When will DON’T NOD’s sci-fi adventure, Aphelion, arrive? What do we know about it? GameWatcher examines all the available information.
The developer behind Life is Strange, Lost Records, Jusant, and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is back with a sci-fi adventure where survival is the buzzword.
Astronauts Ariane and Thomas crash-land on the frozen planet Persephone, a planet discovered on the edge of our solar system. Separated by the crash, Ariane must venture forth across the harsh landscape to find a wounded Thomas, facing treacherous climbs, deadly weather, and a stalking threat.
The adventure will alternate between Ariane and Thomas, with Ariane’s sections more action-heavy, relying solely on her exploration tools and wits to tackle the challenges Persephone presents.
It’s quite the departure from previous DON’T NOD games in setting, but carries the hallmarks of all its third-person storytelling prowess with climbing mechanics akin to those found in Jusant.
So when can we get a grip on the frozen handholds of Persephone? Let’s see what we know so far.
Aphelion Release Date
Aphelion is scheduled for release in Spring 2026 on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.
Aphelion Gameplay
DON’T NOD has dabbled in sci-fi of differing shapes and sizes over the years. From the theremin-soundtracked Remember Me to the time-twisting Life is Strange series, but this time, the developer is going a bit closer to hard sci-fi with Aphelion, even collaborating with the European Space Agency to get certain aspects of its fiction feeling a bit more factual.
And sci-fi can be fascinating with factual structures. Grounded storytelling just beyond the reach of our present-day knowledge. Aphelion flips the calendar 34 years into our future, and Earth is uninhabitable. Handily, a ninth planet has been discovered in our solar system, named Persephone (sorry, Pluto, it ain’t you), and it might offer a last hope for humanity.
The ESA dispatches the Hope-01 scientific mission to Persephone, but I guess budgets haven’t improved in the future because just two astronauts, Ariane and Thomas, are sent out to survey the planet.
Probably for the best, as the Hope-01 mission goes horribly wrong, leaving the astronauts stranded on Persephone on separate sides of it. Unable to communicate through technology, they try to make their way to each other, uncovering the secrets of the planet, of which there are many, because they knew very little going in.
And so we get our story structure. The game is split into chapters, with Ariane and Thomas getting their own sections set over the space of a day or so. Thomas is injured in the crash, and this affects his gameplay compared to Ariane. DON’T NOD describes Thomas’ sections as more traditional DON’T NOD gameplay, with a greater focus on narrative and investigation. There’s less to do in Thomas’ sections, but will reportedly take up less of your time.
But this is clearly Ariane’s show for the preview. If Thomas is to be the narrative ringmaster, then Ariane is the high-flying acrobat, getting into perilous situations and dicing with danger far more frequently. It’s her opening chapters we get to play in this preview.
Aphelion: Persphone’s Frosty Reception
We first take control of Ariane in the aftermath of the crash, and this acts as a loose tutorial for her traversal mechanics. Clearly inspired by the clambering of previous DON’T NOD game Jusant (which is great, by the way), Aphelion features a manual grab action as you climb, so if you vault across a gap onto another handhold, you’ll need to time your button tap right to ensure Ariane doesn’t plummet to her death.
Climbing could have been meandering busywork to get to the next action sequence, but a little tweak like this keeps it as an active part of the experience. It also adds a little tension during certain sections. There’s a verticality to some climbing sections that feels a little dizzying, and the unknown nature of Persephone keeps you on your toes.
There’s more to it than climbing, though, as the opening section showcases the tools at Ariane’s disposal. A grappling hook certainly comes in handy when climbing to hard-to-reach spots, rappelling safely down into caves, and swinging across chasms. Helping out with this is a navigator tool, which essentially acts as a player-controlled UI. DON’T NOD keeps Aphelion’s screen pretty clear of clutter to let you breathe in the spectacle of it all, so if you want to mark out a point of interest, your navigator can tag it, and then it’s up to you to figure out how to get there.
It’s a controlled freedom that opens up as the journey goes on. In the two available for the preview, you can see how quickly the playstyles of Thomas and Ariane could diverge from one another, and by the time I wrapped up the preview, Ariane’s skillset offered welcome flexibility and challenge.
Chopping and changing between the pair could be a tricky balancing act, but as it stands, each could be a welcome change of pace from the other. Drink in the beautiful, harsh planet as Thomas does his investigations, before facing a stalking monster as Ariane. It’s the recipe for a pretty effective double act.
Your Nemesis
Ah, yes. The monster. Aphelion takes a horror-centric turn in the second playable chapter, as Ariane encounters a creature that’s part of the planet itself, the only other lifeform on Persephone, it seems, and it wants to murder astronauts.
The Nemesis is an invulnerable, watery snake-like creature that hunts by sound. It moves with an unnerving stop-motion quality, and it is relentless. The aforementioned climbing and general traversal slow down to a crawl, and the knowledge that the wrong move at the wrong time could alert the Nemesis and end Ariane’s life ratchets up the tension.
The vertical nature of the planet’s terrain means climbing is often an essential part of getting anywhere, and when Ariane encounters the Nemesis for the first time, she’s fallen into a cravasse and must make her way back up. Not so easy with an alien snake monster on your heels.
The Nemesis is tough. Its blindness is barely a weakness because it picks up sound all too well, and you get punished pretty swiftly for mistakes. The idea is clearly to learn and adapt to what the Nemesis does, but DON’T NOD warn it will adapt as the game goes on too. Alien Isolation’s xenomorph was understandably cited as a reference for Nemesis, and while there’s a bit more scripted guidance so far, you can see a measure of unpredictability that makes it difficult to just flub your way through an encounter.
After encountering the beast, the lonely wastes of Perspehone feel more welcoming. Sure, you’re still trapped on a frozen planet with a murderous physical manifestation of it stalking you, but those moments of relative calm are heightened in the wake of that.
As a taste of things to come, the preview build of Aphelion leaves things hanging at just the right point. I’m intrigued to see how Thomas’ investigation segments match up to Ariane’s action-oriented ones. There’s still plenty of mystery and curiosity about Persephone, but I’d seen enough to know I wanted to keep pushing on to find out more and hopefully reunite Thomas and Ariane.
Aphelion preview code provided by the publisher.
Aphelion Platforms, Price, and Preorders
Aphelion will be released on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. It’s priced at around £34.99 for a physical copy, with digital pricing yet to be announced. You can pre-order Aphelion physical copies at most gaming retailers. On digital storefronts, you can add the game to your wishlist.
Aphelion Trailers
The reveal trailer came at the 2025 Xbox Games Showcase.
In October 2025, a new trailer showed us everything our protagonists will have to survive on the icy planet.
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