tools to go a-robbing, but the shutters
lock and you’re cut off from your ship.
You’re then contacted by someone
who starts to subject you to all
manner of trials, and a routine mission
quickly turns into a fight for survival.
You soon discover that the wrecked
ship is filled with all kinds of vicious
and monstrous creatures that willwork together to try and kill you. But
that’s not all, there’s no oxygen on
the Carpathian so you need to rely
on your space suit to stay alive. Your
torch, air, health and ammo are all
things that use different resources
which need constant replenishment.
Thankfully, the game features a full
crafting system that allows you to
upgrade your suit and weapons with
components and schematics found
throughout the ship. “I like having
RPG-type systems in the game but
without statistics,” says NerdRage
Studios founder James Stone. “It’s
more about you upgrading your
character to survive better.”In the dark
Stealth is your key to survival, but it’s
not just the risk of being spotted that
you’ll need to be concerned with. Later
in the game you’ll come across certain
enemies that are able to plunge you
into darkness by firing off an EMP field.
The only thing you’ll see is its eyes as
it moves around, but when it stops you
won’t be able to see it, and it hunts
you using the sounds you emit and
the smells you give off. You can cut
off your odorous trail by using objects
around you, such as crates and
moving behind doors, though. “You
can avoid combat entirely by utilising
stealth,” says Stone. “The idea is that
combat is supposed to be difficult.
I want it to be difficult. [Xenosis] is
not a typical ‘run and gun and mow
everything down’ game. Bullets are
limited, resources are limited.”
It might seem like a fairly simplistic
title at first, but we get the feeling
that Xenosis is hiding a lot under its
hood, and we’re sure it’ll have more to
reveal before its launch this year. QAbandoned starships drifting through
space are rarely places people want
to visit of their own accord, but for
the protagonist of this indie title it’s
exactly where they want to be... or at
least so they thought.
Xenosis is an atmospheric sci-fi
twin-stick survival shooter in which
you play a deep-space salvage
hunter. You’ve happened across the
abandoned starship, Carpathian,
which was launched from Earth 50
years ago in an effort to colonise the
outer reaches of the solar system.
It’s not the type of ship you’re usually
interested in, but at least the data
core inside will fetch a pretty penny on
the black market.
The ship comes alive as you step on
board with your trusty pistol and someXenosis takes its inspiration from games like Alien Breed, Dead Space and Super MetroidBELOW You will
have to scavenge
ship parts to
keep your life
support systems
functional.
Xenosis:
Alien Infection
Staying alive is harder than it
looks in this retro-inspired
survival game
Adam Bryant
PUBLISHER NERDRAGE STUDIOS DEVELOPER NERDRAGE STUDIOS
ETA 2019“It hunts you
using the sounds
you emit and
the smells you
give off”
PREVIEW
More Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 035