For years, man has dreamed about space and what mysteries could be out in the great unknown. A famous line envisioned man’s desire to explore the cosmos; the famous line spoken by Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek goes, “Space, the final frontier.”
Even 60 years later, humanity is fascinated by the idea of what could be out there. At PAX East 2026, we encountered a game that embodied this pioneering, extrasolar spirit called Cosminers from indie developer Gravity Rifters.
For the demo, we walked through the basics of the game, collecting ore, surviving with oxygen, and killing enemies. Using a laser, the player can mine Tritanium Ore. After gathering some ore, small alien creatures, Sporocysts, the game’s beginner monsters, will attack the player and try to disrupt their ability to mine ore. After fighting off the critters and gaining material, we were tasked with building a Living Quarters and an Oxygen Generator in order to survive.
After building the two facilities, we were tasked with sending the remaining ore to the corporation, which lets you watch a rocket get loaded with your extra resources and prepare to take off. Since the game is still in development, the animation for the rocket was not available, but the team naturally confirmed that it would be there later on in future builds of the game. We also got a teaser of the various technology you can unlock in Cosminers, there’s just a lot planned in terms of content.
The entire point of the game is mining for a massive interplanetary mining corporation and while this may seem absurd in and of itself, the game’s humor plays on this too. There’s very much a feeling of disaster waiting to happen, as digging for minerals on a foreign planet riddled with bugs is probably not a good idea. Even the game’s latest “Join the Team” teaser trailer plays this up and has the stereotypical corporate sped-up disclaimer at the end of the video.
Cosminers looks fantastic visually from the basics with resource mining and collection to its various critters you’ll keep battling. All of the environments, designs, and even the creatures feel right out of a 1950s-era sci-fi flick. The retro-futuristic style is reinforced with shiny, detailed structures and overall effects, explosions, and animations all look great. In particular, the gun lasers and resource chunks are very satisfying looking.
After completing the initial mission, we got to see the game’s main tower defense elements. This included how to build the towers and place them relatively in order to fight against the alien horde. Despite setting up multiple turrets, the base was easily overrun, and we eventually got to see the turrets being destroyed.
For a demo, it was somehow satisfying to watch the turrets get destroyed while our defense against the alien horde faltered. While the demo itself felt rather short, conceptually, Cosminers is a very interesting game. The game already has core mechanics in place and looks like it’ll be a lot of fun with friends. Cosminers is definitely a game to watch for survival and builder game maniacs.
Cosminers is in development for Windows PC (via Steam) with a release set for sometime later this year.
