Human

Lore & Background

Humanity, facing long-term resource pressures on Earth, launched a one-way expedition to a distant planet. Rather than risk the lives of original citizens on a voyage of uncertain duration and destination, the program created Duplicants—genetic clones raised in stasis and deployed upon arrival. They carry the memories, skills, and personalities of their source humans, yet they are new individuals, born into a role they never chose. Their first waking moment on the planet is disorienting: a cramped pod, a strange sky, and a mission briefing that tells them to assess habitability. From that moment, survival is the only curriculum.

The planet they land on is not hostile in the way a vacuum or a radiation storm would be; it is hostile in the way a closed system is hostile. The atmosphere is breathable but thin, the water cycle is uneven, and the underground is layered into distinct biomes with wildly different pressure, temperature, and gas compositions. A Duplicant who breathes too much carbon dioxide in a poorly ventilated room will sicken and die. One who works a double shift without food will collapse. The planet does not hate them; it simply does not care. Every comfort must be manufactured, every calorie grown, every liter of oxygen recycled.

Over the course of a colony's story, the Duplicants evolve from panicked survivors into a functioning community. They build farms, research labs, heating systems, and eventually the infrastructure to send a signal back to Earth confirming the planet's viability. Their personal moods, friendships, and small grievances—arguing over a dirty bathroom, celebrating a good meal, grumbling about a power outage—give the colony a heartbeat that no spreadsheet of resource flows could replicate. They are, in every meaningful sense, the story. The planet is just the stage.

In Their Own Story

The alarm chimes at 0600, and Mara's eyes open before the light does. She's a Night Owl, which means this is the worst part of her day, and the best part is still six hours away. She pulls the blanket back, feels the cold metal of the bunk frame through the thin mattress, and listens to the colony breathing around her—the soft hiss of the O₂ scrubbers, the distant clank of the pump cycling, the muffled thump of someone in the kitchen banging a spoon against a pot.

She pads to the bathroom. The tiles are clean. The sink is dry. She nods to herself, a small private victory. In the mess hall, the smell of cooked potato and reconstituted protein hits her, and for a moment the sterile geometry of the room doesn't matter. She eats slowly, watching the CO₂ readout on the wall tick up as the other Duplicants fill their lungs. Later she'll be in the lab, running a soil-salinity test for the third time because the first two gave her numbers she didn't trust. Tonight, when the lights dim and the colony settles into its low hum, she'll sit by the airlock and watch the dark, flat horizon of a world that has no name yet. She'll think about Earth, a blue dot she's only seen in a photo on the briefing wall. She'll think about the clone of herself who, somewhere back home, is probably still asleep. Then she'll go to bed, and the scrubbers will keep breathing for her.

Reader's Guide

HUMAN DUPLICANT – Species Profile

The Human is the sole playable species in Oxygen Not Included. Every Duplicant shares the same baseline biology: they require oxygen to breathe, consume food measured in calories, drink water, and sleep on a regular cycle. In return they exhale CO₂, radiate body heat, and produce solid waste. None of these needs can be ignored for long without the Duplicant's health declining and, eventually, death.

Each Duplicant is rated on three core stats—Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence—that scale how well they perform in manual labor, precision tasks, and research respectively. A high-Strength Duplicant digs faster and handles heavy equipment more effectively; a high-Intelligence Duplicant progresses through research projects more quickly. Stats range across a modest band, so no single Duplicant dominates every task.

Personality traits add a second layer. Examples include Night Owl (boosted efficiency during evening/night shifts), Early Bird (boosted efficiency in the morning), and Perfectionist (mood dips sharply in dirty or cluttered rooms). Traits are fixed for the Duplicant's life and should be matched to shift schedules and room assignments.

Mood is a continuous value that shifts with environment: clean rooms, good food, and social interaction raise it; filth, noise, poor lighting, and hunger lower it. Low mood reduces work speed and can trigger negative status effects. Keeping moods in the green is as important as keeping the O₂ tanks full.

Restrictions: Duplicants cannot survive without oxygen, will suffocate in CO₂-saturated air, and are vulnerable to fire, extreme temperatures, and vacuum. They have no innate combat ability, no flight, and no resistance to the planet's hazards beyond what the player engineers for them.

Did You Know?

• Every Duplicant in the colony is a genetic clone of a person from Earth; the 'originals' never leave the planet. The Duplicants are, in a sense, a new generation born into a mission.
• A Duplicant's body heat is not just a flavor detail—it is a real thermal load the player must manage. A crowded room full of working Duplicants can push temperatures high enough to cook food or ignite materials if ventil
• The CO₂ a Duplicant exhales is the same CO₂ that can poison them if it accumulates. The player must continuously scrub or vent it, turning the colony's own breath into a resource-management problem.
• Duplicant traits like Night Owl and Early Bird create a soft scheduling system: the player can effectively run a two-shift colony by matching Duplicants to the hours they perform best in, without any explicit 'shift' UI