Anew: The Distant Light – Beginner’s Guide

This is the official Game Manual for Anew: The Distant Light by Resonator.

Concept

All credit goes to Resonator Games!

This is a game about exploration, combat, building up capabilities, solving puzzles, and revealing mysteries. The game world is lonely and unforgiving. Figuring out what to do next is as important as deciding how to do it.

Your given mission is to plant mechanical seeds around the game world. Your personal mission is to find meaning. Who are you, where are you, and where do you come from? What happened to your home ship and copilot? Is anyone else here and what are they up to?

This game has a deep story and backstory, but it is mostly told without text, dialog, or interruptions to live play. So, answering these questions will require careful observation of the game world and events around you.

Play is designed for discovery, surprises, and learning by experimentation. There are many dozens of game-changing items to find. These often have multiple and sometimes surprising uses beyond their obvious purpose. Many pieces of equipment will completely change how you play a familiar part of the game world, what you can accomplish there, and open access to new locations.

If you are playing the linear demo: Please note that this demo is designed to give an expedited sample of the game’s breadth and only teases many of the above concepts. We hope you can extrapolate to open world, exploration-oriented play as described above.

Items, Weapons, and Equipment

Starting Equipment

When you start the game you have only your VEST Versatile Environment Suit. It has versatile life support systems and can generate unlimited breathable air. It also protects against various forms of damage and extreme environments, but these consume suit energy. Once the suit’s energy is depleted, your character will die.

Seeds

Through play, you will find strange, mechanical Seeds. Their purpose is for you to discover, but planting them is your given mission. Each intended location is marked by a Nav Beacon.

A Nav Tracker exists for each Nav Beacon. Finding a Nav Tracker will help guide you to the beacon location.

When you plant a seed, you may witness a change in the game world and you will receive a Seed Core, empty containment for the substantial energy that was released. These are installed into your suit and dramatically increase the amount of energy you can hold.

Common Items

These show up through routine gameplay and are unlimited.

• Energy: Replenishes suit energy. Found in various sizes. 

• Charges: Increase supply of ammo, which is required for some weapons. 

• Materiel: A mysterious and valuable substance that is used to repair or upgrade things. Dropped upon death, but can be recovered if picked up before dying again.

Limited Items

A certain number of these are items can be found around the game world. They may be hidden or in hard to reach places.

• Data Logs can be decrypted and read at your home ship Hope’s bridge computer. 
• Charge Containers increase the number of charges you can carry. 
• Shield Capacitors increase the amount of shielding you have. 
• Shield Generator increase rate of shielding recovery. 
• Chips provide diverse customizations and upgrades to weapons and equipment. 
• Sockets increase the number and size of chips you can have active. 
• Artifacts have a mysterious purpose and seem to have an affect on the game world. 

Weapons

Unique weapons you can find provide diverse options for combat, environmental interactions, and puzzle solving.

(C) Consumes Charges
(M) Consumes Materiel
(X) Fire with alternate weapon button
(A) Auto-fire: hold trigger to shoot continuously
(E) Exotic weapon made from alien technology

• Autorepeater (A): This is a fast and accurate medium-ranged weapon 
• Shotgun: Short ranged and slow, but powerful and covers a wide arc. 
• Chunk Detonator (C)(X): Deploys a time-delayed sticky bomb for huge damage. 
• Plasma Saw (A): Powerful cutting tool and point-blank weapon. Locks up most enemies. 
• Rocket Launcher (C): Fires a laser-tracking rocket. Hold the trigger while aiming to redirect rocket toward laser dot. 
• Jolt Thrower (E)(C): Lobs bouncing grenades that can stun or slow many types of enemies. Sticks to targets. Hold the trigger to delay the fuse. 
• The MCX (E)(M): This precise, long range weapon converts Materiel for high damage. 

Equipment

A variety of suit upgrades can be found, hidden throughout the game world. These dramatically change how different parts of the game world can be played, often substantially improving combat capabilities and providing access to new locations.

• Power Slide enables a powered slide. 
• Jump Boost provides an extra jump while not grounded. 
• Active Shielding blocks most kinds of damage while active. Recharges while inactive. 
• Climbing Grips enables climbing on most vertical surfaces. 
• Swimming Ballast provides neutral buoyancy and swimming in most fluids. 
• Jet Pack enables vertical lift for a limited duration. Land to recharge. 
• Submersion Jets enables boosted swimming for a limited duration. Exit water to recharge. 
• Ignition Device allows piloting various alien vehicles. 
• Frozen Core dramatically increases suit passive heat resistance. 
• Magnetic Boots allow walking on magnetized surfaces. 
• Time Warp slows the perceived speed of time. 
• Gravity Key manipulates gravity for certain locations.

Places and Travel

Home Ship

Your home ship named Hope will be a familiar and relatively safe location in this harsh world. She provides many benefits and reasons to revisit. Her capabilities will grow as you you repair and upgrade her.

• Communications: The Bridge is currently unusable for travel, but the communications computer there relays received and intercepted messages. Can also decrypt data logs. 
• Workstation: Adapt alien technology and manage your collection of upgrade chips. Optimize your loadout for your favorite play style or to help with a specific objective. 
• Simulator: Provides diverse training, challenges, and rewards. A place to test your skill. 
• Relocator: Analyzes local topography and helps plan your missions. Provides instant transportation to upgraded Checkpoints. 
• Big Vault: This must surely contain something rare and precious. 
• Containment: Cold storage for alien artifacts. When powered, artifacts can change fundamentals about how the game works. Use with caution, these come with a penalty. 
• Hangar: Provides access by shuttle to the Asteroid Belt, a place with unusual gravity and infinite possibilities. 
• Decontamination: Resolves any persistent issues with your environment suit.

Biomes

Much of the game world is seamless and open, if you have the right equipment and the skill to survive. As you explore, you eventually transition into an entirely new biome, each with a dramatically different appearance, new creatures, and entirely new gameplay. Biomes are interconnected and if you explore thoroughly, you will discover shortcuts to get to other places more quickly.

You will need to explore all of the many gigantic biomes in the game and visit each one multiple times to collect all of the equipment, complete your mission, and solve all of Anew’s mysteries.

Checkpoints

These are infrequent and precious discoveries in the game world, sometimes hidden. They substantially increase your ability to survive and explore a distant or harsh realm.

• Player respawns at the last activated checkpoint if defeated.
• Refills some player energy. 
• Can be upgraded to refill more energy.
• Can be upgraded for quick travel to another activated waypoint.
• Can be upgraded to serve as a Workstation.

Wormholes

These directly move you to another location in the game world, sometimes to places that are otherwise unreachable. Press Up (left stick) to travel through.

If you are playing the linear demo: Please note that these are placed in locations contrived to give you a quick sample of many different zones and play experiences. In the demo, these also function as Checkpoints. In the full game, they do not.

Day and Night

This moon rotates under a massive, hot sun and experiences a rapid cycle between day and night. Surface temperatures will fluctuate wildly and you will need to take shelter inside or underground if your suit energy is low during daytime. Some creatures may only come out during certain times and the environment

Vehicles

Wildly diverse vehicles can be discovered across the distant realms of this moon. Experiment to work out their controls and capabilities. Some locations are unreachable without a specific vehicle.

User Interface

Controller

You are strongly advised to play with a dual-stick controller. Any USB controller, including one from a game console, should work.

• Left Stick: Moves the player, slow or fast depending on tilt. Also serves as an aiming fallback. 
• Right Stick: Aims. Hold a direction to look farther. 
• Left Trigger: Hold for active shielding. Upgrade required. 
• Right Trigger: Pull to fire weapon. Hold for autofire and charge weapons. 
• Y Button: Context-dependent interaction, e.g. pilot a vehicle or open a door. 
• X Button: Use alternate weapon, e.g. bomb. Upgrade required. 
• A Button: Jump and Jet. Also used for UI confirmation. 
• B Button: Used for UI cancel. 
• Down (on left stick) + A Button: Power Slide, if you have the required upgrade. 
• Left Shoulder Button: Change to previous weapon. 
• Right Shoulder Button: Change to next weapon. 
• D-pad: Alternate UI navigation. 

Mouse and Keyboard

Point and click with mouse or use keyboard arrows for alternate UI navigation. Movement and Aim with keyboard and mouse is not yet implemented for gameplay.

Screen Heads-Up Display (HUD)

• Orange Bar: Suit Energy. Taking damage from enemies or the environment will drain this. Once depleted, the hero respawns at the last activated Checkpoint. 
• Blue Bar: Shielding. Drains when shields (upgrade required), 
• Left Digits: Charges. Works as ammo for certain weapons. 
• Right Digits: Materiel. Used to repair, upgrade, and modify things. 
• Left Vertical Bar: External temperature. Drains suit energy if redlining.