Astroneer early access begins next week

Beautiful space/survival/sandbox game Astroneer is finally hitting early access next week, after showing off its pretty low poly environments and impressively granular terrain destruction for ages. It's got four-player co-op, it lets you reshape procedurally generated planets with a nifty planet-reshaping tool, and when you're bored of ruining one celestial body, you can build a spaceship and fly to another one, and do the same. Here's a new trailer that will make you want it:

Look at all those colours! Lovely stuff. As the announcement post notes, you'll be able to acquire the early access title on, er, Steam Early Access, but also the Windows Store and Xbox One. And when will you be able to acquire it? Why, Friday December 16, giving you the option escape to deepest space over the festive period.

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.