Today Interactive Fate and their publisher team Iceberg Interactive announced they’re working on a new game, fronted by Teleglitch: Die More Edition writer Edvin. It’s called ‘Shortest Trip to Earth’ and it’s got all the bells and whistles of conventional sci-fi games with a layer of idiosyncrasy you’ll be hard pressed to find in other titles. Sure, it looks like a rehashed FTL at first glance but once you delve into the abundance of information offered on the Steam page, it starts to paint a picture of awe.

Shortest Trip to Earth is all about governing a ship through the vast expanse. Using a combination of a peachy ship and a diligent crew, embark on a journey through space. Along the way, you’ll encounter colorful characters who further the story and lore of the universe. The headlining features include a procedurally generated galaxy, detailed ship customization, real-time space battles complete with onboard conflict and hundreds upon hundreds of random events and scenarios.

The game is being developed by four devs who collectively identify themselves as “gamers, artists, nerds, philosopher anarchists, hippies, capitalists, atheists, spiritualists and sceptics”, an interesting combo. Edvin (the lead developer) hopes to expand their team as Shortest Trip to Earth releases. In a steam discussion post, Edvin talked about how they’ve been working on the game for 4 years (with a draft existing in 2010) and the outlandish way the game came into fruition:

“The idea sparked after having played the Battlestar Galactica board game. I had been thinking about Oregon Trail-ish game mechanics for a while, but wasn’t sure about what kind of vehicle the players should be at the wheel of. I considered a gigantic robot or a tank, but finally settled on massive spaceships.”

Collectively they’re known as Interactive Fate, a subsidiary of Iceberg Interactive who is known for publishing countless games, including Killing Floor 2, Starpoint Gemini, Endless Space, Rising Storm 2 and countless others. In other words, Shortest Trip to Earth is in safe hands.

Shortest Trip to Earth has been in public existence for almost a year now but only in the form of early early access gameplay videos on Youtube. While it’s still unclear when we can expect to be jetting across a procedural galaxy Steam has listed the date as 2018 with the announcement trailer affixing the date to ‘coming soon’. Meanwhile, you could check out FTL or No Man’ s Sky to scratch your interstellar itch.