Your assignment in DERELIKT is to find out what happened to Excavation Team Delta, which disappeared on the surface of an asteroid in Saturn's orbit. You arrive as an outside contractor and begin at Von Neumann Outpost, the research station attached to that asteroid. By the time you're hearing incompatible accounts from the survivors, figuring out what happened is as much about whom you believe as where you search.
Where is Von Neumann Outpost?
The outpost is a facility built onto an anomalous asteroid orbiting Saturn. The surface is where the excavation crew went missing. The outpost is where the contractor starts the job and meets members of the crew.
The September playtest announcement uses the opening visit to introduce the station before jumping ahead to Exo Labs. The demo also presents three chapters out of sequence, so the order in which you see areas there does not establish the campaign timeline.
Why is the contractor there?
You are sent to investigate the fate of Excavation Team Delta. In the developer's setup, station systems are breaking down, the crew is under strain, and a mysterious drone is adding to the tension. The missing team is the reason you take the job. Those conditions explain why arriving at the outpost makes the assignment more complicated.
Philipp Jensen, the game's creator and art director, describes the setting and assignment in his official DERELIKT introduction on PlayStation Blog.
What can the survivors tell you?
The survivors offer conflicting versions of events, and Jensen describes more than a dozen characters with motives and secrets of their own. As you listen, separate what a character claims to have seen from what they think caused it. That makes it easier to follow disagreements without treating the first explanation you hear as the answer.
The game's Steam announcements also describe passages you may revisit with new equipment, sometimes finding notes as well as supplies. A note recovered from a side room and an account from someone still on the station give you different perspectives on the incident.
FAQ
What happened to Excavation Team Delta?
The confirmed setup is that the crew disappeared while on the asteroid surface. Finding out what became of them is the contractor's assignment.
Does the story take place on Saturn?
It begins at a research outpost attached to an asteroid in orbit around Saturn.
Is Von Neuman Outpost a different location from Von Neumann Outpost?
Both spellings appear in the official material. They refer to the same station, which Jensen's PlayStation Blog post calls Von Neumann Outpost.