The Last Caretaker invites players to explore, build, and uncover the secrets of this transformed world

The world has changed. An endless ocean stretches in every direction, its surface broken by the last remnants of those who stayed behind. Machines still hum with forgotten purpose, beacons flicker with old signals, and infrastructure continues its silent operations. But something else stirs — technology repurposed, reshaped to drift in silence.

As the Last Caretaker, a player must navigate this vast ocean, scavenging lost knowledge, reactivating dormant systems, and ensuring the survival of humanity’s final remnants. Deep within the Seed Vaults, the last human embryos wait for their journey to the stars. But not all that remains is dormant. Some machines still whisper, still move, still watch.

The Last Caretaker is built on four core pillars that shape gameplay and story: Connection, Exploration, Caretaking, and Resilience. Every action, choice, and discovery brings players closer to fulfilling their mission of ensuring humanity's future.

The Last Caretaker is coming to Early Access (Steam / Epic Games Store) in summer of 2025, and will remain so for at least a year.

“At Channel37, we’re not just making a game. We’re building something deeply personal, something that reflects decades of experience and passion,” said Antti Ilvessuo, Co-Founder of Channel37. “Our team has been creating games for over 25 years, and with the backing of Supercell, we’ve had the freedom to craft something truly new. This is not just another survival game; it’s a story about duty, legacy, and the burden of carrying humanity’s last hope.”

He continued, “The Last Caretaker is our love letter to exploration, mystery, and resilience. We’ve built a world that reacts, evolves, and hides secrets in plain sight. This is a game we believe in, and we can’t wait to share it with players.”

“The Early Access version already offers a fully playable survival experience with a strong foundation. Players can explore, craft, fight, and progress through the game’s world.

Key Features at Early Access Launch

• Weapons & Resource Management – Your resources are your weapons. Rifles, flamethrowers, and electricity-based weaponry are merely tools—you decide how to deploy destruction. Every bullet, every charge, every fuel cell matters. Should you incinerate the enemy or conserve gasoline for your ship? Is electricity best used to power a system or fire a lethal arc? The choice is yours.
• World & Locations – A vast open-ocean world filled with abandoned megastructures, rusted sea platforms, fuel depots, and long-forgotten navigation beacons. But beyond survival, there are places of deeper meaning—the Hall of Humanity, where the last human seeds await rebirth, and the Lazarus Complex, a nearly sacred structure where life is meant to begin again.
• Crafting & Recycling – The world is your salvage yard. Dismantle abandoned structures, tear down technology, and decide what is worth carrying to the recycler. Should you melt down an old power core for resources, or keep it for a critical repair? Craft, restore, and repurpose technology to shape your survival.
• Enemies & Threats – A range of enemy types with unique behaviors, including flying, crawling, swimming, and spawning adversaries.

While the core mechanics are solid, we’re also testing potential new features that could shape the game’s evolution. We’re eager to see how players engage with the world and adjust our roadmap accordingly.”

Early Access will help refine and expand the game. With player feedback, we plan to:

• Expand gameplay systems (exploration, crafting, survival, combat)
• Introduce new content (locations, enemy types, modules)
• Balance and optimize core mechanics based on community insights.

Key Features:

• Create: Scavenge valuable resources to repair critical systems, upgrade your robotic capabilities, and craft tools essential for maintaining your operational capabilities.
• Explore: Navigate an endless ocean dotted with towering remnants of another time. Weathered megastructures, decayed platforms, and forgotten stations still cling to purpose. Some structures hold valuable resources, others whisper with long-lost signals. 
• Discover: From encrypted recordings to long-dormant terminals, fragments of human history remain scattered across the ocean. Each piece recovered adds another thread to the story of what came before and what must come next.
• Nurture: Balance nutrition, energy, and memories to cultivate the first new humans in centuries. Every launch to the orbital colonies is a step closer to completing the Caretaker's ultimate directive.
• Survive: The ocean is beautiful, but it is not safe. Rogue machines, biomechanical threats, and unknown forces seek to disrupt your mission. You must adapt, defend, and find a way forward, no matter the cost.

The Last Caretaker will be released in Early Access (Steam / Epic Games Store) in summer of 2025. A console release will occur at a later date.