Icarus is a session-based survival game developed and published by RocketWerkz, the studio led by Dean Hall of DayZ fame. It launched out of Early Access in 2021 and centres on timed drops to a hostile alien planet where you prospect for resources, then race back to orbit before the mission timer runs out.
The core loop is drop, prospect, extract. You land on the surface, harvest wood, ore, and exotic materials, climb a deep tech tree, and build a base to survive storms, extreme temperatures, and aggressive wildlife. Open-world prospects let crews stay down indefinitely, while mission prospects add a hard timer and real stakes if you miss the dropship.
Icarus shines in co-op. A full crew can split the workload, one mining, one hunting, one crafting, and clear objectives far faster than a solo prospector. On a private dedicated server, the prospect stays live around the clock so any crewmember can log in and keep building without waiting for the host to be online.
Icarus ships with a built-in Dedicated Server tool, and the game supports Steam Workshop mods that adjust crafting, difficulty, and quality-of-life systems. Admins control the active prospect, difficulty scaling, and respawn rules from the server config with no external tools needed.
On the hardware side, Icarus leans on the CPU: weather simulation, creature AI, and terrain streaming all put load on the processor. NVMe storage speeds up prospect loading and save writes. A 6 GB plan suits small crews of two to three players, while larger persistent prospects with bigger crews benefit from the 10 GB plan.
| Server type | RAM needed | Players | Recommended plan |
|---|
| Small crew (1-3 players) | 6 GB | Up to 3 | 6 GB plan |
| Standard prospect (4-6 players) | 8 GB | Up to 6 | 8 GB plan |
| Large persistent prospect (6+ players) | 10 GB | 6+ | 10 GB plan |
Running Icarus on a dedicated server means your prospect persists between sessions, base builds stay intact, and admin tools give you control over difficulty, respawn rules, and player slot caps. No player has a connection advantage because there is no local host holding the session.
PingPlayers pairs dedicated hardware with Ping AI, which handles server setup, config questions, and troubleshooting so your crew spends time prospecting and surviving rather than wrestling with server files.
