Genesis Alpha One, the incoming survival-FPS-roguelike from Radiation Blue and Team 17, poses a familiar scenario: Earth has declared war on itself, humankind is in peril, and thus it's up to a select few to travel space in a bid to relocate and ultimately save our beleaguered race. The difference here is, Genesis Alpha One asks you to base-build and actually grow new human life at the same time.
"Humankind's last chance to save our species...", reads a message within the trailer below. "Is to create new ones."
Said to be set sometime in the "near future", Earth in Genesis Alpha One has been ravaged by conflict, whereby corrupt regimes and unregulated global capitalism has left the planet on its backside. "Societies are collapsing," we're told, which is where the Genesis programme comes in.
"As the Captain of a Genesis starship, you journey into uncharted space on the ultimate mission," so says publisher Team 17. "Build and manage a space vessel, farm resources, deal with terrifying alien infestations, clone creatures and explore a vast, randomly generated universe.
"Your goal: Find new homes for humanity’s DNA and save the species from extinction."
In practice, that sees you battling aliens in a randomly-generated world; building, managing and customising your own starship; harvesting resources from your new surrounds; and cloning and creating new lifeforms to bolster your crew.
No launch date just yet, but Genesis Alpha One is definitely on my radar. Well-worn or not, I'm fond of space-set survival games—and the thought of base-building and ship customisation thrown in on the side has me excited. More information can be found on the game's site, and here's a handful of screens:
