Apparently, it’s Weird Social Sci-Fi Game day today. Cloud Chamber‘s been dated, and now Autelia Ltd. has announced Human Orbit.
Human Orbit is a social simulator, though, rather than being a big online multiplayer thing. Set aboard a remote space station orbiting an alien planet, you take control of a sentient AI who can explore using a simple droid, and you’ve got unfettered access to basically every part of the station and its communications network. You can wander around gathering information, or hack into the Captain’s log, or discover emergent stories… or take control of the station and start playing god. Expand the research labs, study relics, help two crewmates get together; whatever. It’s up to you.
From what I can understand, all of this is driven by advanced AI. That means that there will be emergent stories and procedurally-generated storytelling going on amongst the 100 characters on board the station, and if that’s not enough for you, it’ll also have modding tools and a node-based dialogue editor so you can create your own bits and pieces within the game world.
Members of the team have previously worked on titles ranging from Dead Space 3 through to The Sims 3, so there’s certainly a degree of AAA-talent there. Can the AI match up to the vision, though? We’ll have to wait until 2015 to find out, but it sounds pretty promising.
