Information is slowly beginning to trickle out for Icarus, a new sci-fi survival game developed by DayZ creator Dean Hall and his studio Rocketwerkz. The game was announced back in 2020, and even though it immediately started building up hype, the studio has remained quiet about its development. This changed in April when the team premiered both the mockumentary trailer "No Rescue" and a 30-minute gameplay reveal stream with live commentary from the developers.
The gameplay reveal highlighted mechanics like crafting, exploration, and everything else one would expect from other survival games like Rust and Valheim. The game operates in so-called sessions, meaning players will have a limited amount of time on the planet Icarus to complete missions, collect resources, and build bases before returning to the space station. All of this doesn't happen in a vacuum however, as the world of Icarus has a story to tell.
When humanity discovered Icarus, an alien world similar to Earth, a mission was undertaken to terraform the planet in order to support human life. The mission was going fairly well, at least well enough to support some animals such as bears and deer, as well as trees and plant life. Sadly, as the trailer reveals, it didn't take very long before this mission fell apart.
What New Survival Game Icarus' Story Could Be Like
The initial purpose of going to Icarus was to terraform the planet. It was going well enough, with biomes like forests beginning to emerge and biologists successfully able to introduce modified wildlife from Earth that quickly adapted to the alien world. This seemed to go wrong at some point due to the discovery of Exotics, a rare and valuable resource not found anywhere else. It's not yet clear how the Exotics were able to interfere with a planet-wide terraforming effort that was initially successful. In No Rescue, one of the First Cohort prospectors interviewed said that the Exotics "screwed with the enzymes" but doesn't elaborate. Another prospector offers his perspective by asking the question, "Doesn't it feel like a coincidence that they declared the planet uninhabitable just when they discovered the most valuable material in the universe?" From this perspective, the planet may be inhabitable and the terraforming effort was going just fine until this rare resource was found and ignited an interstellar gold-rush.
What is never answered, however, is what exactly Exotics are. Members of the First Cohort continue to talk about its value and how it differs on Icarus versus on Earth: On Icarus's harsh world, it can get explorers a better suit or rifle, but on Earth it has seemingly indescribable value. Exotics may hold high value due to their scarcity and variety of applications, but some have the potential to be toxic or even radioactive to organic cells. For now, though, Exotics are still a bit of a mystery that will take time to unravel.
No Rescue was able to provide a lot of lore, but it also raised quite a few questions. One question in particular pertains to the fate of Moe, a biologist who was also part of the terraforming team, and whom the First Cohort had to leave behind. As the central character to the introduction of the lore, will Moe be a part of the in-game story experience or was this the conclusion of her journey? With Icarus slated to release sometime in 2021, these questions will hopefully get answers soon.