Team17 has announced that the Planet Alpha release date will be September 4. Planet Alpha is an atmospheric sci-fi indie puzzle platformer that will be releasing on Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Switch. To coincide with the announcement there’s a trailer showing off a little bit of what to expect.
Team17 is best known as the studio behind the divisive Yooka-Laylee and the classic Worms franchise, but they’re also an indie games label. They’ve published the likes of Overcooked, Yoku’s Island Express, and now, Planet Alpha a sci-fi puzzle platformer developed by Denmark-based Planet Alpha ApS. The Planet Alpha release date has just been announced, and we’ll be able to play the game when it comes out on September 4 on all major platforms.
While it bills itself as a puzzle platformer, there’s something awfully tense about Planet Alpha, which I suppose is where the “atmospheric” part comes in. In the trailer that was published as part of the release date announcement, we see the player character running and jumping through strange, alien fields and dark, glowing caverns, away from extraterrestrial drones and walkers that wouldn’t look out of place in a War of the Worlds adaptation.
It’s all rendered with 3D graphics, but is itself a 2D platformer, which adds a lot of visual depth without making it difficult to navigate the space. This also adds a feeling of powerlessness that contributes to that tension — being unable to make full use of the sprawling landscapes seems like it’ll make you feel on-edge and restricted, but in a good way that’ll compliment the atmosphere.
This is all speculative, as we currently only have trailers to work off of, but we’ll find out how it all pans out when Planet Alpha releases on September 4 for Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
