XenoMiner: Swarm

XenoMiner: Swarm is the successor to Xenominer and, while it shares many of the basic gameplay principles, loses the survival aspect for an action-focused approach. Players take control over mercenaries who take contracts which lead them on various planets.

The specific goals depend on the contract type, but usually they involve killing a lot of alien bugs from a first-person view. It is also advised to build up a base in order to defend the extract point which is done in the typical Minecraft fashion: mining blocks from the environment (which is completely built from said blocks) which have different properties. These can be used to construct buildings or other defenses elsewhere. Special item blocks can be crafted or purchased, e.g. turrets or doors, but may require battery power to function. This means an important part of creating a functional base consists of constructing a working power supply.

There are three unit types to choose from: marine (the usual killing machine), engineer (only they can mine and construct) and recon (snipers). Their equipment (e.g. weapons, armor, gear like jetpacks or gravity boots to walk on walls) can be customized and upgraded over time. The contract types are mining (collecting resources), bug hunt (killing enemy swarms), base defense (defending a spot for 24 in-game hours), tech gather (salvaging a ruin) and hive assault (attacking an enemy base). Prospect missions (scouting a place) are special because they may lead the player to buy the claim which then generates income.