Microsoft's push for Xbox Game Pass has been day-one exclusives. There are a variety of developers under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella; for instance Obsidian Entertainment, Double Fine, Mojang, and ZeniMax Media's Bethesda following its $7.5 billion acquisition announced last September. A draw for Game Pass is many of those studios' titles launch for essentially free to subscribers, yet a lot of heavy lifting is also done by titles like One Step From Eden that are added month-to-month.
Indie games and major studio releases constantly cycle in and out of Game Pass, adding a diverse mix of experiences to break up the list of mainstays from studios like Rare. Six games are leaving Xbox Game Pass on November 15, 2021, including Square Enix's Final Fantasy 8 HD and WayForward's River City Girls. Nine were confirmed to replace them throughout the first half of the month in an Xbox Wire post on November 1, with One Step From Eden dropping November 11 alongside Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - The Definitive Edition.
One Step From Eden's Development
As with many unique indie games, One Step From Eden began as a passion project for one individual: Thomas Moon Kang. According to the game's press kit, development began in April 2016 with Kang hoping to fill a void left by the Mega Man Battle Network series; mixing its grid-based real-time combat with roguelike elements inspired by FTL, Nuclear Throne, and more.
Kang was working as a user interface (UI)/user experience (UX) designer for numerous places between 2015 and 2019, including his alma mater Rutgers University, Swift Capital, and PayPal. The Kickstarter for One Step From Eden launched alongside a demo in January 2019, going on to raise $70,000 USD off its $15,000 funding goal. In April 2019, Kang started Ristaccia LLC, and One Step From Eden released for PC, PS4, and Switch under publisher Humble Bundle in March 2020. Just 13 people are credited as working on the game on its official website.
What Xbox Game Pass Subscribers Should Expect in One Step From Eden
Though One Step From Eden is decisively not narrative-driven, there is an underlying lore. Players have to work their way through eight worlds using one of nine unlockable Heroes (starting with the de facto mascot Saffron). These characters traverse a post-apocalyptic landscape with four distinct environments, each full of magical beasts and rampant machinery. Their goal is a safehaven called Eden, and every death lets players know how close they got to the city until they're just one step away.
While story isn't at the forefront, a lot of character is on display thanks to the game's character designs and snappy menu design - clearly supercharged by Kang's prior experience with UI/UX development. Players not only have a choice of which zone they'd like to explore next, they also choose between multiple routes through each that include an inherent risk-reward spread of stages. In each stage, players move their character along a 4x4 grid and cast attacks or buffs from their deck, most impacting a specific area across the board that differs card-to-card.
Player agency branches out exponentially. Each character starts with an inherent attack and a themed deck, but players can decide to weigh the game's rewards toward at most two of 10 specific focuses that encompass niche play styles. For example, Anima is elemental spells, Hexawan primarily summons structures, and Phalanx is all about buffing shields. Resources like money and health can be used to trim down a deck or upgrade cards mid-run, not unlike fellow Game Pass title Slay the Spire, and the further players get the more experience they receive - unlocking new cards, artifacts, as well as alternate skins and starting decks for each character.
Like many of its contemporaries in the roguelike genre, players could spend hours learning everything about One Step From Eden and still have plenty to discover. There's pacifict and genocide endings ala Undertale that players can activate by sparing or killing each world's boss (the eight characters not chosen for a run). It has a steep learning curve, but One Step From Eden is undoubtedly worth trying for fans of Mega Man, deck builders, roguelikes, and impressive pixel art alike. It even has co-op for anyone whose frends are also Xbox Game Pass subscribers.
One Step From Eden is available now for PC, PS4, and Switch. It will release via Xbox Game Pass for PC and consoles on November 11, 2021.