Ashen Verge — Art & Design Collection

Fallen is a single-player dark fantasy action RPG from Aretae Studios, a small independent team. You play Abdiel, an angel searching the Ashen Verge for Eve. The full game is planned as an epic story of light and darkness, more than 15 hours long, inspired by games such as Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry and God of War. Act I is playable from start to finish, and all the gameplay on this page was recorded from it. Act I will also be a free demo for Windows and Mac.

The film is one run through Act I, from the title card to the Ash Warden's defeat and the end of the act, in 8 minutes 30 seconds. It was recorded on 17 October 2026. A capture script plays the route and the game renders every frame at 1440p and 60 frames per second, so the film looks smoother than the game runs live on our Mac today. The HUD and the tutorial panels are on screen as a player sees them. It is one continuous run, and nothing is sped up. We edited it only with short dissolves, fades and a few two-frame cuts: past the two shrine menus and a few seconds of walking up to the shrines, a few menu, choice and story screens, Abdiel bending to open the four chests, the first frames of four scenes and a few camera jumps. After the final blow the picture fades briefly to black over a stray camera angle, and the quiet stretches of sound are turned up a little.

Abdiel keeps watch over Eden's eastern gate. Eve tends a garden nearby. One day her stream is blocked and her seedlings are dying, and he helps her pull the roots free. After that he comes back whenever his watch is over. Neither of them says what it means. His vow to Heaven sits between them.

Lucifer speaks to Eve inside her mind. He tells her the forbidden fruit can break the vow that keeps Abdiel from her. She eats it, and she is exiled.

Gabriel tells Abdiel where she has gone: "The Ashen Verge. A realm of exile. They call it Hell." He makes the cost plain. "I cannot stop you, Abdiel. But if you go, you cannot return."

Abdiel's answer is short. "I'm not leaving her alone."

He falls into the Verge without knowing who deceived her.

Combat is about reading your enemy. Watch the wind-up, parry or slip aside, then punish with fast strings and heavy strikes. Abdiel has one wing. It stays folded on his back until he sprints or fights, and it carries him out of danger and across gaps.

Shrines are where you rest and grow stronger. His powers include Dawn Break and, if he frees the first soul, Radiant Surge. At the Warden's Court the Ash Warden fights in two phases, and partway through the battle Dawn Break becomes Ascendance, a strike that empowers Abdiel and adds a finishing blow to his combo.

Some of the souls you defeat leave you a choice. Absolve a soul and it goes free, and Abdiel's light grows. Bind it and you can summon it to fight beside you, but every binding pulls him towards darkness. You can also leave a soul be. The film takes the Light route.

You meet Cain, Maren and the Unwritten on the road, among others, and their conversations are voiced. Off the main path there are chests to open and memories of Eve to find.

Act I can be played from start to finish, from the crater where Abdiel lands, through the village of Emberwick and the Fields, to the Ash Warden and his soul choice. Played straight through, Act I takes us about 10 to 13 minutes. A first run takes longer. It is a development build. We are still improving combat feel, animation, art and performance, and it needs testing by players outside the team.

The build runs on Macs with Apple silicon today. Next comes a Windows build, tested on real PCs, and then Act I goes out as a free demo for Windows and Mac. We aim to release it in early 2027.

Follow Fallen, and Gamefound will tell you the moment the campaign opens.

Talk to us and other players on the Fallen Discord: https://discord.gg/VHK9mjPxKZ

It pays for one milestone: releasing Act I as a free demo that works properly on Windows and Mac.

These are our estimates.

• A Windows PC to build and test on (second-hand, with a mid-range graphics card): £550

• Signing the builds so that Windows and macOS open the demo without security warnings (the Apple Developer Program and a Windows code-signing service, first year): £180

• Gamefound and payment fees (5%, plus 3% and 20p a payment): about £90

• A reserve for anything that costs more than we expect: £180

£1,000 does not pay for the rest of the game. Fallen is new and has a small following, so we set the goal at what the next step really costs. Everything above it goes into development time and the stretch goals below. If the campaign falls short, no one is charged, and the demo still comes out, just later.

After the campaign we will post a progress report every month, including what went wrong.

• 50 backers: a memorial wall in the Verge with the name of every backer who wants to be on it.

• £2,500: deeper combat, with more sword combos and a skill tree for Abdiel's sword and wing.

• £5,000: one more soul encounter and a side boss in Act I.

• £7,500: Ascendant mode, a harder second run with remixed enemies and tougher bosses.

• £10,000: an original score by Alec Pedersen, our composer and music producer, to replace the current music. Everyone who gets the soundtrack gets this score too.

• £15,000: a fully animated story, with the illustrated story scenes rebuilt as animated cutscenes.

• £25,000: play as Eve in a chapter of her own.

• £50,000: online co-op for up to 4 players.

We will not add platforms as stretch goals.

All rewards are digital, and nothing ships by post. Up to £65, each tier includes everything in the cheaper tiers. From £120 up, each tier is Inner Circle plus one personal item that we build into the game with you.

• £3, Thank You: backer updates, a backer role on Discord and your name in the credits if you want it.

• £18, Fallen, Early Bird (first 500 backers): the complete game for Windows PC or Mac when it releases, and your name in the credits.

• £25, Fallen: the same, at the standard price.

• £40, Digital Deluxe: the game, a digital art book made from the game itself, and the soundtrack. The soundtrack is the game's current music.

• £65, Inner Circle: Digital Deluxe, plus playtest builds before the public gets them and private development updates.

• £120, A Name in the Field of the Fallen: a grave, cairn or chained soul in one place in the Verge. You choose it from a set of parts and write its epitaph (up to 60 characters). Limit 1,000.

• £250, A Monument in the Verge: a larger monument in the same place, built to your choices, with a two-line inscription. Limit 50.

• £400, A Relic of Your Making: a relic Abdiel can find. You bring the idea and the name, we write its lore together, and we make it in the game's style. Limit 10.

• £750, Your Portrait in the Verge: a painted portrait of you, from your photos, hung in a hall in the game. A portrait painter we commission paints it. Limit 10.

• £1,500, A Soul Who Fights Beside You: a named soul based on your description, built on an existing body and move set. Abdiel meets them in the Verge, and players can free them, or bind them and summon them into battle. They speak one short line in one of the game's existing voices. Limit 5.

• £3,000, Design a Lesser Demon: an enemy for a later chapter, designed with us, with your name in its lore. Limit 2.

Add-ons: an extra copy of the game (£20), the soundtrack (£8), the art book (£8), and an extra name in the Field of the Fallen for someone else, with their consent (£60).

The complete game, planned at more than 15 hours, comes as a key for Windows PC or Mac. Steam is the planned store; if that changes, you get a DRM-free download instead. We estimate the full game, and every personal item in it, for December 2027. Inner Circle updates start when the campaign ends, and the first playtest build comes before the public demo.

Anything that puts a person in the game needs your written agreement, has to fit the world and goes through our approval. We collect the details within 60 days of the campaign ending. Photos are used only for portraits.

Our team designs and builds Fallen. Some content in the current build starts as AI-generated material, which we then rig, animate, edit and fit into the game, and some of the art on this page is AI-generated too. So you know before you back the game, these are the parts:

• the base 3D models for Abdiel, his wing and sword, and the Ash Warden, and the statues we posed from Abdiel's model

• the illustrated story panels, and one dialogue portrait cropped from them

• the character voices and the sound effects

• the current music. If we reach the £10,000 stretch goal, Alec Pedersen, our composer and music producer, replaces it with an original score.

• the project's thumbnail, page background and link preview art, the stretch goal art, and the game's cover art on the reward cards

• The other characters and the enemies: free CC0 libraries from Quaternius and CC BY models by Leonardo Carvalho, adapted for Fallen. Credits are at the bottom of the page.

• The world's buildings, props, textures and skies: CC0 assets from Poly Haven and pieces made for the game.

• Animation: Mixamo motion capture and the Quaternius animation libraries (CC0), retargeted and adjusted by our team.

The footage and screenshots on this page are captured from the running game. Some stills hide the on-screen interface.

Aretae Studios is a small independent team. We design and build Fallen together, and we post progress in the updates on this page. Write to us at hello@aretaestudios.com, or talk to us and other players on the Fallen Discord: https://discord.gg/VHK9mjPxKZ

• Nikos Argalias, Game Director: game development, animation and story

• Spyros Argalias, Game Developer

• Lucas Marsh, Graphics Engine Developer

• Alec Pedersen, Motion, Animation and Music (composer and producer)

• Ainara Argalia, Artist

Not yet. Act I will be a free demo for Windows and Mac, and we aim to release it in early 2027. Inner Circle backers get playtest builds before that.

Windows PC and Mac. The current build runs on Macs with Apple silicon. We will publish minimum specs once the Windows build has been tested on several PCs. No console versions are promised.

As a key for Windows PC or Mac when the game releases. Steam is the planned store. If that changes, you get a DRM-free download instead.

Played straight through, it takes us about 10 to 13 minutes. A first run takes longer, especially if you look for every chest and memory.

Fallen is single-player. Online co-op for up to 4 players is a stretch goal at £50,000.

No one is charged, and the demo still comes out, later.

Character models by Leonardo Carvalho (https://sketchfab.com/livrosparacriancas), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Models, with their titles as listed on Sketchfab:

.Fuse Civilian 1: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/fuse-civilian-1-6fc4bddf4d364e6b9fa2f050011e03ce

.Fuse Civilian 2: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/fuse-civilian-2-671bd73d045f47b4952fe2899772e124

.Fuse Woman 1: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/fuse-woman-1-c6436897da494b4e8e1f8188aea620c6

.Fuse Warrior: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/fuse-warrior-6e8a032cedf9426fbc31ee3a49a4300d

Changes for Fallen: costume geometry, hair and material grading, standard PBR conversion, game-scale normalisation, retargeted NPC actions, a jaw shape for speech, more conversation and idle actions, and in-game material shading. The Warrior's sword and shield are not used. No endorsement by the original creator is implied.

Character bases, outfits and animation libraries: Quaternius, CC0 (https://quaternius.com). NPC animation: the Quaternius Universal Animation Library, CC0 (https://quaternius.com/packs/universalanimationlibrary.html), and Mixamo. Hero animation: Mixamo and Quaternius. Textures, skies and models: Poly Haven, CC0 (https://polyhaven.com). Controller prompts: Kenney, CC0 (https://kenney.nl).

Fallen is made by Aretae Studios: Nikos Argalias, Spyros Argalias, Lucas Marsh, Alec Pedersen and Ainara Argalia.