Regardless of how good a metroidvania game may be, there always comes a point where you've beaten it so many times that there is no mystery or challenge left. Or rather, that used to be the case. These days, thanks to the ever-growing popularity of modding, many metroidvania games have randomizers that shake up the whole experience and make each playthrough almost as mysterious as the very first one.

In this regard, Axiom Verge is no different. However, instead of leaving everything at the hands of modders, the Axiom Verge team has now decided to join forces with them and release an official randomizer game mode! It's currently only available as a beta update on Steam and the Epic Games Store, though once sufficiently tested, it'll be released for free on all platforms.

As for what exactly the Randomizer Mode does, that should be self-explanatory. It randomizes the locations of items and weapons in order to create new challenges and pathway through the game, all the while ensuring you won't accidentally lock yourself out and be unable to progress. So while the difficulty will wary greatly from run to run, each one should be fully possible to complete.

Speaking of difficulty, there are three different modes to explore. The Beginner one offers you a fairly linear experience and is the recommended option for the vast majority of players. The name is unfortunately a bit of a trap though, because while the Beginner mode is the recommended one, it's by no means designed to be either easy or approachable for completely new players. You'll still want to at least finish Axiom Verge once or twice before diving in.

If you fancy yourself a speedrunner, however, you'll definitely want to check out the Advanced and Masochist modes as they expect you to have a firm knowledge of glitches and how to exploit them in order to progress through the game. The Masochist mode is particularly ruthless in this regard, with the developers claiming there's only four people that can actually play it right now, so don't get too discouraged if you end up completely stuck.

You can learn more about this newly added Randomizer Mode, as well as keep an eye on when the full update will release, over at the Axiom Verge website. Have fun!