This exclusive Lightyear Frontier gameplay is giving futuristic Stardew Valley vibes

Lightyear Frontier, the adorable, first-person farming game that delegates all that manual labour to a hulking mech, just showed off some exclusive gameplay footage during the Future Games Show at Gamescom Powered by Mana.

The footage, which comes with commentary from developer Frame Break, focuses on the early stages of the game. As you work to establish your settlement on a peaceful, distant planet, you'll use your mech to plant and water crops, cut down trees and break up rocks to gather resources and create more room for crops and buildings, and use what you've gathered to expand your outpost.

There's an exploratory element to the new footage too. As space is cleared around the camp, a whole new section of this alien world is uncovered, allowing the mech pilot the chance to harvest wild crops and make use of their seeds, mine new minerals, and simply roam around the valleys, beaches, and meadows of this peaceful world.

Lightyear Frontier got its first reveal last summer, but it really stepped into the spotlight during E3 2022 when it appeared during the Xbox Showcase. There's still a little while until you'll be able to get your hands on it yourself - a release date for Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC via Steam is coming in Spring 2023 - but there's already plenty to look forward to.

Most of them don't put you in charge of a massive agricultural robo-suit, or take place on an alien planet, but if you fancy something a little pastoral, check out our list of games like Stardew Valley.

If you’re looking for more excellent games from today's Future Games Show, have a look at our official Steam page.

Ali Jones
News Editor

I'm GamesRadar's news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.