Exploration, Secrets and Early Access Areas

Audio logs come from "those who lived, worked and died" at the SAIR facility. They are recorded by the staff who were there before Carmen, and the Steam copy lists them alongside caches of vital equipment as one of the main reasons to push off the beaten path.

Audio logs serve two purposes at once:

• Lore. They reveal what happened at the facility before Carmen arrived and why the prehistoric predators are running through its corridors.
• Route flags. The same caches that hold audio logs also hold the components for crafting, ammo pickups and keycards. Treat every audio log as a marker for a cache worth looting.

Specific log counts, individual recording locations and per-area totals are not enumerated in any pre-release public material. Plan to collect logs by sweeping each cache you find rather than chasing a fixed counter.

Hidden pathways are confirmed by the Steam description as a core exploration pillar: "navigate hidden pathways and discover forgotten secrets" and "unearth buried truths" across the lab. The PCGamesN preview describes the demo as darkened corridors with environmental puzzles and reports side rooms that hold keycards and supplies, suggesting hidden areas are tied to resource caches and alternate routes rather than a single hidden hub.

Three patterns show up in pre-release coverage:

• Side rooms off main corridors hold keycards and supplies, so they gate access rather than offer a single hidden hub.
• Hidden pathways branch off the main route to alternate objectives, including the lore pickups you would otherwise miss.
• Forgotten secrets sit inside sealed sections that open through the same environmental solves used elsewhere — firebombs, hacked terminals and refueled machines.

Specific hidden area counts or coordinates have not been published, so use the side-room pattern as your guide: if a doorway or vent branches away from the main corridor and you can jimmy it open or burn through it, take it.

Destructible elements are confirmed through the crafting example in the PCGamesN preview: bandages combined with a flask create a firebomb capable of throwing through blockages, opening new paths that would otherwise stay sealed. The Steam copy also lists refueling machines as a way to open new paths. Concrete destructible wall types, hidden destructible crates, and weak-point physics are not yet documented publicly.

Two rules hold for every sealed section:

• A blockage that you cannot jimmy or unlock usually opens with a firebomb or a refueled machine. Carry a bandage and a flask so you can rebuild the firebomb on the fly.
• Blockages guard shortcuts and side caches more often than they guard the main path. Burning one open is usually worth the components because it returns ammo, healing, and keycards.

When in doubt, throw a distraction at a blockage to see if it shifts, then commit a firebomb if the route looks important. Do not waste firebombs on cosmetic breakables.

Athanasia's Early Access window opens on October 19, 2026 and ships "the first 3 areas (~half the game's intended length)." The full 1.0 release planned for mid-2027 adds the remaining areas for a total of "6 distinct areas," along with "a variety of enemy types" and "a wide arsenal of weapons and equipment." The Early Access price is lower than the planned post-launch price, which will rise when the full release lands.

For Early Access planning, this means:

• Three areas at launch, three more added through the mid-2027 roadmap.
• Six distinct areas at full release, with the enemy roster and arsenal continuing to expand.
• Save progress expectations should be tuned to roughly half the intended length, not the full campaign.

Specific chapter titles for the three EA areas have not been published, so plan around the area count rather than named chapters until the EA build names them.