[2] The game is a sequel to Shadow Tower and features a number of genre and mechanical elements that can also be found in Demon's Souls and the King's Field series.

[3][4] An English version was being developed by Agetec, but the project was cancelled by Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), its publisher, prior to completion.

The game world is populated with a total of 68 monsters and non-player characters, who "seem to have regular schedules and activities--that take place independent of [one's] actions--such as burning a bonfire and talking amongst themselves".

Typical to a number of games within the role-playing genre, Shadow Tower Abyss features a statistics-orientated character development system.

While replacement weaponry can be found in containers and retrieved from corpses, the game features a number of different shops, which are each represented by glowing crystalline structures: Merchants (green), Blacksmiths (purple) and Healers (red).

The protagonist, an explorer, is in search of an arcane spear thought to have given great powers to the long-dead ruler of the kingdom, and ushered in an age of unrivalled prosperity.

[12] Shadow Tower Abyss was the only role-playing game in From Software's stall, and the company's other ventures at the time included Otogi: Myth of Demons, Kuon, Armored Core: Nexus and Echo Night: Beyond.

Mark Johnson, Agetec's producer, announced the cancellation on the SCEA website and stated that "for the most part the localization was completed, aside from package and manual".

[15][16] Given its overseas performance, Yeonkyung Kim, a Sony employee responsible for localisation, remarked that the company's decision not to publish world-wide was "a mistake", and Demon's Souls should have "come out as a first-party title".

[17] As the spiritual successor to Shadow Tower Abyss and the King's Field series, the game received multiple accolades, obtaining a Metacritic score of 89.