Former Minecraft devs fuse Sea of Thieves and Elite Dangerous in new co-op game

Keepsake Games

Keepsake Games is quite the team-up: Of its five founders, who came together to start the indie studio in 2021, two are founding members of Minecraft maker Mojang and two of It Takes Two developer Hazelight. Suffice to say, they’ve got an impeccable track record when it comes to games revolving around exploration and co-op gameplay. Coincidentally, those are precisely the central themes of their first project together – a co-op first-person shooter fusing elements from titles like Sea of Thieves, Left 4 Dead, and Elite Dangerous into a promising PvE experience full of exploration and combat.

Jump Ship – which may not be its final title – brings together one to four players, sending them on missions to salvage valuable resources or data from shipwrecks or ruins and the like. These missions can take place in space, on asteroids, or on a variety of planets. Players are equipped with jetpacks to make movement in every environment easier and have access to a variety of weapons. Ammunition is limited and can be salvaged from the map. Things like ammo, medpacs, and weapons are all stored on their ship – which is described as the central character of the game.

Missions aren’t confined to a single wreck or ruin – instead, players take their ship and explore a sizable chunk of space or a planet with several potential targets. Enemies will patrol the area, so the players can either take a stealthy approach and hope to sneak by or take the enemy head-on. Like in Sea of Thieves, players can move around freely on their ship, taking different positions – naturally, there’ll have to be a pilot. Others can head to the upper deck, from which they can spot enemies or use rocket launchers to target fighters. Damage to the ship may result in fires, which need to be extinguished before they get out of control.

Jump Light features old-fashioned dogfights between ships. / Keepsake Games

Rather than upgrading their characters over time – though this will be possible cosmetically – it’s their ships players are investing their gains into long-term, adding new and improved modules.

Once they’ve reached an area they deem lucrative, players can land their ship and seamlessly transition to the ground-based part of the game, which has them explore wrecks and facilities. They can find new weapons, ammunition, and valuables here – as well as enemies, of course. There is always potential danger from above as well: If an enemy patrol finds the landed ship, they’ll bombard players from above. In a sequence of gameplay shown to press during a recent ID@Xbox preview, players got discovered just as they headed back from their primary target – transforming the end of the mission into a wild and chaotic ride worthy of any sci-fi blockbuster. 

Mission targets as well as enemies await on the ground. / Keepsake Games

Enemies were raining down fire on the players, who were dodging while beelining to their ship and responding with their rocket launchers. Once everyone was on board, the pilot got them off the ground quickly while the others went to extinguish the fires the bombardment had caused, before heading to their combat positions and fending off the attackers – big “escape from the Death Star” vibes.

The developers commented that Left 4 Dead was a massive inspiration for the game when it comes to the ways in which players get pressured during missions – lulls in which exploration allows them to breathe for a bit, mixed with intense waves of action and various objectives to fulfill.

Players can help defend their ship by going above deck and blasting. / Keepsake Games

Jump Ship does not have a release date yet, though the team at Keepsake hopes to get Early Access going soon. It’s planned to come out for PC and Xbox Series X|S.