Darkout: a sci-fi sandbox survival game inspired by Minecraft, Terraria and the dark

The night is dark and full of terrors, as you'll doubtless agree if you've played Minecraft or Terraria at all. Night is the time to shut the door and go to sleep, or (if you're stranded in the wilderness) to dig a hole and stay there until the monsters go away. Darkout - inspired by Minecraft and Terraria - takes things a step further, by smothering an entire alien planet in suffocating gloom. Stranded on a Metroid-ish world, you'll have to use light to your advantage to fend off an army of shadowy creatures - and that's in addition to the more typical survival business of gathering resources. The intriguing Darkout's currently in paid beta, and it's now available on Desura . Also, it features jetpacks.

If you're tempted - it was the jetpacks, wasn't it? - be warned that there's no demo to sink your mandibles into first, and that you'll need a spare £9.99. As it's in beta and currently lacks tutorial/control information in-game, you may also find this page worth a read. But first, turn the lights out and watch the following video.

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.