Icarus: Console Edition Crash‑Lands on Xbox – Survive With These Starting Tips

Summary

From the creator of DayZ comes a sci-fi survival game like no other, available tomorrow on Xbox Series X|S.
Orbitally drop onto a hostile alien world, craft, build, and survive before extracting valuable resources and escaping with your life
Experience the expansive, mysterious region of Prometheus, as Icarus: Console Edition bundles the base game with the New Frontiers Expansion.

The drop pod screams into the planet’s atmosphere at hypersonic speed, turning the air outside into molten plasma, signaling your imminent arrival. But your thoughts are focused on something else: the promise of priceless exotic matter found on the extraterrestrial surface below… and the deadly threats you’ll face until you extract back to orbit.

And so begins another trip to the violently hostile world of Wolf 1061ca aka Icarus, in Icarus: Console Edition, which lands tomorrow on Xbox Series X|S.

A New Type of Survival Game

From the mind of legendary survival game developer, Dean Hall (DayZ, Kitten Space Agency), Icarus: Console Edition brings an experience like no other in the genre. It’s also been fully adapted by Grip Studios for Xbox Series X|S, with controller-first input, streamlined UI navigation, and performance tuning designed for couch play.

Originally developed for PC and launched in 2021, Hall and his Rocketwerkz studio approached its design from a unique angle, asking: What if survival wasn’t about building a forever-home, but about how much you could achieve before the planet inevitably killed you?

Over the last several years, that idea has evolved alongside its PC community. Regular updates, new biomes, expanded tech trees, and expansions have steadily shaped the game into a deep and richly replayable survival experience, one built around mastery, planning, and risk, rather than permanence.

At the heart of Icarus is its session-based extraction structure — a design choice that fundamentally changes how survival gameplay feels. As you orbital drop onto a world broken by humanity’s failed terraforming experiment, you – and up to three other prospectors – will have to build, craft, and hunt to survive, before sourcing and extracting its riches and getting out alive… where after upgrading your items you’ll have to repeat the cycle all over again.

Each mission begins the same way: an orbital drop onto the planet’s surface with limited supplies and a clear objective. From there, the clock starts ticking. Storms intensify, temperatures plummet, predators grow bolder, and the environment itself becomes increasingly hostile. This isn’t about battling aggressive fauna or staving off hunger… this is a fight for survival against the very planet itself, one that seemingly wants you gone.

Progress, however, isn’t erased. Instead of persistent bases, Icarus: Console Edition focuses on persistent knowledge and technology. Each successful extraction feeds into long-term progression, unlocking new tools, blueprints, and equipment that make future drops more ambitious — and more dangerous.

Icarus: Console Edition brings the very best of the game to Xbox for the very first time. In addition to the base experience featuring the 64km2 of the Earth-like regions of Styx and Olympus, it includes the New Frontiers Expansion, doubling the size of the game world to 128km2 by introducing the previously heavily restricted, and even deadlier, Prometheus region.

A Strange New World

The twisted landscapes of Prometheus provide more than just opportunities to extract more exotic matter. Dark secrets lurk in the region’s shadows, waiting to emerge from the blackness…

The New Frontiers Expansion, which introduces Prometheus, enriches the lore of Icarus: Console Edition, with a series of six chained missions that sees you chase a mysterious whistleblower deeper into the zone, and closer to what the UDA megacorp that failed to terraform the planet has been hiding.

It’s a dramatic expansion to the Icarus experience, with over 100 additional items to craft, 30 new workshop items, new building materials, a wildly volatile – and even more valuable – exotic only found in the region, together with whole new building tiers… and of course, new threats from the planet’s indigenous creatures that are ready to pounce on any unsuspecting prospector.

Tips & Tricks for New Prospectors

Choose early objectives carefully

Early missions are designed to teach Icarus’s systems. Focus on objectives that reward workshop unlocks rather than rushing into high-risk drops.

Build for the weather, not the wildlife

Predators are dangerous, but storms are often deadlier. Shelter placement and insulation matter more than weapons early on.

Always plan your extraction

Running out of time is the most common way new players fail. Start heading to your drop ship earlier than you think; the planet’s violence storms escalate fast.

Don’t overbuild

Since most structures don’t persist between missions, efficiency matters more than permanence. Build only what helps you survive and complete objectives.

Learn the base biomes before tackling Prometheus

Prometheus introduces more volatile systems and rarer resources. Master the base regions before venturing into the expansion’s harsher environments.

Icarus: Console Edition launches February 26 on Xbox Series X|S.

ICARUS: Ultimate Console Edition

GRIP Studios

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★★★★★

$139.99

Pre-order now and bring home 11 new animal companions. Adventure with your perfect squad. Earn loot and trophies from your companions as you build up their talent trees.

ICARUS: Console Edition
Land on ICARUS, a planet broken due to failed terraforming. Once meant to be humanity’s second home, it is now a hostile frontier of toxic skies, savage wildlife, and relentless storms. Every drop from orbit is a fight for survival. Build shelter, craft weapons, hunt for food, and seek your fortune in exotic matter.
Survive alone or with up to four players in this uncompromising PvE survival game from the creator of DayZ.
The New Frontiers Expansion is included from the start, transforming ICARUS: Console Edition into a larger, deadlier but more rewarding survival experience. Discover new maps, missions, creatures, and rewards.
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A PLANET THAT FIGHTS BACK
ICARUS resists your presence; poisoned air, lightning storms that tear apart structures, wildfires that spread unchecked, and predators that stalk in the shadows. It feels like the planet itself wants to drive you back into orbit.
· With New Frontiers added from the start, you can explore two 64 km2 maps of handcrafted terrain across forests, mountains, deserts, and caves
· Harvest every tree, rock, and creature
· Adapt to extreme weather and natural disasters
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NEW FRONTIERS INCLUDED
The Prometheus region, once sealed off by the UDA, is now open. Terraforming failed here completely, leaving raw alien landscapes intact but warped. This expansion expands ICARUS far beyond its original borders:
· New Map & biomes: Alien grasslands, volcanic wastelands of molten lava, and dangerous swamplands
· Six Narrative Missions: A chained story across Prometheus as you pursue a mysterious whistleblower for the UDA
· New Creatures: Face Needlers, Dracs, Dreadwings, and other mutated apex predators, evolved to dominate these zones
· New Exotics: Discover a volatile new exotic with unique effects on the flora, plus new exotic plants and over 30 additional workshop items
· New Items & Resources: Mine obsidian, clay, scoria, crystallised miasma, and super-cooled ice; craft 100+ new items including weapons, food, recipes, and building tiers
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THREE WAYS TO SURVIVE
· Open World: Establish permanent bases and explore freely
· Missions: Timed contracts where extraction is everything
· Outposts: Low-pressure zones for creative building and experimentation
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PROGRESSION & REWARD
· Tech Tree & Talents: Advance from primitive tools to advanced tech
· Specialisation: Focus as a hunter, builder, or survivalist
· Orbital Workshop: Trade exotic matter for permanent upgrades and equipment
Exotic matter remains the ultimate prize; rare, unstable, and deadly to pursue.
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SOLO OR CO-OP
Up to four players can share each drop, combining skills and resources to endure. Prefer to go it alone? Survive solo with a Solo Talent Tree for maximum challenge.
Note: ICARUS: Console Edition does not support cross-play.