Lazarus is a top-down action-oriented sci-fi twist on Groundhog Day where thousands of players survive together in a huge persistent real-time world, where dogfights, foraging for resources and exploring exciting new tech combine into a tumultuous 'MMO Roguelike' that turns back in on itself every week like some kind of ultra-futuristic Ouroboros.

Players fight for their lives and the fate of the universe in a huge open universe stretching across 160,000km² of stars, black holes, nebulae and alien tech - vying for territory and power against three alien factions.

Explore the world, dock and communicate with giant alien Xenotaphs, equip your ship, unlock new tech and then boost back out into fast paced real-time combat alongside hundreds and thousands of other players!

Can humanity embrace the technology and capriciousness of the all-powerful Ourobeans and finally defeat the monstrous Apophis, or will the final battle repeat again and again into infinity?

Available to download for free through Steam, the event marks a significant milestone in the game’s development ahead of its anticipated full early access release later in the year.

By leveraging the power of SpatialOS, Improbable’s groundbreaking platform for online game development, Lazarus features a persistent, living universe covering a huge 160,000km2 area, where both human players and AI battle to expand their territory, upgrade their ships, and bolster their defences.

“We’re incredibly excited for players to be able to download Lazarus from Steam for the first time,” says Andrew Smith, Creative Director at Spilt Milk Studios. “This is the biggest event we’ve launched to date and we want as many players as possible to experience Lazarus ahead of its early access later this year. We can’t wait to open up our universe to new players and see how their actions dynamically impact the balance of power in the game and evolve the world.”

The event will run from Thursday 12th April at 6 p.m. BST until Sunday 15th April at 9.p.m. BST. Once it finishes, players can head to the official website to sign up for a key to the game and receive updates on the forthcoming early access release.

The aim for this weekend is for us to break the game. Seriously.

We know we’ll never be able to be 100% prepared for a global launch, so we want to try and push it as hard as possible, to see what breaks when tons of players join in the fun so we can at least fix it a bit!

This is the first step towards us launching on Early Access, and with any luck that won’t be too far in the future.

• More Server improvements: More improvements to the servers of Lazarus, meaning that they're under less load and more capable of running the game. This echoes down to the gameplay experience, as because the server isn't so busy dealing with too much going on, it has more capacity to deal with player interactions/requests, resulting in a much smoother overall experience.
• AI General Improvements: Each of our factions is controlled by an 'AI General', plotting where to send NPCs to gain territory, or regain it from foes. The Generals are now more aggressive in re-issuing orders to existing NPCs, allowing for better distribution.
• Tutorial Improvements and better world 'knowledge': Some under the hood improvements have been made to the FTUE/Tutorial, to streamline the capture-territory stage and improved 'target selection' if you're struggling to capture a territory, so that we don't keep sending you to your death!
• Connection Logging: In order to help us diagnose user's connection problems, we now log anonymous connection "data" (such as opening connection to server, disconnects, etc) to a file. We have the option to upload them automatically when you close the game, but this requires you to opt-in to sending this information to us. We'll use this data to try and isolate and triage the connection problems a number of you are seeing. You can opt in/out of this at any time.

Lazarus is an expansive universe, but one where every player action matters. Whether you're blasting asteroids or building turrets, the players’ actions visibly and tangibly impact the world around them. Players can advance their quest for galactic domination by battling for control of sectors, resources and power-ups, or just watch while the game’s intelligent AI factions fight it out with hundreds of other human players, even turning on each other.