A decade after it originally released on the internet as a Flash game, Wx3 Labs is re-making and re-releasing Starcom as Starcom: Nexus starting December 12th next month. The game will first enter into Early Access on Steam where it will spend at a minimum six months in development or up to 12 months in Early Access. Given the average amount of time it takes for most Early Access games to be completed, expect Starcom to make full use of those 12 months.

The Early Access version of the game will feature a lot of the core concepts and mechanics of the game, including the top-down space combat with fully destructible ships. There is a disposition-based AI that changes how it approaches players depending on whether they are friends, foes, or neutral.

Those relationships change dynamically based on the way players interact with the various alien species stretching across the galaxy. You can see what the gameplay is like with the Early Access trailer below.

The gameplay is very similar to Star Control: Origins, but without the ability to head down to the planet’s surface and manually scavenge for resources using an all-terrain tracker.

The Early Access version of the game will sport more than 40 star systems to explore in an open-world sandbox universe, 100 different technologies to research, a modular ship-construction system, galactic diplomacy, and various space anomalies to investigate throughout the different sectors.

The full version of the game will include more anomalies to investigate, more star systems to explore, eventual mod support, voice acting for the major characters, localization for different languages, additional alien races to encounter, various celestial phenomena that will change the outcome of your journey, and full controller support.

If you’re interested in the action-RPG, you can learn more about Starcom: Nexus by visiting the Steam store page ahead of its December 12th release.