Thank you everyone for having supported the development of Exonautis over the past couple of months, your patience and enthusiasm have been amazing, and I am excited to finally be able to share some more specifics regarding the Demo release.
Exonautis Demo 02 is planned for release at the beginning of May. While the date could be subject to changes, I am hopeful they should be minimal if they occur. Here is a list of important dates to expect till release date:
Exonautis Demo 02 is a complete rework of Exonautis and is actually a fully playable game, here are the main features to expect:
World:
Expansive open world map over 3 km in length with great depths, it will have complex surface and underwater biomes, from elevated canyons to dense jungles, bioluminescent caves, sunlit reefs and abyssal trenches.
18 vast unique biomes with specific mechanics the player will need to learn and adapt to.
Over 50 creatures to discover, scan and interact with.
7 Points of Interest to explore and progress the story through.
Visuals:
Greatly improved water visuals.
Greatly improved lighting and atmosphere.
Greatly improved models, textures and animations.
Modern and slick UI.
Complex character animation system.
Gameplay Main Features:
Advanced inventory and equipment management.
Blueprint driven crafting system divided into main crafting, upgrade crafting and vehicle crafting.
Blueprints to be uncovered in the world and scanned, to unlock new tools, equipment, equipment upgrades, new vehicles and new vehicle upgrades.
Advanced fully modular energy-based building system, with lots of fully interactable interior and exterior modules.
2 unlockable vehicles for both land and ocean exploration that can be customized via vehicle modules to unlock new features such as new features, increased efficiency, greater depth reach and more. The vehicles run on energy that needs to be recharged and have structural integrity that needs to be managed or they will break down.
Advanced creature AI: great improvements to pathfinding allowing for complex wall crawling for land-based AI and complex pathfinding for swimming Ais. Each creature has its own unique behaviour that needs to be learned. Some creatures work in synergy with others, with different sensitivities to the player. Some creatures are blind or do not hear so your way of dealing with them, especially when it comes to predators should vary.
Gameplay Extra Features:
Scannable creatures, biomes and points of interest are unlocked in the Databank with a complex and thorough overview and every one of them.
Charge based tool system.
4 different tools that serve unique gameplay features and drive interaction with the world.
Fully customizable equipment system with upgradable equipment items that branch into various builds to tackle different situations.
Advanced Compass and Customizable Beacon System that allows easy world landmarking.
Story:
After a prologue cinematic, you crash-land on Calliope 4348A: the game opens on high tempo: you are fully submerged in your sinking ship and quickly have to make your way to the surface before your oxygen runs out.
Your mission after is to locate the now abandoned Outpost Kappa to uncover what happened to the crew – Outpost Kappa can also be used as an early base and can be upgraded.
You will have 3 missions that will guide your story progression throughout the Demo for a smooth game progression.
Various Points of Interest can be found throughout the map where many voice logs and documents can be found or downloaded, progressing the story and uncovering more regarding the lore of the world, what happened to the previous expeditions, as well as uncovering an industrial cover up that goes up to the highest echelons, and a secret alien race that breaks the mind of those who interact with it.
Voice Logs can be found scattered throughout the world where you learn about the crew members from past expeditions and their adventures on the planet.
Documents can be downloaded from terminals at various sites to uncover classified information regarding the true nature of the previous expeditions and learn more about the true motives behind your journey to Calliope 4348A.
Game Info:
Exonautis Demo 02 is expected to run better than the first demo – benchmark 50 fps on ultra settings on a GTX 3060 – with graphical settings heavily increasing the performance further if lowered.
Fully functional multi slot saving system.
Fully keybindable input system, with mouse inversion, screen mode and resolution adjustments.
Main language will be English, with text translations into 6 other languages available: French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese.
Demo will be available to play on Windows only and on Steam only.
This is a very complex project and there is still a lot of work to be done ahead of release, so delays might occur, but I am hopeful they should be kept to a minimum. If you haven’t done so already don’t forget to wishlist the game on Steam as it helps with its visibility, as well as sign up for playtesting by joining our discord server now to get your hands on the demo early when playtesting begins at the end of the month. Thank you so much for the continuous support everyone and expect more exciting updates soon.