We’ve got another PvE-centric co-op survival game on our hands, but this one trades a land of Viking myth for a deadly Earth-like planet instead. The game is called Icarus, which is described by developer RocketWerkz as a “session-based PvE survival game for up to eight co-op players.”
Players are tasked with surviving hostile wildlife, toxic atmosphere, and game-altering weather events, all while making sure to clear an overall goal, leave the planet, and make it back to the orbital station or be left to die. Advancement in Icarus comes by way of two crafting trees: planet-side, where tools, structures, and machinery are crafted for survival’s sake; and orbital, where rare exotic materials harvested from the planet can be engineered into advanced tech that can be brought into the next planetary drop.
A video preview from PC Gamer featuring lead developer Dean Hall offers a closer look at one such drop in a forested area of the titular planet, explaining some of the gameplay beats and design decisions for Icarus. Hall points out that every rock, tree, and bush is harvestable, using voxel tech to make gathering feel as satisfying as possible (and before you ask, yes, falling trees are a danger in this game too). Hall also touts the game’s hand-crafted map instead of a procedurally-generated one, and once more explains the dangers of planetary storms that can have effects like lightning strikes causing forest fires or building fires and storms freaking animals out.
Icarus is set to arrive on Steam soon. You can get a peek at gameplay in the video below, or check out a mockumentary just below that.
