Not surprisingly, Axiom Verge has taken a while to spread across platforms — Thomas Happ designed the entire Metroidvania-style shooter by himself, so even a straightforward port was bound to take a while. At last, though, you don’t have to be picky about where you play. Happ has released a version of Axiom Verge for the Xbox One, making the mind-bending side-scroller available on every modern TV console (the Wii U version arrived on September 1st). So why did it took so long for this release?
According to Happ, it’s a matter of an unexpected switch in developer tools. He’d initially targeted the Xbox 360 a full 7 years ago, and was working with Microsoft’s freely available XNA developer kit… until Microsoft dropped support for XNA. He had to wait until Microsoft supported an open source version of XNA (Monogame) on Xbox One to bring Axiom Verge to the newer hardware. That isn’t much consolation if you’re an Xbox One owner who had to wait a year and a half to see what all the fuss was about, but it does show that the timing wasn’t entirely in the developer’s hands.
