What was once gone returns. Freesphere Entertainment’s Tether — a sci-fi horror game which was put on indefinite hold back last year — lives again. The independent developer announced today that the game will resume development with a new direction and conservative scope.
According to the press release, Tether was put on the shelf after two failed attempts to pitch the game to publishers. The project took its toll on the team and they parted ways. The most recent prototype of Tether, which acts as a vertical slice of what Freesphere envisions the game to be, is now also available for free on Itch.io. Having played a build of Tether in the past, I’m excited to see it in development again.
Tether is a first-person adventure game based in a dilapidated science fiction world. Earth is dying after the collapse of several continents throughout the world following the destruction of the Moon – as natural disasters sweep the planet, the newly formed United Environmental Federation (UEF) accelerate plans to terraform the nearest possible habitable planet, Mars.
You play as Lesleigh Hayes – a Biological Research Assistant for the UEF – on her first deep space voyage to Mars. Once aboard the Sonne, Lesleigh’s thoughts turn to her children as she re-lives some of their final conversations before leaving. As catastrophic events unfold on the UEF Sonne, Lesleigh is forced to survive the psychological horrors of isolation in deep space.
If you’d like to help the project along, donations can be made on itchi.io.