Chinese game developer Studio Surgical Scalpels officially revealed its new title, 'The Wandering Earth: The Last Full Moon', at the Bilibili First Look event held in Shanghai, China on the 1st. The game is a single-player third-person shooter following a linear narrative, featuring hard sci-fi and warfare as its primary themes.
'The Wandering Earth: The Last Full Moon' is developed under a direct license of Liu Cixin's original novella rather than the 'The Wandering Earth' film series. Author Liu Cixin is also participating as a supervisor for the game, personally checking key content in development and providing input.
Liu Cixin is a prominent Chinese sci-fi author who gained global recognition through works such as '3 Body Problem' and 'The Wandering Earth'. '3 Body Problem' became the first work by an Asian author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel and was also adapted into a Netflix original series. 'The Wandering Earth' was similarly adapted into a film in China, establishing itself as one of Liu's signature IPs.
Studio Surgical Scalpels' connection to 'The Wandering Earth' dates back to 2019. Having independently created a poster and video to mark the release of 'The Wandering Earth' film at the time, the developer subsequently kept exploring possibilities for developing a game based on Liu Cixin's work. Discussions between the two parties picked up in earnest when Starry Dome began searching for a game development partner for 'The Wandering Earth' in 2024.
Game development did not begin immediately in 2024. The early phase involved proposing and reviewing development directions and ideas to assess collaboration feasibility, with an agreement on the core direction reached late last year. Full-scale development commenced after signing a formal contract in March this year. Although it is currently in early development, an internally playable build has been established.
Developer Studio Surgical Scalpels is a Chinese game studio behind 'Boundary', a multiplayer FPS set in space. Featuring 5v5 combat among space-suited players in zero-gravity environments, the development team explained that the experience gained in spatial environments and hard sci-fi through 'Boundary' influenced their taking on this project.
'The Wandering Earth: The Last Full Moon' expands on the event of pushing the Moon out of Earth's orbit—which was mentioned relatively briefly in the original work—into a full storyline. It is set during the 'Braking Era', an early phase of the roughly 2,500-year 'Wandering Earth Project' to move Earth itself to a new star system.
The story takes place in Year 46 of the Braking Era, as humanity enters the final stage of its plan to detach the Moon from Earth. The protagonist, an engineer participating in the project, gets swept into the center of events after becoming caught in an attack near the Moon. Throughout this process, the conflict between the 'Earth Faction' and 'Spaceship Faction' featured in the original story will also be covered as a major narrative element.
In terms of gameplay, players can utilize futuristic firearms, tactical gear, space vehicles, and robots. Various systems focused on shooting and interacting with the space environment are also being developed, such as using exoskeleton mechanical arms to handle heavy objects or equipment difficult for humans to maneuver.
In particular, the development team is testing a 'multi-floating crosshair' system that does not strictly lock the crosshair to the center of the screen like traditional shooters. The concept separates the character's facing direction, weapon aim direction, and screen center to more naturally convey character movement and the physical sensation of space in low-gravity or zero-gravity environments.
The development team explained that even with a hard sci-fi emphasis, making the controls inherently difficult is not the goal. They stated that new systems are being developed based on whether they can deliver a better experience in actual gameplay, rather than merely trying to look different from existing shooters.
