Index Express

In development

Outer Index 3D

A third-person horde run on alien ground that's generated whole before you arrive.

A lone figure silhouetted on a generated snowfield at low sun, a dark monolith standing against a teal and gold sky. In engine · work in progress
An in-engine capture from the world-generation track — generated terrain and a placed landmark at low sun. This shot predates a lighting fix and reads darker than the game does now.

Outer Index 3D drops you onto a world that did not exist until you asked for it. Terrain, caverns, landmarks and the routes between them all come out of a single seed — not a level with some scattered randomness on top, but a whole place, built in one pass and then checked to make sure you can actually cross it.

Then the horde arrives. Everything you'll use in a run comes out of motes: the only way an item reaches your hands is picking it up off the ground, mid-fight, while the pressure climbs. There are no ultimates to hold in reserve. Difficulty rides on the clock, so standing still is its own decision and a bad one.

The generator has a vocabulary, not a template. A ridge can be arched over, bored through, dived under to surface half a world away, or cut into a half-open gallery running along a cliff face. There are blind bores that end in a pocket you have to spot to find. When a landscape won't carry a passage honestly, the generator refuses it and says so instead of shipping you a wall.

What makes it interesting

Worlds in progress

A generated island floating against a purple nebula sky, its coastline and cut edge visible. Greybox · untextured
A world as a floating chunk of reality, seen against the void sky. Every surface here is untextured test geometry — the generated coastline is the point.
A generated snowfield with wind-scoured rock outcrops and a lone figure. In engine · work in progress
Procedurally generated snowfield with wind-scoured rock. Materials are placeholder, and this predates the lighting fix.
The same generated island under a daylight sky, showing its procedural coastline. Greybox · untextured
The same island under a daylight sky — the procedural coastline and the chunk's cut edge, before any surfacing.

On the props. A number of the rock and landmark meshes used across Outer Index 3D's worlds were generated with a third-party AI tool (Meshy) and selected and reviewed by hand before any of them reached a world. See credits.

More from Outer Index 3D