Luna Abyss is one of those rare indie games that could easily pass as a triple-A production if you only judged it by its trailer. When Bonsai Collective first unveiled the game, viewers were amazed at the visuals and the stylish combat, going as far as calling it a Destiny killer.
Needless to say, that would be enough to make anyone tremble, let alone a scrappy group of around 15 tight-knit developers. During my nice, long chat with two of their three founders, however, they exuded more positive tension than fear.
A first-person action/adventure game with cosmic horror vibes, Luna Abyss is the debut title of UK-based (yet entirely remote studio) Bonsai Collective, founded a few years ago by Harry Corr, Benni Hill, and Hollie Emery. It is with the latter two, respectively the team’s Creative Director and Production Director, that I had the pleasure to talk about all things Luna Abyss, from its inception to its various mechanics. The game doesn’t have a release date yet, but it will be released on PC and consoles. You can wishlist it on Steam, Epic Games Store, and the PlayStation Store.
Can you talk to me a bit about your studio, Bonsai Collective? When was it founded? Do you have an office, or are you doing remote work?
Hollie Emery: Bonsai Collective was formed as a studio in 2019 with co-founders Benni Hill in the role of creative director, Harry Cole as art director, and myself as production director. We’d actually worked together on client work and consultancy within the games industry prior to setting up the studio, so it was awesome that we’d had the opportunity to work together as we knew we loved working together, which was one of the reasons that the studio was formed in the first place. When we got together and realized that we wanted to make a studio together, we all shared the same values of creating a safe space for developers working on cool games together. We always intended the studio to be remote, and we wanted to work with talented folks without the limitations that an on-site studio has, and it was timed quite well. The unfortunate events of the pandemic happened, and we were already planning to make a remote studio prior to the events of the pandemic as well. So, we were in a fortunate position because we’d already done the planning work prior to all of that.
We founded the studio in Summer 2019. We began concept development in Autumn on our first project and started seeking investment in February 2020. That was the exact time that COVID kicked in. The ill-fated GDC 2020 had us having to cancel the week before, but we ended up having all of the same pitches that we would have had if we were going to GDC. That was one of the most intense weeks of our lives. It was a mad week, but we were able to get investment after that pitching process, and it was July 2020 when we got the first ones into the studio and we started building the studio from there.
How many employees do you have right now?
Hollie Emery: The last time I counted, we had 15 core employees. We also work with a number of contractors as well. We grow as and when we need on the team, but it’s a core team of 15 members.
How would you describe Luna Abyss? Does your first project fall under the double-A category?
Benni Hill: That’s always an interesting question that I’d say to describe the quality of the project. I think we’re an independent studio and the way we see it is we’re developing a really high-quality indie game. Triple I, I think some people might have determined it, or double-A probably also describes it. But really, at the end of the day, what we’re trying to achieve is just the highest quality experience we can make for the genre that we’ve chosen, which is that of a narrative-driven action game. And we’ve got an absolutely incredible team. Even though we’re small, they’re incredibly talented. With our knowledge of Unreal Engine, we can really push the boundaries of what a small team can achieve within that engine. So I guess it’s up to the consumers how they would like to classify Luna Abyss when it comes out.
You’re using Unreal Engine 4, right?
Benni Hill: Correct. We’re not quite ready to jump into UE5 just yet. That’ll be for the future. But we are an Unreal specialist studio. We’ve got a really close relationship with Unreal and Epic. Myself, I’ve been working with Unreal since the beginning of my career, which means 13, 14 years now, all the way from even, like, UE2, UDK, and UE3 engines. It’s strange to me that UE4 is now at the end of its life cycle. It’s a great engine, and everyone in the studio is a specialist.
On a technical level, are you planning to support features like ray tracing, NVIDIA DLSS, or AMD FSR? Is there anything you can share about that?
Hollie Emery: We’re still in the development phases for all of these features, but we are looking to have NVIDIA DLSS 3 integration, and we’re having a look at some of the features that we can integrate from AMD as well. The main one that’s confirmed right now is DLSS 3.
Luna Abyss certainly makes an impression for its unique looking graphic style. Did you have any main inspirations behind the visual style and the atmosphere?
Benni Hill: Yes, there’s a number of different things that I think inspired us. I wouldn’t say any one particular thing really inspired us. It was a real mix of passions between myself, Holly and Harry that we coalesced together, merged together naturally and in a really organic way to create what the world is. Off the top of my head, the world design and worldbuilding were really inspired by the manga Blame!, which is a really large brutalist dystopian kind of world. The architectural style of that space was super, super interesting to us. This idea of building a space that seemed larger than it could possibly be was a really interesting starting point for us. But, you know, we’re also really inspired by the character and creature designs of artists like Junji Ito. And then, the work of the team that made NieR: Automata and all of those different kinds of characterizations and creations. We’ve also been inspired by the games we love playing; classic shooters like Half-Life, BioShock, and even games like Destiny 2 have inspired us and restricted the kind of game we were making and built it into a product of strong worldbuilding.
Several fans have indeed noted the similarity to Destiny. Some even wrote, ‘Is this a new destiny expansion’?
Benni Hill: Yes, we have seen those comments. When players try the game, those similarities will dissipate because the game’s quite different in the way that it is structured and in the way it plays. What inspired us more than anything from Destiny was that we really like Destiny Strikes. When we were thinking about our level designs, we were thinking about ‘Well, how does it feel to move through a space like that as a single player experience, combining platforming and combat together’? And then we’ve made that our own as we’ve developed that into something I think is quite unique. I feel quite confident that when players get their hands on the game, those Destiny comparisons will subside quite a bit.
Luna Abyss has bullet hell features, right?
Benni Hill: Correct.
I guess it’s perhaps more similar to Returnal.
Benni Hill: I would say that Luna Abyss feels like a classic kind of shooter in the sense of, again, I’ll come back to the comparison to Half-Life, which is a first-person story-driven action-adventure game. The story is our strong focus. When you go into combat encounters, it is bullet hell. Our enemies spew a variety of different bullet patterns, and you have awesome weapons that can counter those and movement abilities to help navigate through those bullet patterns. For example, we have a lock-on mechanic in the game that allows you to lock on to a specific enemy, which helps players carve pathways through bullet patterns. It’s very, very useful in a first-person game. We also have an evasive dash and you double jump to go over shockwaves and things along those lines. The game is split into arena-based combat encounters and others that you experience as you are navigating through the game world, so they’re not necessary in arenas.
Those combat experiences punctuate the action-adventure, exploration, and story-driven gameplay. We move through that kind of space and so. It’s not as hardcore as something like Returnal or even DOOM example, but it still has that visceral edge to those encounters.
Hollie Emery: I’ve got to say we are incredibly flattered by the comparisons received by Luna Abyss. It’s incredibly awesome to hear that. As Benni has mentioned, as we reveal more of what we’re working on, people will have a better understanding of the game.
Benni Hill: I would say, I think, I think for us like a more apt comparison to how we’ve balanced kind of combat versus story in the game, we do come back to the NieR series which uses bullet hell as well, but it’s not the same as Returnal, right? It uses the bullet hell to create these visceral, exciting encounters. And then you have these great exploration moments and great story moments that balance against that, whereas something like Returnal, which is a great game that I love, is constant bullet hell. For us, there’s more of a balance.
That’s nice to hear, as I prefer it that way anyway. Does Luna Abyss rely a lot on boss fights? How many are there?
Benni Hill: There definitely are boss fights in the game. I don’t want to give a final number, though we do have it. What I can say is each major level in the game, we have a number of biomes that you explore within this narrative experience. Each one of those sections always climaxes with a great large-scale boss fight. They are pretty secret at the moment. I think we revealed one boss in a trailer; it’s got a big hammerhead and tentacles. It gives you an idea of the sort of scale that we’re going for.
We also have mini-bosses as we introduce new enemy types, those are also difficult enemies as we move through the experience. There’s quite a few for the team size that we have, I think.
When it comes to weapons, are going to be several weapon types? Can you talk about a few of them, maybe your favorites?
Benni Hill: Yeah, sure. We don’t have a huge arsenal in the game. We have a number of main weapons and main abilities, which will coalesce into combat together and they layer on top of each other. The way our combat is created is almost this rock, paper, scissors approach. For example, the first weapon you get in the game is the scout rifle, your baseline weapon. Very early on in the game, in the first level, you get a second weapon codenamed Shieldbreaker at this moment (that might change in the final game). When an enemy has an energy shield around them, you have to use that weapon to break the shield.
All weapons in Luna Abyss have a function like this or something very useful. This promotes constantly switching weapons throughout the game. There is a tactical element to combat where you have to think about what weapon you need at any given moment in time. We don’t have an ammo system in the game, we have a cooldown system, so if you spam use a weapon, it will overheat, and then it’s unusable for a little while. The player has to be mindful of the heat time of each weapon because you do need to use their features in specific scenarios. You don’t want to be in a situation where, for example, that Shieldbreaker is cooling down for five seconds.
As for my favorite weapon in the game, at this moment in time, it is something we call the sniper, but it’s more of a railgun. I really like this weapon because we use it to essentially parry enemies when they make very dangerous attacks. It forces you to face an enemy head-on when it’s about to do something highly damaging to you. So you use that weapon to stun lock them just before they fire their devastating attack and that’s a great weapon because it feels dangerous at that moment, right? The cool thing about it, though, is it actually goes through enemies as well, so those that are talented players can try to line up shots to take out multiple enemies at the same time, which is quite fun. I really like using that, particularly with the lock on where you can use that to orient and line things up. Super exciting and fun.
It sounds like a fun, high-risk, high-reward weapon.
Benni Hill: Absolutely. All of our weapons are a little like that, they all have a key function in combat where you have to use a weapon in a specific scenario, but they also have functions with a general combat use for emerging gameplay, where you’ll have to use it in that way, but if you can use it in that way, you’re gonna get an advantage in combat.
Are you planning a New Game + mode for Luna Abyss?
Benni Hill: At the moment, we’re defining our post-release plan for updates and we haven’t finalized anything in that. For the base game, something like that won’t be in there, but something we’ve always been interested in is giving players more. Particularly those that are excited and invested in the game.
Do you have an estimate for how long it will take to complete Luna Abyss?
Hollie Emery: I think we’ve got a timeline on how long it takes within the studio to complete it. But I don’t know if they’re too accurate. How long does it take, Benni?
Benni Hill: Between eight and ten hours, I would say right now, for a studio member to play the game? That’s kind of our ballpark and it was our target when we started. Obviously, we don’t make a game and go ‘Oh, it’s gonna be this length’, but we knew that for what we were building, we wanted to make sure that there was enough content there that people could sink their teeth into the combat system and explore the world that we created. Eight hours felt a nice kind of point for us. However, we need to do some full user testing to find out how long the game actually is for a new player.
Do you see it as the kind of game that speedrunners would like to play?
Hollie Emery: Absolutely, they need to try and beat our time. I want to see how quickly it takes for someone in the outside world to beat the time it took us to play through Luna Abyss during development.
Benni Hill: Yeah, absolutely. Very early on, we did our vertical slice, the first section of the game to assess how it felt, and some of the early playtesters were already playing the game and finding little things like cutting a corner here. We have a double jump and a dash in the game that you can use. There were some great moments where players were cutting out platforms and finding things that allowed them to cut that time down. I’m really excited to see what the speedrunning community does with our game.
Hollie Emery: I would love to be on Games Done Quick. That would be a bit of a dream.
Regarding the story, I’m just reading the official description where it says that you are a prisoner sentenced to a megastructure on Luna, so it sounds intriguing. Can you talk a bit about the backstory and the lore that you’ve created?
Benni Hill: The story of Luna Abyss is about two themes. The first one is it’s a story about the player, who’s captive, and your captor, this character called Aylin, which we revealed in our first trailer, and what your relationship is with them, throughout the entire experience and what that means in the greater cosmology and lore. That’s a really important angle of our story.
Our second core theme is death and rebirth on a cosmic scale and on a personal level. As the player moves through this game experience, certain events occur that are both epic but also much more, looking inward into certain characters, about how they are being reborn and seeing their life in the grand scheme of what’s actually happening in the game world. What I can say is that you are imprisoned in a penal colony that’s situated on the surface of this alien moon, which we call the Red Moon. You’re imprisoned there because you carry something called the Mark of Luna, which are red eyes. You’ve been born with red eyes, or the red eyes have appeared at some point in your life and you’re seen by the people and the religious factions on Earth as something to be feared.
So, you’re imprisoned and sent to this penal colony to work as what they call a scout, which is someone who is sent into the bowels of the alien moon to explore it and to scavenge equipment found in there and to conduct research and anything that is asked of you by Aylin. As you play through the game, you will learn more about why people are born with red eyes.
You realize that the space inside this alien moon is a lost human colony. There is a point in history where we colonized this moon. What we’re going to learn is what happened to that colony? Why is there a prison there now, who is this Aylin character, and who is the All-Father that commands them that we never see? Through the events in the game, we’re going to learn all about that, as well as why we are there as well. It does get a little bit cosmic horror, a little bit strange and liminal and peculiar, but that’s what this world is. This is an alien moon that appeared in our orbit hundreds of years ago. It’s here for a reason and we’re going to find out what that reason is.
Sounds intriguing. There’s a part here that says the voices of the Abyss call to you, which sounds a bit Lovecraft-y…
Benni Hill: That’s correct. Yeah, there’s definitely an inspiration there. What I realized with our team is that we all love horror, but we struggle to play horror games. We wanted to do something in a horror universe that was like horror fantasy. I guess it’s a bit like Bloodborne, which is not a horror game, but it’s in a horror universe. Luna Abyss is beautiful in places, but there is always that underlying cosmic horror threat.
I’m a bit like that as well in that I enjoy horror undertones, but I don’t especially love pure horror movies or games.
Benni Hill: It’s funny. I was talking to our business partner the other day and we both finished Resident Evil Village. We love that game, there’s some scary bits in there, but it is action horror. Then we were talking about Resident Evil 3, where you are persistently pursued by Nemesis and have the constant fear that you feel when that’s happening. It’s a different experience. Equally great, but you get a lot more nervous playing those games.
Are you working on console versions of the game as well? Or is it just coming to PC first?
Hollie Emery: I can jump in with this one. We’re planning to release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, as well as PC storefronts, where we’re hoping to release on Steam and Epic Games Store.
Will these releases be simultaneous?
Hollie Emery: At the minute, we haven’t confirmed all of our release plans for all of the platforms yet, but we are hoping to announce them soon.
Speaking about the release. Can we expect Luna Abyss this year?
Hollie Emery: I’m not sure we’re in a position to confirm our exact release date.
Benni Hill: We can’t talk about it yet. What I can say is it’s on the horizon, for sure.
Is there anything else you’d like to discuss on Luna Abyss or Bonsai Collective?
Hollie Emery: We can talk a little bit about the values of our studio and the origins of where Bonsai Collective came from. The name originally came about when Benni, Harry, and I were doing contract work. It represented the idea of carefully cultivated stories for videogames. A bonsai tree represents slow, careful growth. When all three of us decided we were going to do this, the idea of careful cultivation carried across to every single aspect of our work and the well-being of our team members. It refers to the three of us coming together collectively with our past experiences and using that to drive our studio forward. We do love plants at the studio as well.
Benni Hill: Yes, we do. I have my own bonsai tree, although it’s been suffering in this cold.
I guess the name also alludes to the fact that you’d like to make something not as big as other games but exceedingly well-cultivated and cared for.
Benni Hill: I believe so. The thing carries to the team as well. We’ve hit quite a nice sweet spot with the game, the length of Luna Abyss and what we’re achieving with it. That’s something we’ll take into consideration as we move forward beyond that game. Our intention is not to grow the studio to hundreds of people. We want to create a very talented and inclusive kind of studio where people can have a saying on what we’re creating. We are supporting not only our studio’s growth but the individuals within it, as well as the products that we create.
Were you surprised by the positive reaction to the first Luna Abyss trailer? I reckon it made quite a splash.
Benni Hill: I think you stare at something for a very long time when you’re building a game. Our development cycle has been too long for this project, but you’re still looking at it day in, day out with all your judgment through your experience.
That’s how you make the creative choices to make a great video game. You’re looking at it so closely that sometimes you can lose a little bit of sight of the quality of what you’re building and how that is going to be to fresh eyes. It can take you back when people see what you’ve been building and they go ‘I like that, it is really cool and exciting, this is something that I would absolutely play’. What that does is it lights a fire under us and it allows us to continue doing what we’re doing to make the best game possible.
Hollie Emery: It was incredibly motivating, awesome, slightly terrifying, but incredible.
Benni Hill: Yeah, being compared to Destiny and Doom is great because you know you’re hitting some notes for those players. But we’re also only 15 people building this game, so that’s a little bit scary.
That’s what I thought. It must feel like a lot of pressure all of a sudden.
Hollie Emery: There was a fair number of content creators streaming reactions to the trailers, and then they just gave us the tagline Destiny Killer, and for a few days after that, we were just like, ‘Oh my goodness!’ It is just very, very flattering to have those comparisons, but again, I think when we share more content, people will get a better understanding of what we’re actually creating.
Thank you for your time.
