Chicken Invaders Universe is an upcoming game in the Chicken Invaders franchise, and is currently planned to start with limited early access this summer. It's going to be a spin-off that won't be as much related to the main series. The game will be something along the lines of a collaborative multiplayer experience, and from what has been heard from InterAction studios, this game is going to be much more open than the previous entries. You'll still be able to play as a lone hero through the game if that's what you want, but you will also be able to do stuff like make your own squadrons, take part in daily challenges, compete with your friends, or hang out at the local Space Burgers. The game will also include a Heroes Academy, which will include stuff such as training courses, a Chicken bestiary and a library of spaceship specs. It will also follow the chapter-to-chapter formula a bit more loosely than the previous entries. You will be able to choose from multiple missions, each ranging in length between 10 and 100+ waves.
Current development stage
It's approaching the beta stage, in which InterAction studios will work on the game itself, coding and making bosses, enemies, weapons, multiplayer aspects, and other stuff.
IA is very busy with it, so much so that the remaining Editions for the latest Chicken Invaders episode (Easter and Thanksgiving) will not arrive until after this game gets released, if at all. The devs are aiming at doing limited early access if everything goes well this summer. The game is going to follow a different model from the previous Chicken Invaders games, as it's going to be the first completely new game (not an Edition) to have an open beta and it's going to be much more of an open multiplayer experience than the previous games. The game will also be updated with new content after the release based on user suggestions. Though not much is known about how this will be done, info regarding this should appear soon on their website.
Theories
You can speculate about this game here.
Trivia
- At one point of its developement, it was planned to be Episode 6, but then it was radically reworked so much that it counts more as a spin-off now. This however doesn't prohibit the main series from coming back later on.
- This game will be the first one to break the usual edition release schedule, with CI5's Easter and Thanksgiving editions likely coming after Universe's release, or not being made at all.