If Roy Batty had watched those C-beams glitter by the Tannhäuser Gate through eyes hastily scrapped together from old Sega Genesis parts, his dying memories might have looked something like Massive Galaxy. Aspiring to chart the visual territory claimed by DOS adventure games like Maniac Mansion, the art style barrel rolls between sleek, ethereal space-scapes and grimy cyberpunk metropolises (Metropoles? Metropoli? Cities. Really big cities.). Early art from Massive Galaxy perfectly captures the serene loneliness of gazing out into the dark expanses of space, an opioid vaporwave soundtrack trickling from your headphones.
Drawing ‘heavy inspiration from games like Flashback, Elite, Freelancer and FTL’, Massive Galaxy starts you off on a human inhabited planet. Since no-one goes to space to hang around with more humans though, you’ll soon be able to trade, smuggle, and most importantly: profit. With your newly acquired fat stacks of tasty space cash, you can set a course to travel off-world to ‘dozens of planets, habitats, and other strange space locations’.
Space Piracy…In Space!
The game features turn-based combat, an adventure game style narrative, grid-based space exploration, and the ability to earn money through respectable trading or swashbuckling space piracy. Speaking as a renowned space pirate, I personally can’t wait to indulge in the escapist fantasy of some honest mercantile labour.
Recent updates from the creator’s Devblog show alien habitats, floating cities, and twin sun-baked tropical environments. The game looks to have highly detailed interior areas, packed with quests and jobs, as well as a huge galaxy map with several systems. You can check out a teaser of the game’s universe below.
The acid tinged sci-fi pixel art comes from Kirokaze, and the soundtrack is set to feature the pulsing chiptune of synth-pop duo Mushroomizer. Expect an open beta later this year. You can keep up with Massive Galaxy right here until then.
Metropoles. 😉
Haha, I was genuinely torn for a while. I think Metropoles is the Latin, while ‘metropolises’ is technically correct. Feels like gargling marbles to say though.