Teotl Studios and Grip Digital's The Solus Project has been moving along the process of Early Access on Steam and the Game Preview program on Xbox One with startling success. The developers have been consistently releasing new content for the game, and the latest expansion opens up an all new area for gamers to explore.
Part of the details of the new The Highpoint Expansion have been rolled out over on the official Xbox website, where they explain that the new content takes players off the shores of the alien planet and up higher and deeper into its environment for both Steam and Xbox One users. Each new expansion is free, and this latest one is no exception to the rule.
The new expansion is very different from the first part of The Solus Project, where early on it was about surviving the wreckage when landing on the planet. Rhe new update is more about exploring the alien world and discovering some of the artifacts and hidden cultural meanings tucked away into the foreign structures.
The game itself is more of an exercise in exploration and adventuring, giving gamers who want a more slowed-down and story-oriented experience something to chew on. Think of it like Prometheus meets Mission To Mars, just without the sucky parts of both movies.
The plot itself centers around humans looking to colonize a new planet, and the one planet they happened upon could potentially support human life. They first have to explore the planet and find out what happened to the civilization that came before. The name of this expedition was called “The Solus Project”, hence the name of the game, The Solus Project.
Upon arriving within the sector of the planet, things go bad and the ship is destroyed; the only surviving member of the expedition is the player character, who must complete the mission and continue to survey and explore the planet for any possible hostile/friendly/deceased life.
The newest expansion adds anywhere between two and three hours of gameplay to the Unreal Engine 4-powered first-person adventure title. This marks release three of five. According to the developer roadmap on the Early Access page, the next expansion for The Solus Project will add an addition a hour's worth of gameplay, and the final expansion will be scheduled to release in June.
According to Teotl Studios, they wanted to have a fast and aggressive Early Access run for the game, hoping to avoid the possibility of languishing in the development section for too long.
The development studio may be small, but they've had plenty of experience with previous releases like the Unreal Engine 3-powered puzzle game, The Ball. In fact, The Solus Project is somewhat of a canonical story-sequel to the mythos that was introduced in The Ball.
The game is still being optimized and fitted to run right-proper on both PC and Xbox One. They've managed to hit some solid milestones in the FPS stability department, but they still have a ways to go. For instance, language localization is still missing for certain regions and there are still some bugs and kinks to work out for compatibility purposes.
You can pick up a digital copy of The Solus Project right now on Steam Early Access, or pick up a digital copy from the Xbox One's Game Preview section. As mentioned, you can look for the first-person adventure title to launch in full this June.
