Rise: The Vieneo Province
A player-driven space simulator on the exomoon Vieneo.
Last updated
Rise: The Vieneo Province is a massively multiplayer online space simulator set on an exomoon called Vieneo, approximately 225 light-years from Earth. It is notable for its lack of traditional game elements such as points, scores, levels, or winners, instead offering a virtual world where players, referred to as citizens, explore, socialize, and engage in player-driven economic activities. The game features high-fidelity aerodynamic and astrodynamic physics, a dynamic weather system, and a detailed terrain engine.
History
Unistellar Industries got its start in Missouri back in August 2002, working on software meant for a full-scale cockpit enclosure. They built a single prototype called Audrey, but it was stolen, which led to legal trouble. With tight budgets, liability issues, and not enough space for assembly, the company pivoted to making online games. In 2003, they released an early alpha test called Planetfall, which came with their own terrain engine.
A public alpha of Rise: The Vieneo Province followed in 2006. That April, they started offering monthly subscriptions for players who wanted more than the 14-day free trial. The game’s economy kicked off in August 2006 and has always been run entirely by players.
Updates and development stopped in October 2010. In July 2011, the company began work on another full-scale cockpit enclosure, aiming to finish by July 2014. A limited liability company formed in Kansas in December 2012.
Rise went free-to-play on March 1, 2013. Development picked back up on February 1, 2017. The game showed up as an upcoming title on Steam on July 1, 2019, entered Early Access on August 1, 2019, and fully launched on February 4, 2020. An unrestricted demo hit Steam on February 29, 2020, right as the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading.
More in Science Fiction Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Rise: The Vieneo Province (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced