Narrative-driven space city building game Ixion sets you floating across the stars in search of a new home for humanity. Travelling aboard the giant Tiqqun space station, you must manage your resources and supplies as you probe planets to determine their viability, mine resources from nearby systems, and attempt to keep your crew happy through power and food shortages. At Gamescom, producer Christian Woolford spoke to PCGamesN about some of the post-release features the team hopes to bring to Ixion.
“Photo mode is definitely something we want,” says Woolford, “it will definitely be a post-release update, not a DLC, but we want to make sure that there are filters and camera angles and the rest of it. So that’s absolutely on the slate.” With just how stunning space looks in Ixion, as well as the detailed architecture both inside and outside your space station, players will certainly welcome the opportunity to grab artsy snaps of their creations.
Also in the works, Woolford adds, is an endless mode. The main campaign of Ixion is very narratively driven, and sees the player taking charge of a colony ship searching for a new home for humanity after the accidental destruction of the moon (oops) caused widespread devastation and climate impact across Earth. With the planet left barren and devoid of life, the Tiqqun ship is soaring across the solar system and beyond hoping to find viable planets that can support human life.
Players will be left fending for themselves with the likes of insect farms and algae farms being core sources of food production aboard your interstellar city. Woolford emphasises the focus on narrative: “Story is really, really important to the game, what we hope is one of the unique elements of the game. Hopefully when you get to the closing stages of the game and, whether or not you reach your ultimate goal of finding a habitable planet, you will feel a real connection to the station and the survivors that you’ve dragged through the chapters of a challenge.”
Woolford says that he knows players are likely to want options to continue after experiencing the story first time through, however. “We know that players will want an endless mode – it’s something that we’re looking at.” Our preview glimpse of Ixion was certainly very promising, with hints of 2001: A Space Odyssey – especially seeing the station’s helpful AI program, Eden – Woolford notes Ad Astra and The Expanse as other points of inspiration, with a very human focus. “We’re absolutely taking notes from the challenge and that feeling of having to manage a population and feel responsible for that world.”
The Ixion release date is currently set for November 16, but in the meantime you can check out the best space games on PC to satisfy that intergalactic craving. We’ve also got plenty of the best strategy games for you to browse, if you’d rather keep your feet on terra firma.
Additional reporting by Richard Scott-Jones.