Blind Descent: settle into a living Martian jungle

The missing crew has left you somewhere to live in Blind Descent. Deep beneath Mars, their abandoned base becomes a shelter you can clear out, improve and use for expeditions into the surrounding jungle. The vegetation has plans for it too: neglect your structures and vines, fungi and creeping organisms start taking over. Finding a human foothold in this place comes with the job of keeping it human.

Pokuch's first-person survival adventure enters Early Access on 2 December for Windows PC through Steam, GOG and the Epic Games Store. You can explore alone or with up to three other players, gathering resources, crafting equipment and searching for the lost pioneers. Its particularly inviting idea is the choice of how to adapt: develop scientific tools that preserve your humanity, or accept mutations that bring you closer to the life around you.

A rescue mission with roots

The expedition begins in 2071, when a team disappears while exploring a newly opened Martian mine. Your descent takes you ten miles underground before an elevator crash leaves survivors cut off from the surface. Beyond the tunnels lies a subterranean world of dense vegetation and strange weather. The search gives all that gathering and building a destination: other people came this way, and you are trying to discover what happened to them.

The press screenshots give the underground an appealingly unruly appearance. White circular habitat buildings sit beside water, surrounded by trees and patches of blue-green ground cover. One structure has a pink growth spreading over its side. Huge rock formations rise behind the canopy. The buildings look small and recognisably manufactured amongst all that vegetation, an inviting visual starting point for an expedition that has lost touch with home.

Maintaining the base puts that meeting of human structures and alien growth into the survival systems. Clear the abandoned site and improve it to protect yourself from the surrounding hazards and lifeforms. There's a useful sense of continuity in making the lost team's shelter your own: the investigation and the practical business of staying alive share a location. The place you're learning about is also somewhere you have to look after.

Study the wildlife, or join it

Your AI assistant accompanies the investigation, while scanning and studying lifeforms supplies knowledge for crafting essential tools. Observing creatures and their interactions belongs alongside collecting resources. That scientific approach is a good fit for a rescue team stranded somewhere unfamiliar: the wildlife is something to understand as well as something to survive. Equipment offers a route through the environment while keeping the explorer biologically human.

Mutation offers another approach, enhancing your abilities as you become part of the ecosystem. The announced choice gives character development a subject that suits the setting. Your tools and your body are both possible means of adapting to Mars. For a player drawn to strange biology, that is a more enticing invitation than simply replacing one crafted weapon with a stronger version: your relationship with the underground can change along with your capabilities.

The visual designs give that biology plenty of character. Red, finger-like plants crowd the ground beneath enormous smooth pink bulbs. Elsewhere, blue upright organisms bristle with tendrils and bright electrical arcs. Familiar trees and grass sit beside those stranger shapes, making the landscapes easy to read at a glance while leaving plenty to examine closely. This is a colourful place to investigate, with shapes that deserve attention before you walk into them.

An expedition still growing

Underground storms, toxic gases and aggressive creatures give exploration its hazards. Cooperation supports gathering resources, building shelters and travelling through the world together, with four players in total. The same premise also supports a solo expedition. If construction and discovery are the attractions for your group, our look at Enshrouded's completed map explores another survival adventure's relationship with the remains of earlier inhabitants. Blind Descent centres its journey on an alien world and the crew missing within it.

December's release begins an ongoing development period. Pokuch plans substantial story additions alongside further biomes, creatures and resources, with the complete storyline reserved for the finished game. The studio tentatively estimates around a year in Early Access and says development could take longer. That makes the initial release most suitable for players who enjoy learning survival systems as a game grows; those choosing primarily for a complete narrative have a clear reason to wait for the full version.

The combination is especially attractive for curious builders. You have a base to restore, unfamiliar organisms to study and a reason to venture beyond the shelter you've repaired. Scientific equipment and mutation give that curiosity two different directions to follow. Building a comfortable foothold among such peculiar plants is an appealing project in itself, and deciding how much of the place to let into your own biology gives the expedition a distinctly stranger edge.