Habitat: A Thousand Generations in Orbit is a strategic survival game set in space after humanity has left earth and has been forced to use anything (and I mean ANYTHING) that they can find in space in order to survive. At the moment the game is playable in Steam Early Access. Habitat, at the moment, is only a sandbox game but the developers have plans of including a campaign in the future.

Starting off in the game, you have only a single spaceship, along with a few engineers to assist you in the construction of humanity’s new habitat, hence the name. There is a plethora of debris and parts to add onto your ship, each item having its own usefulness in some way or another.  The game centers around a very well-made physics engine, and every part that is added onto your ship must be accounted for in its support and links to other items. I faced the issue of miscalculating certain loads on each side of habitat, resulting in my ship “spasming” until a chunk explodes and sadly floats into space.

Habitat’s physics engine is where its difficulty, and its brilliance, really sets in. Every part of a ship has a certain weight to it, and every piece has a specific role in building your “dream ship.” Thrusters must be placed correctly and spaced right with the weight and balance of the ship in mind, or else you’ll be sent flailing wildly in a circle. Travelling is a difficulty due to the physics of the thrusters, however it adds an extra amount of strategy needed to design your ship.

Weapons and defences float aimlessly throughout, just waiting for you to put them to a new use. Weapons range anywhere from fully functional tanks to cybernetic Statue of Liberty heads capable of shooting lasers.. And everything in between.  Weapons have a wide variety of uses and capabilities, further adding onto the necessity of designing your ship correctly. Combat is difficult but remains interesting through Habitat’s Physics engine.

Overall, Habitat: A Thousand Generations in Orbit is a game to keep your eye on, even if for the physics engine alone. The game has a large sense of difficulty around it, but remains to stay interesting any entertaining, as frustrating as it may be. The games main fault at the moment is the current lack of content. However, Habitat is still in early access, and is frequently updated along with promises of many more features before the game’s full release.

Habitat: A Thousand Generations in Orbit is set to release in 2015 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Mac, and Linux.