In survival game Icarus, corrupted terraforming leads to an 'interstellar gold rush'

Thirty trillion miles from Earth, the planet Icarus underwent a terraforming effort meant to create a habitable new paradise for human life. It didn't work out. The terraforming system failed due to the reaction of exotic resources hidden on the planet, resulting in an environment that's extremely toxic to humans. Whoops.

But among disaster, there's profit, and the failed terraforming of Icarus has created a space-age gold rush. While the exotic minerals make the planet uninhabitable, those same resources are extremely valuable back on Earth. And since humans can't safely live on Icarus, the goal now is to launch missions from the orbiting space station down to the planet's surface, harvest as much of the exotic material as possible, and then get the hell out of there.

Icarus, the co-op survival game being developed by studio RocketWerkz and Dean Hall, creator of DayZ, spells all this out in the new lore trailer you can watch above. And hey, guess what? We got to play a bit of Icarus with Dean Hall and members of the RocketWerkz team last week. You can read our early impressions of Icarus here, including a moment when Hall caught on fire and I tried to extinguish the flames by whacking him with a broom.

The new "No Rescue" trailer above is a combination of live actors and CGI, and gives us the backstory of the survival game, as well as a bit of mystery. Some of the people who survived prospecting missions on Icarus, for example, think the terraforming failure was no accident after all.

"Doesn't it feel like a coincidence that they declared the planet uninhabitable just when they discovered the most valuable material in the universe?" asks a grizzled former prospector in the trailer. 

The trailer also lays out the gameplay loop of the session-based survival game, which has missions that can last anywhere from hours to weeks and can support up to eight co-op players (it can also be played solo). "It was all about the exotics," says another former prospector in the trailer. "You find them, you sell them back at the station, you get more gear. You go back down, find more. Drop, survive, and repeat."

(Image credit: RocketWerkz)

There's also the mystery of Mo Chau, a scientist who disappeared during a mission. Some prospectors assume she was lost in a storm or killed by a bear (transplanted from Earth to Icarus along with plants and other wildlife during the terraforming process), while others think she simply chose to stay behind, despite the extreme dangers of the alien planet. In the trailer, though, Chau certainly didn't look too happy to be left behind. As Dean Hall told us when he revealed the game at the PC Gaming Show last year, if the mission timer runs out and you miss your dropship back into orbit, you lose everything: your character, their progress, and all the gear they've got with them.

"RocketWerkz has a multi-year plan for Icarus," reads the press release sent to PC Gamer, "adding chapters with additional playable content and lore. The first chapter, The First Cohort, begins in Icarus’ most Earth-like biomes before the game expands to more alien and threatening zones."

We don't yet have a release date for Icarus, though it's planned to launch on Steam sometime in 2021. If you're interested in seeing more, RocketWerkz will be streaming some gameplay from Icarus live on its Twitch channel on Thursday, April 8, at 5 pm PT / 8 pm ET.

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

Read more
Exoborne parachuting
In the middle of the LA fires, I played a new extraction shooter that challenged me to survive angry robots, other players, and planet-destroying climate change
Two airships fire broadsides into each other's hull in Echoes of Elysium.
In this airship-building survival game, I faced an enemy worth punching trees over: 'The hubris of man'
Dune Awakening
Dune Awakening's latest trailer offers a glimpse of its massive coriolis storms, which reshape swathes of the map each week for 'infinite exploration'
Someone holding a compass in nature
The first gameplay trailer for PUBG creator's 'brutal' survival game shows off deadly weather and cozy cabins
The Last Caretaker trailer still
Humanity's last hope is a little robot with can-do spirit in The Last Caretaker, coming to early access this summer
Sunset in the desert in Hello Sunshine
Hello Sunshine is a desert survival sandbox where you live in the literal shadow of the colossus
Latest in Action
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Assassin's Creed Shadows immersive mode - Naoe holding a tanto in her hand as two guards fall to the ground behind her.
Assassin's Creed Shadows' first hotfix addresses stability issues and a photo mode crash
A plastic duck dressed like a circus weightlifter
The 5th highest-rated game on Steam in 2022 is back with a multiplayer sequel
Ragnarok Battle Offline
After punishing my graphics card with Monster Hunter Wilds, I've returned to the rock-solid frame rates of my old hunting grounds: Windows XP
A unique aspect of Japanese architecture turned out to be a key reason the Like a Dragon games can reuse assets so effectively—and deliver more compact, memorable open worlds than western cities
Naoe looking at the wrist blade in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Ubisoft says don't compare Assassin's Creed Shadows' success to Valhalla: The latter launched in Covid's 'perfect storm' and feedback on platforms 'less affected by review bombing' is stellar
Latest in News
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Tzarina Katarin Bokha, the Ice Queen of Kislev
Total War: Warhammer 3 rolls out a cool Kislev overhaul, changes befitting Tzeench’s magic, new projectile units and creakier skeletal horses
An image of a golden first place award from Geoguessr
'We're actually getting GeoGuessr on Steam before GTA 6': the Google Street View puzzler arrives on Valve's platform this April
Napster client circa 1999
Former music-pirating platform Napster to be reborn rather ironically as a metaverse for musicians to connect with their fans after $207 million deal
The snazzy red and black HyperX Cloud Alpha wireless headphones float in a teal void. The microphone is attached to the headset.
The best wireless gaming headset is now even better in the Amazon Big Spring Sale, boasting a more than $50 discount
A chip being held up in an Intel fab
Intel is reportedly 'working to finalize commitments from Nvidia' as a foundry partner, suggesting gaming potential for the 18A node