Nova Eridani
Steam · coming later

Showcase 01 — Arrival

The game

A first-person survival and colony-building game, alone or with up to three friends: wake aboard a damaged colony freighter after an 84-year crossing, reach a world seeded with Earth forests, and build its first industry with a fleet of robots.

01A vertical slice, in order

From the prologue to the first industry

Showcase 01 is not a finished game. It is the opening of one, built all the way through: the prologue, the ship, the landing and the colony's first production chain.

  1. A rocket climbing on its exhaust above a dark, snowbound city.Prologue · in-engine
    Launches for those who could leave.

    The prologue

    A cinematic of about six minutes, told by Melanie and fully in-engine: Earth's last years, the discovery of Nova Eridani, Genesis and the trial, the Meridian and the crossing. Its last shot leads straight into the moment you wake.

  2. A recovery bay seen from the cradle, the title ESV MERIDIAN on screen.In development
    You wake in the recovery suite.

    Aboard the Meridian

    You wake on a recovery cradle as a medical arm finishes its work. Melanie has been blind for six years. Each repair gives her back a sense, and her voice changes with each channel.

  3. Three main parachutes fully open above the capsule.In development
    Three main parachutes fully open above the capsule.

    The descent

    A four-seat drop pod burns in through the atmosphere, opens two drogues and three mains, and fires its retro rockets for touchdown in the meadow at LZ-1.

  4. A suited crew member walks out across the grassland towards a stand of pines, the drop pod DP-01 in the foreground at the right.In development
    Set out together from the landing zone.

    The surface

    A supply canister, a felling axe and a survey beacon. Fell, saw, drill and plant by hand, then build the first structures on a world Genesis prepared.

  5. An upgraded sawmill building with a settlement behind.In development
    The settlement grows.

    The first industry

    Robots printed in a fabricator take on work as foresters, woodcutters, sawyers, haulers and builders, and fifty machines turn what the planet gives into water, food, power and metal. A chain of tutorial quests introduces it all.

02New in the test build

A home in the habitat

In the testers' hands now. New in 0.1.403: the habitat furnished as a home, with smart glass, lights on the colony's power, a working colony terminal, a bunk, a chair, a shower and a toilet, each with its own animation and seen by the crew in co-op. 0.1.393: your friends on Discord see the mission you are on and where you are, and voices, music, sound effects and menu sounds each have their own volume. 0.1.385: the opening film rewritten and told by Melanie, with new scenes inside Genesis's holds and out in the trial bay, a reworked bomb, and a fly-in to the Meridian the first time the title screen opens. Earlier: Nova Eridani from orbit and the drop pod's launch as a short film; a rover that runs on cells, the visor as the interface; a colony that makes its own, the rover as a kit; the Strider, the real night sky, a compass and a map; dangerous nights and the light that holds them back, buildings delivered from orbit, water and food, and machines that turn the planet into steel.

After dark · recorded in game

Real-time footage from a fixed camera above the drop pod. Silent. The night's shadows are lifted a little so it can be seen.

New in 0.1.403

A home in the habitat

The first building at the landing zone, furnished to live in.

  • Inside the habitat by day with its ceiling lights on: a desk and computer at the left, the bunk along the back wall, the wet cell's frosted door and the galley's sink at the right, and the grass outside through clear windows.In development
    Playable in development builds

    A home in the habitat

    The habitat that comes down with the care package is furnished inside: a desk and computer, a bunk, a swivel chair, a wet cell with a shower and a toilet, and a galley with a tap. Everything is used with E, and every one has its own animation.

  • The same room with every window frosted milky white, lit by the two ceiling panels.In development
    Playable in development builds

    Smart glass

    A switch by the door frosts every window milky white, patch by patch like liquid crystal, and clears them again. The windows can be seen through from both sides now.

  • First person at the desk in the EVA suit: gloved hands on the keyboard and the colony terminal on the screen, with the planet's time, the battery's charge, the solar power coming in and the power in use.In development
    Playable in development builds

    The colony terminal

    The computer's screen shows the planet's time, the batteries, the solar power coming in and the power in use, robots at work and any alerts. Sit down at it and the colony's management opens.

  • The habitat at night under the stars, its windows clear and lit, the light falling on the grass beside it.In development
    Playable in development builds

    Lights on the colony's power

    Ceiling lights on a switch by the door and another by the bunk. They draw on the colony's power like everything else: full when there is enough, dimmed when it runs short, dark when the batteries are flat at night.

  • Lying on the bunk in the EVA suit, seen from the head end, with the desk and the door beyond.In development
    Playable in development builds

    Rest and wash

    Lie down on the bunk, or sleep through the night once it is safe to. Take a shower, use the toilet, drink from the galley tap. The tap draws on the colony's stored drinking water.

  • From behind and above: a player in a yellow EVA suit sits typing at the desk, the chair slid in, beside the bunk under the windows.In development
    Playable in development builds

    Seen by the crew

    In co-op the rest of the crew sees you at the desk, in the bunk or in the chair, and the switches work for everyone. On the Meridian's bridge, the whole crew now sees whoever sits in the captain's chair.

  • A large many-legged native creature with plated, cracked hide, caught in a bright light in tall grass at night.In development
    Playable in development builds

    The nights are dangerous

    Something native hunts in the dark. In the open and out of the light it is faster than you can run. But you can hear it and see it coming, and there is time to reach the light. Light keeps it away: the drop pod's landing lights, or a ring of street lights.

  • High overhead, a cargo capsule comes down under orange-and-white parachutes above a meadow, a drop pod in the corner.In development
    Playable in development builds

    Deliveries from orbit

    Prefab buildings no longer unfold out of a crate. Set down a landing beacon where you want the building, and the Meridian sends it down inside a heat-shielded cargo shell that burns in, opens its parachutes, fires its retro rockets and opens like a flower where the beacon stands.

  • The same container repainted bright orange, doors open, in the meadow.In development
    Playable in development builds

    A supply container

    Melanie has kept one 20-foot freight container back in the ship's stores. It comes down the same way and stays for good as storage. It is a proper ISO container, with corrugated walls, locking bars, corner castings and the Meridian's markings, and it can be repainted, from Meridian blue to survey orange and six more colours.

  • A white field molecular printer cabinet with a glass print chamber and a lit screen, standing in grassland.In development
    Playable in development builds

    The field printer

    Inside the container is a molecular printer. It builds things from feedstock cartridges, and there are only so many cartridges.

  • Five pickup notices stacked on the left of the screen: log and stone on green, power cell, felling axe and circuit blank on blue.In development
    Playable in development builds

    Pickups you can see

    Whatever goes into your pack shows briefly on the left of the screen with its picture and count, on its rarity's colour: green for common, blue for rare, purple for epic, gold for legendary.

  • A homestead on open grassland: solar stills under sloped glass covers, a white water tank, a filter stand, crop beds, a greenhouse and a prefab shelter, with pines and a distant mountain beyond.In development
    Playable in development builds

    Water first

    The sea is salt. Set up a solar still, fill it with sea water and let the sun make it drinkable, about three litres a day. Lake and river water is safe once it has been filtered. Two gauges on screen show your water and your food.

  • Raised timber crop beds, a greenhouse, a water tank and a water filter stand around a prefab shelter on open grassland.In development
    Playable in development builds

    Grow what you eat

    The rations won't last. Plant potatoes, carrots and corn in crop beds, tomatoes in a greenhouse, compost what is left over, and grow algae on sea water in the sun.

  • Twelve industrial machines on their concrete pads: a blast furnace, an arc furnace, a steelworks, a rolling mill, a coke oven, a crusher, a foundry, a wire mill, an aluminium potline, a titanium works, a solar cell line and a chemical reactor, each with its own control post.Model render
    Playable in development builds

    From coal to titanium

    Find a new rock and Melanie tells you what it makes possible. Coke and iron make steel; the rivers give up tin and gold; aluminium, nickel and titanium come later, each with the machines to make them.

  • The homestead's machines: a solar still, a greenhouse, a raised crop bed, a field kitchen, an algae photobioreactor and a composter.Model render
    Playable in development builds

    Machines you can watch

    Fifty machines, each modelled down to its gauges, and every one shows its work: moving parts, smoke, steam, light and sound. 135 items have their own models and pictures too.

  • Playable in development builds

    Warnings in the visor

    The survey beacon picks up movement and shows it on a disc in the corner of the visor, with the direction and distance of whatever is out there. Melanie starts a countdown to nightfall, which stays in the corner of the screen.

  • Playable in development builds

    Street lights and power

    Three new buildings: a solar array for power by day, a battery bank to store it for the night, and street lights that come on by themselves at dusk. Every light and machine draws on the colony's one store of power, and when power runs short the lights are kept on first.

  • Playable in development builds

    Longer days

    An hour of daylight and half an hour of night in real time, with almost a full hour of daylight after landing before the first night falls.

  • Playable in development builds

    Stores and hoppers

    The supply canister is a store with its own window. An input hopper beside a machine feeds it, an output hopper catches what it makes, and items can be dragged from one side of a store to the other.

  • Playable in development builds

    Smaller changes

    Stone and clay a short walk from the landing; the pines near it can be felled; ground scorched by a landing heals over a few days, and felled trees grow back. In co-op every player keeps their pack between areas.

A delivery from orbit, in order

Mark the spot. The Meridian sends it down.

A landing beacon marks where the building should stand, and it comes down from the ship inside a heat-shielded cargo shell. This one carries the supply container.

High overhead, a cargo capsule comes down under orange-and-white parachutes above a meadow, a drop pod in the corner.
In development

High overhead, a cargo capsule comes down under orange-and-white parachutes above a meadow, a drop pod in the corner.

03ESV Meridian

Wake the ship

Restore a blinded AI's senses one by one, from a damaged terminal to the ship's intercom to your suit radio.

The first part is a repair route through a ship that was never designed for people: a converted freighter, damaged by a debris strike six years before arrival.

  1. 01The expedition visor
  2. 02The emergency toolkit
  3. 03A power junction bypass
  4. 04A manual bulkhead release
  5. 05A printed comms board
  6. 06Coolant rerouting
  7. 07The observation deck, where the shutters open on the planet
The NOVA ERIDANI plaque above the bridge window, the ship's spine beyond.In development
The bridge window.

Melanie's senses, restored in order

  1. 01Terminal
  2. 02Room speakers
  3. 03Intercom
  4. 04Suit link
Meet Melanie

The molecular printer

It has its own menu, and prints the parts the repairs need, such as a comms board or a drive controller, once something needs them.

Twenty-Five Thousand Days

A side quest: repair MU-17, a stalled maintenance unit, by printing it a new drive controller. Once repaired it finishes its job, then drives home to its own charger.

Conversations

Replies are chosen with the number keys or clicked with the mouse.

A visor scan sweeping a dark ship compartment in cyan light.In development
The expedition visor.
Engineering bay with switchgear and warning lights.In development
Engineering.
A ship corridor with repair lockers and emergency lighting.In development
The aft service corridor.
Four couches back to back: the crew in their EVA suits.In development
Four couches back to back: the crew in their EVA suits.

04Drop Pod 01

Four seats down

The ride down is in a four-seat capsule, one seat for each co-op player. The survey beacon rides strapped inside the hatch.

  • Four seatsOne couch for each co-op player, back to back, each with its own window and a live altitude and speed read-out.
  • Three mains, two droguesLine stretch, reefed and full stages; the mains are cut and drift away at the burn.
  • Three outside shotsEntry, chutes and touchdown, timed around Melanie's lines. Every other moment stays in the seat, with free look.
  • The beacon rides insideStrapped inside the hatch, out of the heat of entry, and handed to you as the hatch opens.

The descent · recorded in game

Recorded live in the game, with sound and Melanie's narration. Work in progress.

05LZ-1

On the surface

Earth forests planted by machines decades before you arrived, growing among glowing native fungi and life older than humanity.

  • A supply canisterA survey beacon, a felling axe, hand tools, a prefab shelter and a robot fabricator kit.
  • Hands-on workFell and buck trees with the axe, drill outcrops, plant seedlings and saw timber at the sawbench. Each task has its own first-person animation.
  • The felling axeA detailed forged model: a hand-forged head with a polished bit, a curved wooden haft and a leather lanyard.
  • SwimmingThe plateau and foothill lakes and the sea are deep water. Wade in from the shore and you swim, float with your head and shoulders out, and dive the way you look. The rivers are wading depth.
  • Day and nightThe sun crosses the sky over an hour of real time per day, and the light changes with it. The time of day is kept in your save and is the same for every player in co-op.
  • There is a way backIf you die on Nova Eridani, there is a way back, and a quest leads you to it.
A suited crew member beside the open drop pod on a grassy plain, pines and bare mountains behind under a cloudy sky.In development
Two crew, one landing zone.
A felling axe with a dark forged head, polished cutting edge and a curved pale wooden haft with a leather lanyard.Model render
The felling axe: forged head, curved haft.
Pines around a powered-down field station.In development
Field Station 01 and the pines it planted.
A brick house with a pitched slate roof and skylight on grassland.In development
Built by hand, brick by brick.
Building and the colony, in detail

06Co-op · 1–4 players

Better together

Up to four players share one world, one story and one colony. Start the expedition together, open your game to friends later in the story, or build side by side in the sandbox. Each player keeps their own name, specialisation and personal moments.

01

Start the expedition together

Everyone who joins before the expedition leaves the ship wakes aboard with the host. The opening is something you do as a crew.

02

Open your game to others later

A game begun alone stays single player at first. Partway through the story it can take on further players.

03

Sandbox co-op

Build and gather together at any time, with no story.

Shared, and personal

  • Repairs, discoveries and the colony are shared; each player's own awakening and personal moments stay theirs.
  • Doors, items and objectives are shared fairly: one supply crate is not looted twice.
  • Every player can build (paid from their own pack), fell, saw, drill and plant, and everyone sees the same site and the same forest.
  • A player who drops out keeps their identity and progress. While they are away an AI stand-in looks after them, and never earns their progress for them.
  • Big journeys, such as the drop pod to the surface, wait until everyone is ready, with a shared countdown.
A suited crew member walks out across the grassland towards a stand of pines, the drop pod DP-01 in the foreground at the right.In development
Set out together from the landing zone.

Ten specialisations, chosen when you join

  • Engineer
  • Ecologist
  • Medic
  • Builder
  • Logistics Specialist
  • Systems Technician
  • Surveyor
  • Pilot / Mission Operations
  • Researcher
  • Generalist / Expedition Lead

Co-op is new and early. One player hosts and the others join by IP address. Specialisations are saved but do not yet change how a player plays.

07The personnel record

Your character

Shape your character from dozens of MetaHuman faces, down to the line of the jaw. Your crewmates see you as you made yourself.

  • A character creator on the personnel record, used for a new game and for co-op.
  • Dozens of MetaHuman faces, with the face shape blended region by region: brow, eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth, jaw and ears.
  • Build by height and figure; hairstyles, eyebrows and facial hair; seven skin tones, six eye colours and eight hair colours.
  • Faces talk: your own lines move your face. The EVA suit's helmet has a glass visor with your face behind it.
  • Your look is saved with the game and shown to the other players in co-op. Press V for a third-person view.
The character creator: a figure beside the personnel record's appearance choices.In development
Make your own character.

08Visor and menus

The interface

  • The Tab menu: Inventory with a turning 3D figure and item models, World Map, Quest Journal, Skills and the Colony page.
  • The visor HUD: scan sweeps, prompts and waypoints.
  • A separate build mode with site analysis and a structure view.
  • Sandbox mode on the main menu: build and craft freely, with no story.
Inventory screen: a grid of item pictures (algae culture, canteen, carrots, drinking water, an emergency flare, ration packs, tomatoes, a water bladder and building kits) beside the player's figure on a turntable.In development
The inventory: every item with its own model and picture.
Quest journal showing the Arrival quest and its objectives.In development
The quest journal.

09Honest status

What it is, and is not, yet

Nova Eridani is in development. These are the current limits, stated plainly.

In development

A vertical slice

Story content ends after the first colony industry chapter.

In development

Placeholder voices

Melanie, who also tells the prologue, and the robots use synthetic or AI voices. Some of the newest lines are shown as text. Professional voice acting is intended.

In development

The story stays near LZ-1

The wider 16 km world has places to find but no quests yet, and resources beyond the landing zone are still to be placed.

In development

A mix of art

Original work (the robots, the logo, Genesis, the field station and lander, the work-building kits) alongside licensed environment packs. Some areas still show development lighting.

In development

Co-op is new

Joining is by IP address, with no server browser or invites yet. If the host leaves, the session ends. The colony runs on the host's game, and specialisations do not yet change how you play.

In development

Survival and crafting are new

Their balance is early and will change with playtesting.

In development

Swimming is new

There is no underwater view effect and no breath limit yet, and the colony's robots keep to the land.

In development

Windows only

The build runs on Windows.

From the design documents

Planned, not promised

These are intended. None of them is in the game, and none has a date.

Planned

An orbital feed from the Meridian for overseeing the colony during orbital passes.

Planned

Weather and seasons as pressures on the colony, and night visits that grow with it.

Planned

Further production chains and story chapters beyond “The First Industry”.

Planned

For the Strider: punctures and its one spare wheel, a charging dock at the base, and air you can breathe in its cab.

Planned

The wider ship: the habitation ring, cargo holds and reactor, sealed in this slice.

Planned

Co-op: the colony on every player's screen, specialisations that change how you play, and joining through Steam.

Private testing · Steam page later

Follow the expedition

A private beta for a small group of testers is being set up, and the store page will follow. Until then, every change is written up in the development log, with an RSS feed so you never miss one.

Read the devlogRSS feed

Nova Eridani is in development. Showcase 01 — “Arrival” is in private testing. Screenshots are from the in-development build.