Earth 9000 Gets Launch Access Codes For A Full Release

Earth 9000 leaves the Early Access phase and is now available with a host of new features on Steam, Itch.io and soon, the Humble Store.

A brighter, better earth? Of course, it is! Earth 9000 is a static top-down shooter, that is, it’s a bit like Asteroids in that you have one stationary stage, but the enemies in the game are the opposite and of the bullet-hell variety.

Previously in Early Access, it’s had an overhaul with tighter mechanics, deeper gameplay and a driving difficulty. Here’s a list to verify that claim:

• Art Overhaul – When an alien ship dies, it looks, feels and sounds great. More dynamic debris clouds that are more reactive to your shots, blinding lights of explosions, basically everything in the game got a huge boost to its visuals.  
• New Alien Ships – The Drone Hub, Missile Corvette, Cruise Missile and Heavy Fighter joined the enemy ranks and can appear in any attack against Earth. And don’t forget the Battlecruiser and Rogue Planet.  
• Unexpected Events – Like mini-boss waves that usually result in your destruction, if you survive you’ll be rewarded.
• New Ship Art– The Alien Menace started as rough outlines for a simplistic minimalist style and have now evolved into beautiful versions of their old selves.
• Time Compression – Want to play at double speed cause you’re a maniac? Now you can.
• Wave Skip – After a defeat you can start from scratch or skip close to your best wave
• Pickups – New pickups were added to boost your research gains, planetary health, shields, ammo and a spikey little problematic hazardous pickup that makes collecting something you need to pay attention to. 
• Achievements – 20+ achievements, some progression based of course, a couple for the mild grinding and a few that you’ll have to put a little effort into.
• Steam Leaderboards – We’re tracking kills and best wave on steam for the season…
• Painted Backgrounds – As every version of Earth occupies a different dimension, space in those different versions looks very different. Dozens of dynamic painted backgrounds have been added. Not only do they look pretty but they add to the entire theme of visually overwhelm.
• Tips – It’s not a puzzle game, you should haven’t to figure everything out. The new tip screens give you the guidance you need to get selecting those different weapon builds and playstyles.
• Enemy Info – When a new potential ship type becomes available to the alien menace, you’ll receive an alert to tell you about their behavior and what to expect. 
• And More – Those are the headline changes the game went through during Early Access, but of course that wasn’t all. Rapid development like this brings with it tons of bug fixes, balance changes and quality of life changes.

The developers, Secret Forest Games, state that just because it’s out of Early Access, it won’t mean there’ll be no updates. New difficulty modes will be released as well as varying challenges. Earth 9000 has plenty of updates on the way.

But this isn’t a text-based game, if you want to see it in action, you’ll have to watch the trailer below:

You can pick up Earth 9000 on Steam, Itch.io, and it’ll soon be releasing on the Humble Store.