We’re excited to bring you more about Aphelion, our upcoming cinematic sci-fi action-adventure game. The new trailer, which was unveiled at the ID@Xbox Showcase, reveals Ariane’s fellow astronaut Thomas as the second playable character, and you get a glimpse of the game's stealth sequences, the never-before-seen alien antagonist, new environments, and the in-game spacesuit patch designed in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA).
Watch the trailer now:
Ariane and Thomas have different playstyles and experiences throughout their search for one another after the crash of their ship. Ariane’s gameplay is highly physical; she explores and traverses Persephone, which proves to be much more hostile than anticipated. Thomas is injured from the crash but relies on his ingenuity and observation skills to piece together his surroundings. As both characters explore and investigate, they will uncover secrets and clues as to the planet’s strange conditions and what caused the crash of their ship.
What starts out as a mission compromised from the beginning becomes a deeper journey into the unknown. You must avoid confrontations with this hostile entity by hiding and sneaking in tense, thrilling stealth sequences. Its existence adds more questions to answer for Ariane and Thomas: what is this creature, where did it come from, and why is it stalking us?
As is tradition in spaceflight, each mission has a symbolic patch representing it. Our fictional Hope-01 mission patch – designed by Aphelion’s Artistic Director Arnaud Barbier in collaboration with ESA – bridges the history of space exploration with the speculative future that this story explores. Keep an eye out for a dedicated article on the patch and its design choices!