Image & Form has announced they’re following up the massive success of SteamWorld Dig with a far-flung spinoff known as SteamWorld Heist. Instead of another subterranean platformer, SteamWorld Heist takes the series to outer space as a turn-based strategy game:
Taking place some time after SteamWorld Dig, a cataclysmic event has shattered the planet and forced its population into steam-driven spaceships. It’s a robot-eat-robot world out there, and water is desperately hard to come by. Heisting other ships and bases – bad guys fortunately, the lot of them – is their only way to remain in operation.
“Heist isn’t a sequel to SteamWorld Dig,” CEO Brjann Sigurgeirsson said. “It’s set in the same world and the cowbots are still the heroes. But a lot has happened to SteamWorld since then, and we want to make a game that is radically different. Partly because we really wanted to make a turn-based strategy game, but also because it felt like a clever move. The obvious follow-up would’ve been Dig 2; we wanted to surprise instead.”
SteamWorld Heist will be released in Spring 2015 for “all platforms,” but don’t expect a simultaneous release. Image & Form has posted an FAQ on their official website stating that a staggered release schedule for each platform is currently being planned. SteamWorld Dig originally debuted on the 3DS before moving on to Steam, the PS4/Vita, and the Wii U.
