In 2020, when the world shut down due to COVID-19, developer Bryan De Jong was looking for a place to go, so he thought about going to the stars. Influenced by games such as Minecraft, Terraria, and Project Zomboid, he set out to design his own survival crafting game in space, where you could travel anywhere you wanted to and do anything you wanted to, so he sat down and created his passion project. Three years later, Out of Orbit was created.

Out of Orbit is a pixel survival, crafting, and exploration game where the players can create their own story and travel the endless procedurally generated map. Yes, there is a story line for you to uncover, but you don’t need to follow it because this is your story. Do what you want to do, but be warned, your actions do have consequences, and the factions in the game have long memories.

The game starts when you awaken on a small space platform with nothing. While you complete the tutorial, it will teach you the basics of how to mine asteroids for raw resources and craft those items into needed supplies such as food, water, fuel, and the most important in space, oxygen. As you collect more resources, you will be able to add them to your platform and make yourself more self-sufficient.

Every time you leave your platform, you will need to make sure to take the necessities with you as you perish in the cold depths of space. To help you along the way, you will be able to build a small ship to get around called a pod and later be able to craft your own ship to traverse the cosmos. Use your star chart to plot your waypoint to large asteroids or other ships, explore different cosmic locations, and even travel through wormholes, unlocking new universes, each with its own set of characteristics and locations.

As you come across other ships, you will have to make the decision: do you board being friendly and maybe some helpful trading of resources, or do you take over the ship for yourself or destroy it from within? The choice is yours, but beware; the different factions out there will remember what you did and will act accordingly, even attacking you on sight.

Currently, there are two humanoid factions, M38 and the Sundogs, a mysterious alien faction called the Naala, and an evil mechanical faction of robots called the Robotek.

Community input is a huge part of the Out of Orbit project, as your voice plays a part in how the game develops. Bryan is actively engaged with his community in his discord and eagerly awaits to hear and implement community ideas.

There will be an in-game editor that will allow you to create your own missions and spaceships, as well as Steam Workshop integration that will allow you to share and play other players missions.

Out of Orbit is scheduled to release on Steam in early access on October 20, 2023; the cost of the game has not yet been revealed. And while you wait you can try out the Demo, it’s a little bit outdated right now, but it will give you a feel for the game.

Are you going to be a space pirate? A space hero? Or just explore the universe? Let me know in the comments below.