Jonas Mack, a solo developer from Hamburg, has said that his 2D space mining adventure Cosmodrill will come out on Steam in the summer of 2026. In the game, players control a rocket-powered drill able to bore through whole planets to find minerals and alien secrets.
Cosmodrill is different from other mining games because of how it handles the genre's main mechanic. "I was frustrated with how a lot of 2D games only make mining mechanics work as 'sky is up, ground is down,' which makes it feel pretty repetitive," Mack explained. "My goal was to give the player 360 degrees of freedom when mining."
The game has five different biomes, an open environment with no quest marks, and a progression system that lets you upgrade your drill to go farther and dig deeper. There is a demo available on Steam right now, and Mack has been using feedback from players to improve the game. For example, they recently added mouse control choices based on their input.
Mack is one of 132 people who got into Germany's Press Start: Games Founding Grant, a government-funded program that provides €2,750 monthly for 18 months. "Getting the grant was really amazing," Mack said. "I would have never been able to finish the game without the grant, and it literally changed my life."
You can check Cosmodrill out on Steam, with Mack hoping to reach 10,000 wishlists ahead of the game's 2026 launch.
