Lightyear Frontier's reception was both "exciting and a little bit terrifying" according to Frame Break's CEO

Just earlier this week, we shared opinions about a bunch of different upcoming [email protected] titles that we got to see behind closed doors. This included the mysterious The Last Cast of Benedict Fox, the striking Planet of Lana, the action-packed Everspace 2, and the charming and calming Lightyear Frontier.

Speaking about the latter, we also had the chance to sit down with the developer's (Frame Break) CEO Joakim K. Hedström, as well as [email protected]'s senior strategic partner manager Andreea Chifu to learn more about the upcoming indie.

Speaking about the game's initial reception, Hedström said: "We got a much bigger response than we expected. That was both exciting and a little bit terrifying, but overall very motivating."

Lightyear Frontier tasks players with building their own home and farm plot on a distant planet inhabited by all kinds of strange flora and fauna. The trick however is that the gameplay all revolves around the mech suit that the player operates.

On the point of mech farming, Hedström noted: "The mech was really the linchpin of this project, from the moment it came in it's been directing the game from then on.

"People see a mech and think they're going to be doing combat, but no. You're going to take this big hulking piece of metal and you're going to be doing these everyday, very casual and cosy things."

On how the [email protected] scheme aids developers, Chifu stated: "There are two main advantages of being able to work with the programme: first of all is empowering developers to take creative risks, and continue working on their game. Secondly is tapping into this audience.

"We've seen from internal analysis that we've done, that once a game is announced for Game Pass, the engagement, the awareness about the game increases by eight times."

Hedström added: "People will get a chance to try our game, get into it, fall in love with the mech, and then have a very low barrier of entry to invite their friends and play along with them."

About working in the Swedish games industry Hedström said: "For us as we've been starting out and stepping into that community it's been a great help just having all these incredible games around us, all this experience around us to tap into and help out and support each other."

Chifu added: "The fact that Sweden already has so many gaming incubators, so many schools dedicated to gaming, and so many people that even from the 80s weren't afraid of taking a creative risk and getting into games, that is what helped."

Talking about what he's looking forward to players seeing the most in Lightyear Frontier, Hedström stated: "The world we've managed to craft, the planet, it's just; every once in a while the artists would send a screenshot like 'We just finished this area' and it's wallpaper worthy on its own.

"Having this planet for players to explore and find their own spot they might want to build their farms in and make their homes, I think is going to be incredible."

Hedström confirmed that Lightyear Frontier will be releasing for PC and Xbox with crossplay available on launch. Watch the full interview above.