Abyss X Zero: the UNSIGHTED team is making a 3D Metroidvania, and it deserves your attention

Confession upfront. I am the exact target audience for this game. I love Kill la Kill more than is reasonable for an adult to admit. I think PS1-era low-poly aged better than any other 3D style in gaming history. And I have a soft spot for stories where the two leads are on a collision course from frame one. Abyss X Zero hits all three at once, which is why it jumped to the top of my wishlist the moment I saw the trailer.

It is the second game from Studio Pixel Punk, the two-person Brazilian team of Tiani Pixel and Fernanda Dias behind the cult hack-and-slash UNSIGHTED. This one trades top-down pixel art for low-poly 3D, swaps the “everyone has 24 hours to live” doomsday clock for a duel of identities, and puts a Metroidvania spine under everything. It is the kind of pitch that does not need a marketing budget to find an audience.

There is no firm release date yet. The Steam page reads “Coming soon,” and that is the honest answer. What there is, instead, is a clear identity, a credible team, and a trailer that already sets the tone.

The pitch: two heroes, one collision course

You play Codename A and Codename Z, “legendary heroes with unique abilities” who are “fated to battle each other.” Most dual-protagonist games hide that conflict for a third-act twist. Abyss X Zero puts it on the storefront, which is a very Kill la Kill move and a good sign the studio is leaning into the drama instead of saving it.

Mechanically the two kits should split the Metroidvania backbone in the usual way. A door A walks past is a wall for Z. We will see how clever it actually gets when there is something to play.

Who is making this

Studio Pixel Punk is two people. Tiani Pixel handles art direction and design. Fernanda Dias handles programming and design. They formed the studio in 2017 and released their debut, UNSIGHTED, on September 30, 2021 with Humble Games. The game shipped on Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC on the same day, which is a rarity for a two-person studio and tells you something about how much polish they got out of a small team.

UNSIGHTED’s hook was a real-time countdown. Every NPC had a timer ticking toward becoming hostile, and your mercy resources were finite. Save someone here, lose your shot at saving someone else there. That kind of compressed, irreversible decision-making is hard to scale up to 3D, and the studio’s choice not to repeat it is interesting. Abyss X Zero looks like the team’s attempt to find a new core tension instead of porting the old one.

For context on how the studio thinks, the recently published Six One Indie Showcase 2026 recap covers the kind of independent-team energy this game shares with current breakout indies. It is the same lane.

The look: low-poly with intent

This is the part I am least objective about. I love this style of graphics. The mid-90s and early 2000s built their visual identity from constraints, and that aesthetic has aged better than any photoreal AAA from the same era.

Abyss X Zero is going hard on the Mega Man Legends lane: chunky proportions, over-the-shoulder action, saturated palette, big readable silhouettes. It is the right look for the pitch. A photoreal Codename A vs Z would blend in with every other action-RPG. Low-poly with strong silhouettes can carry the anime-melodrama register the duel needs.

The RPG layer no one is talking about

Early footage briefly showed a stats and armor screen: HP, Stamina, Attack, Ranged Attack, Defense, elemental Resistances. That puts Abyss X Zero closer to the action-RPG / Metroidvania hybrid lane than to the Hollow Knight school of pure platforming. Worth watching how deep it actually goes.

What we still do not know

The honest list is long. No release window beyond “Coming soon.” No confirmed console platforms. The Steam page is PC only, but the studio’s history of same-day multi-platform launches makes consoles likely later. No price. No final scope on whether the dual-character system is a structural mechanic or a narrative one.

There is also no publisher attached. UNSIGHTED shipped with Humble Games. Abyss X Zero is currently listed with Studio Pixel Punk as both developer and publisher. That could change. It could also be a deliberate choice to keep more control on a bigger, riskier 3D project.

Should you wishlist it now

Yes. This is the easiest call on the page. The wishlist on Steam is the single most-tracked signal indie studios use to plan their launch, and for a two-person team with one prior hit behind them, every wishlist genuinely moves the needle on whether the launch lands in front of the right players.

If you liked UNSIGHTED, this is the obvious follow. If you missed UNSIGHTED, the Steam page is still cheap on sale and worth catching up on. And if you are tracking the 3D Metroidvania revival the same way you tracked the 2D one a decade ago, alongside titles featured in our best indie games of 2026 so far roundup, this is the next one to bookmark.

The dice were cast on Codename A and Codename Z the moment the studio put the duel on the storefront. The question is what the fight is actually about. We will find out when the team is ready. For an anime-brain low-poly evangelist like me, the wait is the easy part.