Switch 2 Direct’s technical difficulties swallowed up a whole new game reveal

Nintendo’s Switch 2 Direct stream suffered technical issues at the most inopportune time for the developers of Astroneer. Near the end of Wednesday’s presentation, a trailer for their new game debuted on the stream during a period where many viewers were stuck looking at a glitchy mess.

“Hey so uh one of the main Nintendo Switch 2 Direct streams completely ate our trailer due to I guess technical difficulties?” System Era Softworks social media manager Lotus Dwyer wrote on Bluesky.

The new game is called Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, and if things had gone right, you could’ve recognized the similarities to the studio’s previous game almost immediately. It’s a cooperative game with colorful planets full of weird creatures and plant life. The Bluesky post with the trailer describes it as a game about “the joy of discovery and the camaraderie that emerges from an evolving, cooperative experience,” which suggests your crew of goofy astronauts will visit many different planets than the one we saw.

Over on the Steam page, the description points out that each planet will have different objectives that can only be completed by using your team’s set of tools. Between missions, you’ll return to “an ever-evolving space station” known as the ESS Starseeker to get upgrades and plan your next expedition.

System Era Softworks says Starseeker takes place in the Astroneer universe, but isn’t a direct sequel. Astroneer will continue to be updated “for years to come.”

Starseeker is coming to the Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X in 2026. You can sign up to playtest an early version of the game in the future via the official Discord server.