In the near future, Atari will be launching one hell of a reinvention of the arcade classic Asteroids. The company just announced Asteroids: Outpost will be a multiplayer-focused survival game for PC that’s launched through Steam’s Early Access program. That’s a surprise.
Here’s how Atari describes Asteroids: Outpost in its press release:
“Set in the distant future, Asteroids: Outpost thrusts players into a harsh deep space environment. While on a massive, unforgiving asteroid, players face the challenges of exploring the asteroid, collecting resources, scavenging for ore, crafting equipment, and expanding their territory as they build highly customised bases – all while forming alliances and fighting off other players in challenging multiplayer gameplay. Recurring showers of smaller asteroids represent a source of wealth and a threat as players shoot down these incoming projectiles to defend their claims and harvest their components.”
While we don’t have any official screen shots or trailers yet, there is some concept art:
It’s being developed by Salty Games, a new studio in Los Angeles made up of “industry veterans” who have reportedly worked on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Star Trek Online, and others. In most cases, that would be your standard, PR-friendly material for an announcement.
The final line about Salty Games is what made me curious:
“Salty Games is supported with technical and infrastructure support from Arktos Entertainment Group.”
Arktos Entertainment Group might not ring a bell, but how about The War Z, the awful zombie survival game that launched so messed up, it changed its name? Despite The War Z’s myriad problems, Arktos acquired a majority stake in the game’s developer, Hammerpoint Interactive.
That’s who’s providing “technical and infrastructure support” for the new Asteroids? Hmm.
It’s unclear when this will enter Early Access, but Atari says it’s “coming soon”.
Comments
7 responses to “Steam’s Latest Survival Game Comes From An Unexpected Place”
Hmm, I would have been interested if it wasn’t multiplayer-focused, but that makes me wary. I’ve had very samey experiences with other multiplayer survival games, like DayZ, Rust, etc. The ‘crazy for the sake of it’ and ‘arsehole because I can’ types always seem to overrun these games and end up being the dominant theme.
That and I stopped trusting early access games a long time ago. There’s been too many failures and abandoned titles, the only one that’s really done right so far has been Prison Architect (which is being officially released this year, yay!).
I’ll wait to see what this game is like when it comes out, I guess.
The real problem with early access (especially for multiplayer focused games) is, even if the game is worked on and completed, the hype and player base has long depleted by “release”
The real REAL problem is the affiliation with The War Z crew – they are somewhat bogus.
Yes well that’s a definite detractor here, but it’s not the devs that made the war z, just an investor
This may be true, but any affiliation should be met with caution. We’ll wait and see, as the game has a cool look.
It sounds like it’s toeing the line somewhere between Firefall and WildStar which could be an interesting mix but could potentially go horribly wrong as well. I was personally hoping for something like a 3D StarBound or something like EVE online with a heavier focus on asteroid mining and cartels.
They called their studio Salty?! Could that be any more “focus groups have returned favourable scores for it”?
No. No it couldn’t.