$14.99Rodina A solar system with no loading screens
Fly a seamless solar system, land anywhere, fight aliens on foot and in your ship, and make the inside of your vessel your own.
Is Rodina worth it?
Rodina is worth it if…
- you want a solar system you can cross without a single loading screen
- you like exploring first and fighting second, at your own pace
- you enjoy stories told through logs, emails and things you find in debris fields
- you care about atmosphere and music more than cutting-edge graphics
- you don't mind that there is still a limited amount of things to do
Screenshots
The whole solar system, seamless
There are no loading screens here, not even when a new game starts. The solar system is full scale and completely procedural: four planets bigger than Earth, fifty major asteroids, tens of thousands of smaller ones, and one enormous star. You point your ship somewhere and fly there, and the trip is part of the game. Point at a planet and you enter its atmosphere as a fireball, then have to actually land. Gravity changes with every body, so hopping on a small asteroid can send you drifting off into space until your jump jets bring you back. It is the kind of place where you burn up on your first three landing attempts and enjoy it.
Fighting Xenos, on foot and in the void
The solar system is not empty. Half a dozen kinds of Xeno aliens hold bases and mines, interiors that are laid out, built and decorated procedurally, so no two are the same. Inside, it is first-person shooting: your blaster, missiles and powerups against whatever is waiting. Outside, alien ships come in several types, and your own ship carries five weapon types, including heat-seeking missiles. The flying has a Newtonian feel, less fighter plane and more three-dimensional drift and dodge. Combat is fast-paced and takes real skill, and the difficulty ramps at a fair pace.
A ship that is actually yours
You do not just pilot your ship, you live in it. The interior is fully customizable: rearrange the layout, place furniture, work the consoles, and set the ship to cruise so it keeps flying while you walk around inside and watch the stars through the holoscreens. You can share your designs with other players too. It turns long flights into something to look forward to, and plenty of hours go into trying new layouts just for the sake of it.
Questions you might have?
How is the story told?
Through books, emails, logs and datasticks you salvage from debris fields, and through encrypted communications you have to decrypt yourself. Some story arcs are hidden well enough that you will only find them by deciphering clues. The writing is strong and surprisingly funny in places, and the central story is a heartbreaker. You can also skim it and just fly around shooting things, the game does not force either.
Does it have mods?
Yes. An open scripting system lets you create, install and remove mods without much fuss, so the game can grow beyond what the developer has built so far. If you like tinkering, that is another sandbox on top of the sandbox.
What about the music?
There is over an hour of dynamic soundtrack written by John Robert Matz, an award-winning composer, and it is one of the game's strongest points. Each planet has its own theme, and the music does a lot of the work of making empty, alien landscapes feel like places worth lingering in.
How much content is there right now?
Less than the solar system promises. The core loop is exploring, fighting, salvaging and refitting your ship, and once you have seen a few planets and bases you will have touched most of what exists. It is an ongoing project by a single developer, so come for the scale, the atmosphere and the story rather than an endless list of activities.
