Steward·Ship

The Overview

Steward·Ship is a virtual reality survival game set deep underground on an alien world. The narrative centers around the titular “stewards,” crew members on a mining vessel called the AV-Undaunted. These stewards are awoken from cryogenic stasis by the ship after a catastrophic failure causes the spacecraft to crash in a subterranean cave, sealing the vessel and its inhabitants inside.

Over the course of the game, the player takes on the role of four individual stewards, each awoken decades or centuries after the previous steward, to continue the work of escaping the alien world they’re stranded on as they slowly uncover the mystery of how they came to be stuck there.

The World

The main narrative of Steward·Ship occurs on the alien planet designated “Foray-12,” a world largely devoid of life but rich in resources and minerals. However, the sprawling tunnel networks under the surface of the planet harbor their own forms of sparse, unique life. Though the native flora and fauna have eked out an existence in the subterranean environment on Foray-12, their interactions with the newly arrived AV-Undaunted and its crew prove the planet to be inhospitable above and below. 

The surface of Foray-12 is a dry, freezing landscape of subzero temperatures, with a mountainous surface both desolate and unforgiving. The planet’s subterranean layers, however, offer much more hospitable regions due to the “Goldilocks zone” formed by the contrasting temperatures of the freezing surface above and the molten core below.

Foray-12 is largely devoid of substantial flora or fauna, with most of the minuscule ecosystem being comprised of fungi, insects, and single-cell organisms. With the introduction of significant plant life due to the first steward, some larger animals arise, but nothing threatening to the player.

Hardware

Steward·Ship is designed to be playable on all current virtual reality headsets, including the Meta Quest 2, the Valve Index, and the HTC Vive. Older headsets, such as the Oculus (now Meta) Rift, as well as lesser-known headsets, such as the Pico Neo 3, are not guaranteed to be supported, or to function properly if they run.

Movement is controlled using the thumbstick on the left controller, moving forwards and backwards by pushing up or down, and rotating the character left and right by pushing the thumbstick in that direction. Additionally, the player can grab objects in the game using the grip buttons on each controller. Finally, the player can use the trigger buttons to make selections, such as on an interface.