Welcome to your new home, a vast and expansive alien world with undiscovered and potentially dangerous flora and fauna. This unknown space is sure to become more familiar over time as you explore and discover what the environment around you has to offer, as long as you've built up the resources to keep your group of survivors alive, of course. As your base and the needs of the survivors grow, you will need to research and discover new technological advancements in order to visit more distant points of interests, where all manner of things might be discovered.
This unforgiving world will challenge you in an immersive and rich experience, where no two play-throughs will be the same. Let's dive in!
Exploration A key part of Stranded: Alien Dawn is discovering the world around you. Sobrius is a beautiful, temperate biome within this immersive 3D environment, with plenty to discover. Having just crash landed on a completely new world, it's important to get your bearings. While one part of your team sets out to dismantle the escape pod, the second should do what they can to learn more about the immediate surrounding area by observing local alien wildlife, flora and resources.
Nearby trees and plants can provide you with wood, sticks, and potentially food, and conducting in-field research on these flora can help your survivors figure out ways to create farms near your camp. Explore a little further and you may even find parts from other ships that have crash landed across the planet, a sad reminder of your situation but potentially useful to salvage!
If you find yourself without what you need nearby, explore further, who knows what your survivors will discover on their travels and expeditions! While the risk of danger increases as you venture further afield, the rewards may be even greater. It's up to you to decide whether the risk of danger will be worth the trip.
If you decide to start a new game, there are chances you may end up in familiar but different crash sites. So each new game will be a whole new challenge to face!
Passive and aggressive alien wildlife As you explore it's highly likely that you will stumble upon the various creatures that call this world their home. The planet's wildlife comes in all manner of shapes and sizes, and some appear to take form of creatures you may find familiar. Passive creatures that are easier to hunt can be an excellent source of meat and hide, which can then be made into cooked food or new clothing, respectively.
The more aggressive wildlife is an ever-present danger to your survivors. They may block the path to valuable resources, or even attack the survivor’s and/or the base. It's important to gear your crew up so you're ready to face these threats should they appear, or try to lure them back to your base and defeat them with powerful defensive weapons.
Environment and seasons The Sobrius biome is a temperate mountainous area with large meadows, rocky outcrops and lakes. The areas you choose to explore and the decisions you make can have as many setbacks as positive outcomes. The weather might unexpectedly change, making work more difficult, while illnesses and injuries can further debilitate your survivors, by forcing them to rest until they've recovered.
As you keep your survivors alive, build, observe and discover new things, time will pass and the seasons will change. What was once a lush and warm area will eventually turn cold as autumn, and eventually winter, will set in. It's important to plan ahead for when the seasons change, because harsher seasons will bring harsher weather. You don't want to be without a working and persistent heat source (or a proper shelter) when winter rolls around! And suitable clothing for the survivors can mean the difference between life and death.
You'll have to discover how to mitigate the different ways the environment will affect your survivors as you continue to learn and master the game. Stranded: Alien Dawn's mechanics are all designed with the immersive and rich open-world in mind, and most things you discover or encounter while exploring can be broken down into valuable resources for your continued survival.
We hope you've enjoyed this look into the world of Stranded: Alien Dawn. With a fully realised 3D world, there's always something new to discover just beyond the horizon, and each playthrough will be a unique and unforgettable experience. What do you think of what you've read about the game so far? Leave your thoughts in the comments, or join the conversation on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. You can also join the Stranded: Alien Dawn Discord, which is the place to hang out with the rest of the community. Don't forget to also subscribe to the Stranded: Alien Dawn YouTube Channel for future trailers and gameplay videos.
Stranded: Alien Dawn - The Gameplay Basics
Hello Survivors!
Welcome to Stranded: Alien Dawn, a 3D top-down planet survival sim where you'll be managing a group of marooned survivors in an unpredictable environment and making vital decisions to overcome adversity and ensure they survive. Keeping your survivor's alive is going to be tough, do you think you are up for the challenge?
Every decision you make carries the weight of consequences and could have untold effects on the journey of your survivors. In time, you will discover ways to create intricate structures and defensive fortifications, but for now let's ease you into the basics.
The Basics Thrown straight into chaos as your team of survivors crash land onto an unknown alien planet, things will need to be actioned right off the bat. Collecting materials around the crash site and scavenging spaceship debris is a good starting point for your survivors. Resources they scavenge from the crash site on the first day will be vital for survival whilst you get your bearings. Through scavenging they will find items such as emergency rations, first aid kits, scrap metal and even some weapons! Emergency rations are especially important as there will be very little food for your survivors from the get go. Food will be limited at the start, so you'll get them to hunt and explore for ingredients and develop their cooking skills with a whole new set of ingredients.
To survive the first night on this alien world, building a basic camp is crucial for your survivors to have a place to rest and eat so they can continue their scavenging efforts the next day. As if it couldn't get any worse than crash landing on an alien planet, you'll need to build a base from scratch! To set up a basic camp, you'll need sleeping spots, some shelter from the elements, and a campfire to keep your survivor's warm before the sun goes down or you may end up with an unhappy group of survivors!
Everything you build will require raw materials such as scrap metal, sticks, wood, and stone, and you will find these by having your crew salvage, cut and mine what they can find around them. With effort and hard work, your humble beginnings will help your camp grow larger. The scrap metal that was picked up from the spaceship debris will likely be your most used material for the first few days as you use it to build the fundamentals for your base, such as shelter, storage shelves, and stockpiles. From there you should work to discover what your survivors can cook on the campfire, and then look into building a research desk.
Get those stockpiles filled! Constructing stockpiles in your camp will provide a space where your team of survivors can keep all the raw materials they've gathered. Always keeping them supplied will mean you'll never run out of necessary materials, surely! Stack those storage shelves, they'll be useful for storing smaller resources and ingredients that have been gathered to assist you in expanding your base.
Any weapons you find around the crashed pod should be equipped immediately, as you won't be the only ones on this alien planet. Faced with the ever-present danger of hostile fauna, you will need to be prepared for combat at all times! Keep alien wildlife away from your precious resources by building a fence around your base or lure them towards strategically placed traps to slow them down. Don't forget to butcher the meat from the alien wildlife you defeat, as the raw meat and hides are useful resources for cooking and making clothes. Top tip is to never let your guard down in this world, or you may quickly set yourself up for failure.
The Survivors Survivors play the pivotal role in your fight for survival. Take the chance on four members from a diverse group to form your team on this alien planet. In turn the choices you make will play an instrumental role in their success or their downfall.
The survivors you choose at the start of your game will create unique experiences during your playthrough. Survivors have very specific character traits and personalities which you will have to keep in mind to maximize their potential for survival. Make sure you know what each character's strengths, weaknesses and distinct traits are, you can experiment with loads of combinations for a different experience every time!
Survivors have talents within different skill areas, for instance a survivor could possess high skill points in cooking, but zero skill points in combat. They may also be completely indifferent to, or incapable of, performing certain tasks! Each task you assign to your survivors should match well with what they are specifically talented in, to optimise the workload needed to be done each day. By assigning the survivor with the best skill to a task, you'll soon create a cohesive workflow within the camp that'll for sure supercharge your base growth. The survivor's will also appreciate doing things that they excel at and are interested in!
Keep in mind, overworking your survivors comes with consequences! If you don't moderate your survivors appropriately they can have meltdowns. Meltdowns will occur when a survivor's happiness levels drop considerably low, and could ultimately cause them to wreak havoc within your camp. Make sure you're assigning them time to rest and providing them with recreational activities such as a shooting target or a dartboard, to increase their happiness. Giving them a warm and comfortable place to sleep, and a variety of foods to eat, will also keep their happiness from dropping.
The Research Let's talk about that research desk we mentioned earlier. What seems like just an ordinary desk, will actually become an integral part of your survival journey. We recommended getting this set-up in your camp as soon as you can. As the name suggests, this desk is where your survivors will conduct a plethora of research that will open up doors to completely new technologies. Each new mechanism discovered will be sure to facilitate the further development of your base, defenses and lifestyle improvements. Which order you decide to conduct your research and what you prioritise will be completely up you. Your survivors can research a variety of different things, from brewing tea to how to effectively generate and store electricity, so you'll need to make some strategic choices about what's most important to the situation at hand. Some things may be worth researching earlier than not, but the choice is always yours!
Each play-through of Stranded: Alien Dawn will be unique. You'll start off in a new, randomly select crash-location, and which survivors you pick at the beginning of the game will further shape the choices you make and how you manage your group. Don't be discouraged if things go awry! A key part of the game is taking your learnings with you when you begin anew, in an attempt to do better the next time around.
We hope you enjoyed our overview of the game's basic mechanics and what you might expect at the beginning of your playthrough, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
We've got lots more to share with you in the coming weeks so come join the conversations over on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. You can also come hang out with us and the rest of the community over on the Stranded: Alien Dawn Discord and don't forget to subscribe to the Stranded: Alien Dawn YouTube Channel for future trailers, gameplay videos and updates!
Stranded: Alien Dawn Coming October 2022
Brave a new world with Stranded: Alien Dawn, coming to early access this October
At Frontier Foundry we are incredibly excited to announce Stranded: Alien Dawn, a new planet survival game developed by the creators of Tropico 3-5, and Surviving Mars, Haemimont Games.
Landing in Early Access on PC via Steam this October 2022, Stranded: Alien Dawn challenges you to build and manage a camp small group of survivors who have crash-landed on a beautiful but dangerous alien world. Instruct them to gather food and resources, build shelters and perimeters, and protect themselves from hostile alien wildlife, all while managing their phyiscal and mental needs. Forge your story through compelling and immersive strategic gameplay as you make vital decisions to protect your survivors. Get ready to experience an epic and unpredictable journey. How far will you go to survive?
Watch the announce trailer below, and continue reading to learn more:
AN UNFORGIVING WORLD Stranded: Alien Dawn pushes you and your survivors to the brink. Limited resources, unpredictable weather, illness and hostile alien creatures make it hard to establish a foothold on an unforgiving world. The next challenge is never far away, requiring construction of an increasingly robust base using advanced resources and improved defences.
STRANDED SURVIVORS Ensure your group’s physical and mental wellbeing by providing weapons, medicine, and much-needed entertainment. Every survivor has a unique backstory, varying levels of ability in key skills, and both positive and negative traits. Only by improving their skills and maximising their potential will you survive.
AN UNPREDICTABLE JOURNEY In Stranded: Alien Dawn, every playthrough is unique. Experience a journey driven by random story events, alien wildlife threats and adverse weather. There will be setbacks; devise your own innovative solutions to problems and manage multiple crises at the same time. However, actions have consequences and as you strive to plan ahead, you must make difficult choices to shape the story of your survivors, balancing short and long-term outcomes with risk and reward.
MODULAR BASE-BUILDING Design and build your base on an alien world and transform it from simple shelter to high-tech outpost. Protect it with perimeter defences, decorate it with furnishings, introduce automated devices such as defensive turrets, and discover new technology to create your own functioning space pad.
Stranded: Alien Dawn is coming to Steam Early Access in October 2022. We have a lot more to share in the coming weeks, so join us on our Discord, and don't forget to also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
