Osiris: New Dawn

Osiris: New Dawn is a sci-fi survival and exploration game developed and published by indie studio Fenix Fire Entertainment. Blending the harsh resource-gathering loops of games like Ark: Survival Evolved with a gritty, cinematic visual style heavily inspired by movies like The Martian and Prometheus, the game tasks players with colonizing highly hostile alien worlds.

The premise follows you as a member of the United Nations of Earth (U.N.E.) expedition team. After your spacecraft gets violently pulled out of lightspeed, you crash-land on the desolate, treacherous planet of Proteus II. Stranded lightyears from home, you must repair your gear, manage your suit’s life support, build a pressurized colony, and survive the terrifying, insectoid alien creatures that hunt in the dark.

Gameplay

Osiris: New Dawn plays as a first-person or third-person survival game with a heavy emphasis on hard sci-fi mechanics and atmospheric horror.

Key gameplay mechanics include:

• Harsh Survival: You aren’t just fighting aliens; you are fighting the environment. Players must constantly monitor their oxygen levels, suit pressure, temperature, and hunger. A cracked visor in a toxic atmosphere is just as deadly as a monster attack.
• Modular Base Building: Progression is tied to expanding your footprint on the planet. Players mine resources to construct modular habitats, airlocks, bio-domes, and oxygenators to create a safe, breathable haven away from the elements.
• Vehicles and Mechs: Traversing the massive planet on foot is dangerous and slow. As players advance through the tech tree, they can craft rovers, hoverbikes, massive mining vehicles, and heavily armed combat mechs. Eventually, players can even build spaceships to travel to other moons and planets in the system.
• Alien Combat: The wildlife is aggressive and terrifying. Ranging from swarming spider-like creatures to colossal bosses like the Crab Queen, combat requires utilizing futuristic firearms, laser cutters, and defensive turrets.
• Multiplayer: The game allows players to group up online to build massive collaborative colonies in PvE, or engage in faction-based PvP against other players.

Development and Legacy

The development of Osiris: New Dawn is unfortunately widely regarded as one of the most infamous cautionary tales of Steam Early Access.

When the game originally hit Early Access in September 2016, it was a massive viral sensation. Streamers and players praised its stunning graphics and terrifying atmosphere, leading to millions in initial sales. However, over the next several years, development slowed to a frustrating crawl. The small development team struggled with massive engine overhauls, shifting creative visions, feature creep, and long periods of total radio silence.

In January 2023, to the shock of the community, Fenix Fire abruptly pushed the game out of Early Access to version 1.0 with virtually zero marketing. Fans quickly realized the 1.0 version was missing many previously promised features and was still plagued by severe bugs. This led to massive backlash and accusations from the community that the developers had simply slapped a “1.0” label on an unfinished build to legally abandon it.

Following a brief period of experimental updates attempting to salvage the game’s reputation, Fenix Fire posted a final update in June 2024 officially announcing they were “sunsetting development,” leaving the game in a permanently unfinished state. While it still holds a nostalgic spot for those who experienced its terrifying early days, it is largely remembered today as a game with staggering potential that ultimately collapsed under its own ambition.

Key Features:

• Hard Sci-Fi Survival — Manage your oxygen, suit integrity, and vitals while navigating deadly alien weather and toxic atmospheres.
• Modular Colonization — Build massive, pressurized bases equipped with airlocks, crafting stations, and defensive automated turrets.
• Terrifying Wildlife — Defend yourself against a variety of heavily armored, insectoid monsters that adapt to your presence and hunt aggressively at night.
• Heavy Machinery — Mine resources faster and explore further by constructing rovers, hovercrafts, and heavily armed walking mechs.
• Interplanetary Travel — Leave the surface of Proteus II to explore entirely new planets and moons in the local star system.

Release Platforms:

• Microsoft Windows (PC) — January 18, 2023 (Following Early Access on September 28, 2016)
• (Note: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were heavily advertised during the game’s initial 2016 launch phase, but were quietly canceled as the PC development stalled.)