RocketWerkz is a new studio founded by DayZ creator Dean Hall and their first game is Icarus, a Player vs Environment title in where players take limited-time drops onto a broken planet in search of rare exotic matter, which fuels advanced tech and player progression in the game’s gritty sci-fi universe.

In order to build up more hype for the game, the studio released a new documentary style trailer, which you can and should watch below, explaining how the game works and how easy things can turn on you. While it is lengthy, 8 minutes or so, it is really good, so do give it a go.

RocketWerkz has a multi-year plan for Icarus, adding chapters with additional playable content and lore. The first chapter, The First Cohort, begins in Icarus’ most Earth-like biomes before the game expands to more alien and threatening zones.

“Icarus was humanity’s greatest mistake,” explains game creator Dean Hall. “It was to be a second Earth, the first planet we terraformed and colonised in space. Unknown to us the exotic matter reacted and corrupted the planet’s terraforming, but once we realised their true value the exotics sparked an interstellar gold rush. A great survival game experience needs to provide tension and dread, and a sense of people overcoming extreme odds in extreme conditions, a failed terraforming scenario lets us mix familiar elements that players resonate with alongside unsettling alien elements.

What makes the game unique is that each run could last for a few hours, or could go on for weeks giving you more time to explore and hopefully find all the minerals you could want.

“Taking a session-based approach gives us the flexibility to combine hand-crafted survival tools with advanced tech trees, while offering a big variety of missions, adding gameplay variations and expanding the game for years to come. All while your characters constantly progress and evolve.”

The documentary trailer is cool, but Dean knows that folks want gameplay. That is why the first gameplay will start airing on Twitch at 10am on Friday April 9.

“We know that players really want to see the game in action next,” says Hall. “So rather than another gameplay-oriented trailer, we plan to start regular developer streams on Twitch and just start playing it with our community.”

For now, you can enjoy some screens from the game.