Waymaker

Past the last jump route, the map is blank.

Humanity has only been settling space for a generation. The Company pays independent scouts to go in first: survey the systems, stake the claims, name whatever they find. The convoys will follow your charts. You fly a second-hand ship, with your onboard AI and your debts for crew.

Fly it by hand. A real cockpit, six-axis flight and true inertia, with flight assist when you want it. Thread an asteroid field, slip deep inside a giant asteroid, jump from one system to the next.

From orbit to the ground, no loading screens. Pick a spot on a planet and dive. The atmosphere ignites around the hull, you punch through the clouds, mountains rise to meet you, and you set down wherever you like.

Worlds that make sense. Deserts, primordial worlds and their islands, ice sheets, lava fields, oceans you can dive into. Rivers run down from the mountains, caves open at the foot of the slopes, the weather follows the climate and the seasons follow the orbit. Every plant and creature lives where the climate suits it: no whales in a lagoon.

Leave your seat. Get up, even in flight, walk down the corridor, cycle the airlock, step off the ramp. Cross an asteroid in low gravity on magnetic boots, or a world no one has ever set foot on. Take the rover or the bike, explore a wreck, board the big ships.

Do what scouts do. Scan every species, record its niche and habits, fill your field journal. Mine the rock, haul back ore, craft and upgrade your gear.

Fly together. A friend takes the jump seat, a turret or the rover’s wheel.

Waymaker is in development, on its own engine. Everything shown here is playable today; the list below separates what already exists from what is still to come.

Playable today (pre-alpha)

• Cockpit flight: six axes, inertia, flight assist, mouse or gamepad.
  
• Procedurally generated star systems, linked by jump routes.
  
• A seamless descent from space to the ground, on real-scale planets with a curved horizon.
  
• Five world types: desert, primordial (with islands), ice, lava, ocean.
  
• Terrain, rivers, lakes and caves; weather and seasons.
  
• Plants and creatures placed by climate, altitude and water.
  
• On foot: aboard your ship, even in flight, on asteroids and on planets; diving on ocean worlds.
  
• The rover and the bike, a wreck to explore, generated ships you can walk around.
  
• The scanner, the binoculars, the field journal, mining, crafting and upgrades.
  
• Contracts, races, and combat against ships and turrets.
  
• Online co-op.

Planned

• The story: sixteen missions, and old beacons no registry knows about.
  
• The full field journal and Steam achievements.
  
• New worlds, toxic or crystal, and new species.
  
• A fleet and capital-ship battles.
  
• And, at the journey’s end, a place to settle down.