Derelikt launches November 13 on PS5, bringing PS1-style sci-fi horror to modern hardware

The station is far from Earth. Its systems are failing, its corridors are dark and the remaining occupants cannot agree on what happened. It sounds like an excellent reason to leave, which is precisely why Derelikt makes the location the starting point of its story.

Developed by Visuwyg and published by Hyperstrange, Derelikt is scheduled for November 13, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and PC.

Creator Philipp Jensen introduced the game in more detail on PlayStation Blog on November 2, describing an ambition that is easy to understand: making a new horror FPS feel like an obscure CD-ROM rediscovered from the late 1990s.

However, the project promises more than a nostalgic visual exercise. Exploration, character interactions and resource management are intended to give meaningful weight to the player's decisions.

A rescue mission in Saturn's orbit

Derelikt takes place aboard Von Neumann Outpost, a research station constructed on an anomalous asteroid orbiting Saturn.

The location is hardly welcoming. Working conditions are difficult, its inhabitants are far from immediate assistance and a mysterious drone has contributed to an increasingly tense atmosphere.

Players become an outside contractor assigned to investigate the disappearance of Excavation Team Delta, whose members went missing while exploring the asteroid's derelict surface.

The mission begins as an investigation. The objective is to determine what happened to the missing workers and understand the strange events surrounding the outpost.

Things quickly deteriorate. Important systems become unreliable, dangerous creatures inhabit the darker areas and the survivors provide conflicting accounts.

Jensen emphasizes the importance of uncertainty. The people encountered are not necessarily trustworthy, and danger does not come exclusively from monsters.

The intention is to maintain tension between what players witness, what other characters tell them and what they can independently discover.

Survivors with their own secrets

Derelikt is not presented as a straightforward sequence of monster-filled corridors. The station also contains characters players can interact with.

Its Steam listing advertises more than a dozen non-player characters, each with different information, motivations and secrets.

Some may help players progress. Others could complicate their situation, whether deliberately or accidentally.

The developer suggests that several characters might manage to be helpful, dangerous and doomed at the same time.

Dialogue is therefore expected to support exploration and the central investigation.

That approach gives Derelikt a narrative dimension beyond finding the next exit or eliminating nearby enemies.

However, the freedom offered by those conversations remains unclear.

The developer has not confirmed unrestricted dynamic dialogue or a branching story in which every decision produces a different outcome.

What has been announced is a collection of interactions intended to preserve uncertainty about what really happened at the station.

Fast combat is only part of the experience

Derelikt is a first-person shooter featuring real-time combat and an arsenal of different weapons.

Players can use conventional equipment while also discovering experimental prototypes and alien weapons.

Promotional footage emphasizes aggressive encounters and dark environments where threats may be difficult to anticipate.

However, the creator does not want progression to depend entirely on shooting.

Inventory management, limited resources and environmental puzzles are also important parts of the formula.

Players will need to consider what they carry and how they use the resources available.

That combination connects Derelikt to a particular tradition of survival horror, where staying alive involves exploration and understanding the environment as much as combat.

The Steam description also mentions twelve levels and a structure with some Metroidvania-like characteristics.

Certain areas may therefore become accessible after obtaining additional equipment or opening previously blocked routes.

The exact operation of backtracking and interconnected progression remains to be evaluated in the full game.

Inspired by Alien Resurrection and System Shock 2

Derelikt does not hide its creative influences. Its official description references Alien Resurrection, Doom 3 and System Shock 2.

Those games represent different approaches to sci-fi horror.

Alien Resurrection recalls maze-like environments, unsettling encounters and a visual identity associated with the original PlayStation.

System Shock 2 brings to mind exploration, interacting systems and the persistent danger of an isolated technological environment.

Doom 3 belongs to another tradition of dark first-person shooters where a poorly lit corridor can make an ordinary encounter far more frightening.

Derelikt aims to combine elements of those traditions within its own setting.

It is neither a remake nor an officially licensed continuation of any of those games.

The references describe creative inspiration, while the story, characters and setting belong to a separate independent production.

Graphics that recreate the imperfections of PS1 games

Derelikt's most immediately recognizable feature is its art direction.

Instead of using PlayStation 5 hardware to create photorealistic environments, Visuwyg is deliberately recreating the graphical characteristics of the late 1990s.

Textures are painted by hand. Lighting uses vertex colors, a technique associated with the rendering approaches of several games from that period.

The developer also recreates affine texture warping, a type of distortion familiar to players who remember the original PlayStation.

On older hardware, that effect could make surfaces appear to shift or wobble as the camera moved.

Derelikt deliberately uses it to recover that visual impression.

Cutscenes follow a similar philosophy, featuring prerendered computer-generated imagery reminiscent of cinematic sequences from CD-ROM games.

Jensen says development began in late 2021.

His goal was to create something that could plausibly resemble a production from an era when developers were still learning how to extract the maximum performance from the first PlayStation generation.

That does not mean reproducing every limitation of the period.

The game is intended to use more modern design principles, and some retro visual effects can be enabled or disabled according to personal preference.

A PC demo is already available

Players interested in sampling Derelikt before its complete release already have an option on PC.

A public demo was published on Steam on October 8, 2026, ahead of the detailed PlayStation announcement.

It offers an opportunity to explore some of the game's atmosphere and mechanics without waiting for launch.

However, the trial should be distinguished from the complete release.

The availability of a PC demo does not establish that an identical trial is available on PS5.

The current Steam listing confirms English for the interface, audio and subtitles.

French localization has not been confirmed by that listing.

For a game where dialogue and evidence appear important, language support could influence the decision of French-speaking players.

Coming to PS5 and PC on November 13

Derelikt is scheduled to launch Friday, November 13, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and PC, according to official announcements from Visuwyg, Hyperstrange and PlayStation.

The PC release is planned for Steam, GOG and Epic Games Store.

PlayStation preorders are being promoted with a 10 percent discount. Exact regional pricing should be checked through the relevant PlayStation Store.

The full game is not yet available as of November 3.

Derelikt occupies an unusual position: it uses modern hardware to deliberately recreate the visual language of a console generation several decades old.

What remains uncertain is whether its combat, investigation and conversations with survivors will provide enough depth to extend the appeal beyond its striking presentation.

The art direction catches the eye immediately, but the abandoned station itself will need to provide the reasons to keep exploring. Even when opening the next door seems like a terrible idea.