famously tough critic from Giant Bomb, gave it his first 5/5 score in about 2 years. In all, I think it got about 25 separate review scores of 9/10 or better! And when I saw the Axiom Verge box art I had drawn up on my TV screen, I knew it was all real. (Well, to the extent there is such a thing as objective reality, but I suppose I digress.)
My life has changed quite a bit from that day, but not necessarily in the way that people might expect. The period leading up to and following Axiom Verge’s release was a challenge, starting with the loss of my longtime canine companion Max just days before launch. I had to sell my car to pay for his treatment, and losing him right before launch put a dark cloud over everything. My son Alastair was born after the game launched, but he was afflicted with a severe case of jaundice that may leave him permanently disabled.
The silver lining here is that, thanks to the success of Axiom Verge and the support of its fans, I’ll be able to be there for my family. I wrote more about Max and Alastair over at AxiomVerge.com, if you’d like to read more.
I know many people have been waiting a long time for the PS Vita version of Axiom Verge. Thank you so much for your patience, understanding, and support. It has meant the world to me and my family.
I bought this game on day 1, but like many, I bought it to play on my Vita. Have not touched it since. This is great news. I can’t wait to play this game.
April 19th can’t come fast enough.
Vita love baby.
Congrats on the new baby! Axiom Verge has been on my backlog for a couple of weeks. Now that’s arriving on Vita it’ll be easier to get on it while traveling. Thanks.
FINALLY!!! Some good news for a change. This needs to happen for far more games for the Vita. The Vita is an amazing piece of hardware that needs MORE. This is fantastic news! I never bought this for the PS4 because it seemed ideal for the Vita..
I’m buying this for a bunch of my friends just to help celebrate this great game. Thanks for getting it out on the vita.
With all the complaining about where are the Playstation Vita games at I’m shocked that there were not enough people showing there support on the blog.
Tom you are a LEGEND!!!
Wasn’t interested in the game initially, but due to your hard work and dedication. I may check this out on my PS Vita.
Thank you for all the hard work! I love your game but as a personal flaw i have trouble staying interested in great 2D games like this on my home console, I’ve been dying to get it on my vita so I can play it on the go!
Metroivania game on a handheld…just perfect.
Hoping the plat is obtainable on the Vita like the PS4 version. Not many glitches or bugs….vita ports aren’t always pretty.
What was the biggest hurdle in getting the vita port done….many devs have the vita release later on..
Happy, it is getting the support. I would have never have bought this game if it was just PS4, even with the knowledge of the rave reviews and .
I prefer 2D/Indie games on a handheld.
Yep, the trophies are shared with PS4. The main hurdle is just there being no C# compiler/libraries for Vita. Sickhead basically had to write their own.