The Gunk will ooze out on December 16th

The Gunk is a third-person action adventure from the makers of SteamWorld, set on a planet covered in a gelatinous goo. You hoover it up. It was announced last year, and we now know it'll launch on PC via Xbox Game Pass on December 16th.

The release date was announced during this evening's Thunderful World stream, which was filled with announcements from publisher and developer Thunderful Games. The actual livestream, presented by Mark Hamill and viewable in full here, featured some new Gunk footage narrated by the protagonist's voice actress. It starts at the 26:26 mark.

Thunderful haven't made that footage available separately however, so here's the trailer from this year's Xbox event at Gamescom:

It's a singleplayer game, but The Gunk is about two pals exploring an alien planet "plagued by a corruptive gunk." You'll hoover it up, but also craft items as you work to survive and, it seems, revive the planet in some way.

Honestly, I feel like I don't know much about how The Gunk will play, beyond walking around and vacuuming, but Image & Form have earned the benefit of the doubt across several excellent, genre-hopping SteamWorld games.

There is more SteamWorld to come, too. Thunderful announced SteamWorld Headhunter at tonight's livestream, which a 3D action adventure much like The Gunk, but co-operative. Exciting stuff.

The Gunk is an Xbox console exclusive, but it'll be available on PC on launch day via Xbox Game Pass. It's not yet on Steam or any other digital store.