Due to a mad scientist by the
name of Athetos, the Sundran civilisation was wiped out and while they might not be around anymore, Athetos still is and Elsenova requires Trace's help to stop him, only with this
game being Axiom Verge, aka weirder than weird, the plot goes downright insane, as Trace and Athetos, are the
same person, only Athetos (Greek for «without place») is the original Trace who first arrived on Sundra, whereas the playable Trace is a clone.
And yet, I bet you if you had taken the exact
same game and all you did was change the
name to The Legend
of Zelda: Shadow
of the Colossus and replaced the two leads with Link and Zelda that the
game's reception would have been drastically worse
due to failed expectations.