Beacon

Beacon follows interstellar mercenary Freja Akiyama, stranded on the unknown planet Kovus-18 after her ship crashes. She searches for her distress beacon while hostile factions battle across the planet. Her Clone Bay repeatedly prints a new clone at the crash site, so death is a setback rather than the end of the search. As the cycle continues, questions emerge about how many Frejas exist, how long she has been trapped in it and how much of her humanity she will lose before escaping.

Freja and the crash

Freja grew up in the backwaters of civilised space and dreamed of adventure. She joined the military young, where she discovered her abilities in combat and spacecraft piloting, but found she could not work within the armed forces’ strict regimen. She lives and works aboard the Ouroboros, her single-berth, heavily modified light spacecraft, equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry and facilities.

Kovus-18 is unfamiliar, and its record is blank: either nothing is known about it, or its information has been scrubbed from the database. Multiple factions inhabit the planet and appear to be at war with one another; all are hostile to its newest arrival.

Scavenge and fight

Across six randomly generated levels, you travel from the outer forest through tropical swamps and pollution to the cryptic Omega Vault, where your Beacon is held. You scavenge weapons and items, collect mementos that reveal the histories of Kovus-18’s five factions, find tinkered weapon variants left by previous clones and track secrets discovered at the end of each level.

The factions fight one another as well as Freja. You face more than 120 enemies, including Champion variants and hybrid Minibosses that combine abilities from multiple factions, along with more than 17 boss fights. These include the Solus Hivemind, Prism Mainframe and Tritoraptor Matriarch.

DNA and mutations

DNA drives the cycle of death and rebirth. Enemies drop DNA when defeated, and after death you can use it to alter Freja’s statistics and genetic makeup before a fresh clone is printed. The game has five DNA types and more than 100 mutations, which grant new abilities and can change each clone into forms such as a battle-hardened mass of metal or a luminous abomination of insect flesh. Each faction has its own DNA and mutations.

Weapons and items

More than 360 items are spread across five item types, drawing on technologies from the planet’s factions. You can use one-time Pickups, activate a reusable Auxiliary, swap a Grenade Mod, equip Passive Mods and choose two Weapons.