Cover Corp have revealed prototype gameplay for their Hololive vtuber metaverse survival sandbox game HoloEarth.
The Hololive Alternative multimedia project was announced back in February of this year, and led to serialized manga and short stories featuring the Hololive vtubers. While the girls have had Easter eggs and even full blown games inspired by them (ranging from fan-games to Tsugunohi‘s developer creating Evil God Korone) this is seemingly the first game with the direct involvement of Cover Corp.
HoloEarth was previously announced as a metaverse project, a virtual space created by a newly formed in-house development team. This would be made up of several sub-projects- including a communication lobby, an avatar creation system, and a sandbox game. The latter promised players being able to battle monsters, building a home, and every player having “a new story to tell.”
All of these sub-projects would then become one singular service in the long-term. The service would initially only support PC, but mobile support would come later. The whole affair would have a one to two year development time, with alpha tests, beta tests, and early access considered.
Now the first gameplay of HoloEarth has been revealed- albeit a prototype with the bare minimum functionality- complete with commentary from Shirakami Fubuki, Ookami Mio, and content director A-Chan. It was also noted that such an early prototype is not typically shown, though the graphics seem decent enough. Reactions to the prototype by fans and Hololive talent will help direct the project.
True to the earlier description, the game appears to be some form of sandbox survival game (popular with streamers such as the Hololive girls), in a natural open world with fantasy elements such as mysterious structures and slime cube monsters.
Players can seemingly gather resources from the land and defeated foes for crafting, and cook food while camping to heal damage. Players can also construct buildings, use emotes to express themselves (including break-dancing), and a photo mode.
The final game promises to have more areas and creatures, a cooking system, skill system, and more features. Suggestions and features are also being taken from comments on Twitter and YouTube, along with applications to work on the project.
You can find the gameplay debut below (English subtitles are available via closed captioning).
