Sandbox survival / building games like Minecraft - the world's highest selling video game - are very popular but sci-fi entries like Space Engineers may need to rethink their design.

NASA has awarded a $57.2 million contract to Austin based ICON Technology to investigate plans to 3D print buildings from moon dirt.

ICON also builds homes on Earth using the same technology and is 3D printing a simulated Mars habitat for NASA.

Sandbox survival games tend to follow the same format.

Your character begins with nothing or not much, gathers basic materials like rocks and wood, crafts tools like an axe, shovel and pick, then proceeds to chop, dig, mine and build their way to the house, castle, base etc. of their dreams.

Wood, stone and metal are the core building materials, increasing in strength and technological utility in that order.

Futuristic space titles like Space Engineers, Empyrion Galactic Survial and No Man's Sky follow similar principles and design.

If ICON's research using Apollo moon dirt samples pans out, then future space sandbox games might need to approach building from a different angle.

A more realistic experience might see characters crash land on a planet or moon with at least a 3D printer.

Ideally also a shovel and a scanner but if not, you'd begin digging by hand and feeding dirt into the printer to get shelter and those built ASAP.

Then you'd begin geological analyses.

Seeking the most optimal dirt for building structures and technology.

Less optimal dirt would mean longer build times and also more waste, which you'd need to store, messily dump or cart away.

Certain metals might be valuable technologically but overall, might play a much smaller role in games - locating, mining and transporting - and our future than we see presently.

Real moon sand castles just being a plan at this stage, it's too early to cast these games aside as unrealistic, but space game developers might be keeping an eye on technologies like this and preparing to shift gears.

[ Main Image: Vision for ISRU-based lunar construction system. Credit: ICON Technology Inc. ]

References

ICON - 3D Tech (November 29, 2022). 3D Printing on the Moon and Beyond for NASA | Project Olympus - Off-world Construction | ICON. YouTube.

Icon Technology (November 29, 2022). ICON To Develop Lunar Surface Construction System With $57.2 Million NASA Award.

Icon Technology (August 6, 2021). Mars Dune Alpha.

Pegorara, Rob (November 30, 2022). Company That 3D-Prints Houses on Earth Lands Lunar Construction Contract. PC Magazine.