The upcoming sci-fi narrative exploration game Event[0] by indie studio Ocelot Society has a release date, as announced today via press release. It will be released on Steam and Humble Store on September 14th.

Set in a retrofuture inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris and Brave New World, Event[0] is a game about building a personal relationship with a machine using natural language. As a player, your only companion is an insecure and unstable AI entity named, Kaizen, with whom you interact by typing messages on computer terminals throughout a desolated spacecraft. The game’s multi-layered story emerges organically as players communicate with Kaizen, freely explore 3D environments, gather information and solve hacking puzzles. Each player will enjoy a unique gameplay experience based on the way they choose to communicate with Kaizen, who can procedurally generate over two million lines of dialog and demonstrates a variety of different personalities, and responses, influenced by human input. 

As in any relationship, there can be gratitude, disappointment or jealousy, and Kaizen reacts differently depending on its mood and the situation at hand. The ship, Nautilus, is essentially the AI computer’s body, and reacts to Kaizen’s mood by making different sounds, which can give the player subtle yet valuable clues. By working through the fears and anxieties of a virtual companion players can ultimately find the way back to Earth—while unraveling the cryptic history of the ship and the 1980s society from which it emerged.

The game is built in Unity Engine 5, and I actually saw it at Gamescom (a full preview will come down the line). Due to the fact that you have to communicate with Kaizen via terminal, it feels a lot like the old-school text adventures, but it features fully rendered environments that look quite great.

Incidentally, Kaizen is really one creepy computer. You can check out a few new screenshots below.