Spore was certainly ambitious when it made its debut over a decade ago, way back in 2008. From the creator of Sim City - Will Wright - it was basically Evolution: The Game. Starting as a single cell organism and ending up a tech-driven civilisation. The Eternal Cylinder is a visually striking new survival game set on a mysterious alien world - and one of its key mechanics brings back fond memories of playing Spore.

As do the general alien and creature designs.

In The Eternal Cylinder, players control a herd of adorable creatures called Trebhums and must explore a strange alien world filled with exotic lifeforms, surreal environments, and the constant threat of the Cylinder, a gargantuan rolling structure of ancient origin which crushes everything in its path. This vast ecosystem is a massive, procedurally generated land with unique animal AI, real-time world destruction, and organic exploration and puzzle design for emergent gameplay that ensures no two playthroughs are ever the same.

Your Trebhums begin at the bottom of the food chain but can mutate and evolve with new physical attributes and abilities by eating a variety of flora and fauna. Devise and adapt dozens of mutations, including new traversal skills like flying and swimming to reach new areas, as well as new senses to help overcome puzzles, challenges and dangers. Your many Trebhums can each have different mutations, and new mutations don’t replace ones you already have, letting you stack ability sets in dynamic ways. Each mutation will also change the physical look of a Trebhum, generating near countless surprising creature designs for you to discover organically as you explore.

As per the description above, mutating and evolving is handled the old fashioned way - by eating all the strange stuff you see. This leads into survival, puzzle solving, and dealing with a world that's falling apart. The Eternal Cylinder comes from Good Shepherd Entertainment and developer Ace Team - and is headed to PC (via the Epic Games Store) and consoles sometime next year.