All you need to know about surrealist survival game The Eternal Cylinder

Spore, but more.

Have you ever wanted to control a tribe of squishy weirdos? Squishy weirdos that can transform to suit their environment, but are in constant danger from that very same harsh world? Well you’re in luck. ACE Team, the studio behind similarly bonkers games Rock of Ages and Zeno Clash, have made a new Salvador Dali-like that suits just this criteria; The Eternal Cylinder.

It’s an open-world survival game that is different in every way that you might expect. A single-player experience, The Eternal Cylinder sees players adopting little balls of alien life, protecting them and helping them survive in this weirdly coloured. There are strange, multi-bodied bosses to content with, but also the ever threatening presence of the Cylinder. The cylinder rolls across the landscape periodically, crushing everything in its path like a rolling reset button. According to the game’s website, this cylinder “can be delayed, but it has never been truly stopped.” Pretty ominous. 

Since the game’s announcement, quite a few players have commented on the games similarity to the 2008 EA release, Spore. In Spore, players also served as godlike figures to alien children, taking them through the planets evolutionary stages as they grew. Unlike Spore, the animals of The Eternal Cylinder can’t be edited or customised within an editor, instead the little creatures (called Trebhums) alter according to what they eat in their environment. These mutations can then be stacked and used to overcome puzzles in the environment, with the emphasis landing far more on the survival element than it did in Spore.