By Adam Smith on August 26th, 2011 at 12:45 pm.
A potentially habitable planet has been discovered outside our solar system and, right now, the eXoplanetary Research Institute is looking for volunteers to explore the surface. You’d be controlling a rover and gathering data on the planet and its inhabitants, whether flora or fauna. Sound good? That’s the premise of the new game from Lazy 8 Studios, makers of Cogs. It’s called Extrasolar and it’s nigh on impossible to figure out how it’ll play at the moment since the marketing takes the form of a fictional website for a fictional company. We’re promised a narrative experience and it sounds like players will work together to unveil the planet’s mysteries over time. The website is a good read and there’s at least a polite nod toward actual space science history. Hopefully that will carry through to the game. Trailer/recruitment video below.
26/08/2011 at 12:49 Unaco says:
I’m not seeing any evidence of it in the video or that picture at the top of the article, but these Rovers will be armed, right?
26/08/2011 at 12:55 wccrawford says:
Everything so far screams the kind of ‘puzzle based exploration’ game that I love so much, but without gameplay video, it’s impossible to get excited about it at all.
26/08/2011 at 13:06 LimEJET says:
Wow, that terrain looks absolutely horrible.
26/08/2011 at 13:11 Stephen Roberts says:
Twist ending: It’s real!
… I’ll get me coat.
26/08/2011 at 13:31 Inigo says:
Wait, I thought they said it wasn’t that entirely habitable after all.
Or is this just a hypothetical planet we’re talking about here?
26/08/2011 at 13:49 daphne says:
Obligatory Noctis name-drop.
26/08/2011 at 14:09 .backslash says:
Huh. That really reminds me of the planned NASA MMO Moonbase Alpha was the proof-of-concept of. Wonder what happened to that.
26/08/2011 at 14:20 mickygor says:
Fingers crossed, development happened to it! I loved the engine for Moonbase Alpha, it’s just a shame the game was kinda… meh.
26/08/2011 at 14:23 Adam Smith says:
There is this, currently looking for funding through Kickstarter and hoping to release a playable beta in December…2012.
http://www.astronautmmo.com/dmf/
26/08/2011 at 15:43 Kektain says:
I would kill for a first person Space Station 13 on an engine that wasn’t terrible. Sadly I don’t foresee a NASA MMO supporting cooks making poop tacos while the singularity slowly eats through the escape shuttle.
26/08/2011 at 16:59 chabuhi says:
I donated a little with the hope that it will become a reality. I’ve been jonesin’ for this type of game since Earth & Beyond (yes, I liked it, so what?) and Eve was not for me.
26/08/2011 at 14:25 roethle says:
Neat
27/08/2011 at 12:17 drygear says:
I like the Lord Byron reference in the title (for me it’s more of a Leonard Cohen reference because he made it into a song and I heard that before I knew it was a Byron poem)