AEXXOS: NextFest Status Report & Thank You!

First off… wow. NextFest 24 hours in has been a huge success!

We’ve seen thousands of new pilots take to the stars — exploring, trading, and fighting across the galaxy. The number of downloads, wishlist additions, and hours played has completely exceeded our expectations - bordering unbelievable.

For a small, self-funded indie studio like Spartan Games, this level of excitement is beyond rewarding. You’ve helped us push AEXXOS further in one week than we thought possible.

Thank you — sincerely — for flying with us.

⚙️ What We’ve Learned

NextFest isn’t just a demo — it’s a full-scale test of our galaxy’s systems and infrastructure. Thanks to over 1,000+ players jumping in and sharing honest feedback across Discord, Steam, and support tickets, we’ve already rolled out five major updates since launch — both client and server-side.

Let’s break down the lessons learned.

❌ The Losses

Tutorial & Guidance Many pilots felt lost after spawning in — and that’s on us. AEXXOS is a sandbox, but we still need to guide players through their first moments. We’ve since added a very basic tutorial, improved interactable highlights, and expanded early-game dialogs for better clarity.

Objectives & Progression Spawning on the quiet edge of the galaxy led to fewer encounters than we’d hoped. We’re now adding more structured missions — delivery, escort, and exploration chains — to pull players deeper into populated sectors and organic conflict.

Difficulty & Gear Loss Our high-risk, high-reward design caused frustration for new players. To ease the sting of elimination, we’ve added free starter loadouts at outposts so you can re-arm quickly and jump back into the action.

🏆 The Wins

Server Stability Our galaxy servers have held strong throughout the event — with no reported downtime or connection failures while online.

Seamless Travel AEXXOS was built around one simple idea: no zones, no loading screens — one shared galaxy. Players noticed. Warp Gates are purely for convenience; otherwise, you can fly from one system to another without interruption.

Performance & Optimization On high-end rigs, we’re seeing 200 FPS+ in heavy combat scenes. Even on low-tier hardware, thanks to dynamic culling and throttling, pilots are enjoying smooth 60–100 FPS gameplay — critical for massive multiplayer interactions.

🌌 Looking Forward

NextFest has been an incredible learning experience. Every bug report, crash log, and suggestion is shaping our path toward the Steam Early Access release in 2026.

Thank you again for helping us bring this universe to life. Stay sharp out there, Captains — the stars are waiting.

– Spartan Games