Rise Of LifeDawn of the Forgotten
A baby crawls across a clearing in a dark pine forest. A Wispel with a blue glow hovers above.

In development

Rise Of Life

Dawn of the Forgotten

You wake up in a basket, deep in a dark forest. All you can do is crawl and cry. Survive, and grow up.

Prologue

The night the village fell

A small village, deep in the forest. A night like any other.

Then the shadows came. They looked like animals, but twisted and unnatural. No one knew where they came from.

In the chaos, someone laid you in a basket and carried you into the dark forest.

“Survive… and grow stronger than we ever were.”

Then everything went black.

You are left behind. Alone. Weak. Helpless.

The game in brief

Rise Of Life is a survival adventure in which you play one life, from newborn to adult. Every age plays differently. As a baby you hide from a wolf. As an adult you face the shadows that destroyed your village.

Genre
Survival adventure
Camera
Third person
Engine
Unreal Engine 5
Platform
PC (Windows)
Release
To be announced

Growing up

You don’t grow through points, but by living

There is no experience bar. What you do makes you grow: eating, sleeping, staying warm, escaping, exploring. Even losing counts, a little.

  • Body

    Running, climbing and fighting.

  • Survival

    Eating, sleeping and staying warm.

  • Mind

    Finding rock drawings, hiding and escaping.

What you grow in most decides which skills get cheaper in your next stage of life. So your baby grows up differently from anyone else’s. Along the way you keep an eye on three things: hunger, warmth and sleep.

Four lives

Every age is a different game

You can crawl, cry, bite and hide. That’s it. Cold, hunger and anything with teeth is bigger than you.

Danger: cold and hunger, wolves, Noxlings and Wispels.

Skills · Instincts

  • Cry PulseYour crying scares off small creatures. Big ones come towards it.
  • Animal SenseSense whether an animal is hostile, hungry or curious.
  • Warmth SeekerFind warm places from a distance.
  • Soft SkinFalls and bumps hurt less.
  • Bite & ClingBite down on a small enemy and hold on.
  • Hide InstinctWhen something gets too close, you hide for a moment by reflex.
Three Shadehounds with glowing green heads stand in a pine forest at night.

The shadows

They look like animals. They aren’t.

No one knows where the shadows come from. They get bigger as you do.

A swarm of small Noxlings, round tangles of black shadow with glowing green eyes, crawl out between pine roots.
Noxlings · small
A Wispel, a bird-like creature of black shadow with a blue glow inside, dives down from the treetops.
Wispels · small
Groanroot, a towering shadow tree with arms of roots, rises above mossy ruins while a child watches.
Groanroot · boss
Nightrend, a huge four-legged shadow beast with cracks of light across its body, stalks towards a young archer.
Nightrend · boss

Small

Noxlings
Small, squeaking tangles of shadow. They come in swarms.
Gloomcrawlers
Hunched things that crawl between the roots. They strike from ambush.
Wispels
Hover above you, lure you with sounds and dive like a bird of prey.

Medium

Shadehounds
Twisted dogs with green eyes. They hunt in packs.
Duskwolves
Reptile-like wolves. You won’t hear them coming.
Rendmasks
Humanoid figures without a face.
Hollowers
They tremble as if their shape won’t hold.

Large

Groanroot
A shadow tree with arms of roots.
Nightrend
A four-legged beast that breaks the light.
The Umbral Titan
A shadow of rock, with a thick hide.
The Mawborn
A gigantic open mouth that drains energy.

Born of emotion

Fearshells
Born of fear.
Grimhusk
Born of grief.
Wrathborn
Born of rage. Extremely aggressive.
Lostlings
Wander the forest and do you no harm.

The world

A forest that opens up once you’re big enough

The way through the forest runs from area to area. The story is in the world itself: in rock drawings, ruins and echoes of the past.

  1. The clearing BabyThis is where you wake up. Berries, a sunny spot, a leaf nest and a wolf.
  2. The ruins ChildOld, mossy stones among the trees. People lived here once.
  3. The deep forest TeenThe hunting ground of the Shadehounds.
  4. The shrine AdultAn old place of your tribe, where you find spirit shards.
  5. The fortressThis is where the shadow realm begins.
  6. The black treeThey call the one who waits there the Nightmaker.
A baby crawls along a misty forest path between tall pines. A Wispel flies in the distance.
Day and night take turns. At night and in the rain, you lose warmth much faster.

Three obstacles block the path until you have grown enough

  • The fallen tree

    “It’s far too high to crawl over. Maybe when you’re bigger…”

    A baby can’t jump. A child jumps 90 cm and gets over it.

  • The rock wall

    “You can’t get up there yet: you’re too small and not fast enough.”

    A child falls 15 cm short. A teen jumps 128 cm and climbs on.

  • The boulders

    “Only someone with the strength of an adult can move them.”

    Jumping won’t help here. As an adult, you push the middle boulder aside.

Crafting

From stick to spirit blade

What you can make grows with you. As a child you make your first stick, stone axe and rope. As an adult you craft a spear, traps and a blade made from spirit shards.

  • Stick
  • Stone
  • Fiber
  • Rope
  • Stone axe
  • Spear
  • Trap
  • Bow
  • Arrow
  • Spirit shard
  • Spirit blade

The studio

It started with a dream

RXA Studios began with a dream: to build a successful game studio. We are Rick and Arsen, two software developers, and Rise Of Life is our first game. We’re building it in Unreal Engine 5.

More about RXA Studios →

Where we are now

  • DoneThe game systems for every stage of life, from the first crawl to the finale.
  • In progressModels, animations, sound and music.
  • Up nextCinematics, balancing and final polish.