My jaw was on the floor for the last twenty minutes of this one, seriously. It starts as your classic alien invasion, the Krillex fleet burns New Concord to ash, and surveyor Jed Kane runs into the jungle instead of dying for nothing. That felt like cowardice, but he’s smart, he knows the planet. He spends weeks alone, starving, mapping dead zones, learning where the biolleaching fungus lives (thing eats energy, kills electronics). Then he starts finding other survivors. They become the Wraiths. They blow up supply convoys, poison water supplies with native alkaloids, lure patrols into carnivorous vines. I was literally tapping my fingers on my desk during the first ambush scene, the pit trap, the rock slide, the ghost bloom pollen that paralyzes. But here’s the twist, they’ve been destroying these “dampener arrays” thinking it’s enemy infrastructure, turns out the Krillex were trying to contain a buried precursor weapon called the World Ender. Every array they blew up made it wake up faster. So now the humans and the aliens have to work together to go into a cave system full of acidic water and living mercury to stop the planet from fragmenting. And Jed’s solution? He uses the biolleaching fungus to drain the weapon’s power. The fungus they found by accident while surveying. The enemy who glassed their city becomes their reluctant ally. Man, that’s poetry.

Number 1. World-Building Vibe Check: 9 out of 10

Verdant feels alive and hostile. The red clay, the jungle that tastes like green growth and decay, the cave systems with acidic groundwater, the living mercury that feeds on energy, it’s all so textured. The precursor device buried in the mantle, pulsing for millions of years, that’s a great ancient threat.

Number 2. Character Cred: 8 out of 10

Jed Kane is a surveyor, not a soldier, which makes him perfect for this. He knows the terrain like his own veins. Marco the cynical mining engineer, Sarah with her mining laser, Danny the trap expert, they all feel like real people thrown into hell. Subjugator Kais is a great alien antagonist who becomes something like a grudging ally. His “we did not account for your capacity for strategic resistance” line is chef’s kiss.

Number 3. Xeno-Biology Integration: 8.5 out of 10

The biolleaching fungus is the star here. It eats energy, kills electronics, and turns out to be the only thing that can stop a planet-killing weapon. The ghost bloom pollen that causes neural paralysis, the carnivorous vines, the native alkaloids that corrode alien armor, the planet itself is a biological arsenal. That’s peak HFY.

Number 4. Dialogue Drip: 7.5 out of 10

“We didn’t just survive it. We surveyed it.” That last line stuck with me. Also Kais saying “You are Verdant’s saviors, not us. Let it be recorded that humanity proved their worth, not through strength of arms, but through intimate knowledge of their world.” The talker Vain is a great foil, all cold arrogance.

Number 5. The Xeno-WTF Meter: 9 out of 10

The Krillex were trying to save the planet the whole time, and the humans were accidentally accelerating the apocalypse. That’s a brutal reversal. The living mercury creature that grows when you shoot it? The ice walkers in video 1 were scary, but this thing is nightmare fuel. And the World Ender itself, a device that can fragment a star system, just sitting there for eons.

Number 6. The “Hold My Beer” Quotient: 9 out of 10

Jed’s plan to use the fungus is insane. He has a cryo sample in his survey kit from years ago, just sitting there, and he’s like “what if we feed this to the ancient superweapon?” That’s the most surveyor-brain solution ever. Also the entire guerrilla campaign, ambushing patrols with rockslides and pit traps, that’s pure human ingenuity.

Number 7. Action & Escalation: 8.5 out of 10

The first ambush is tight and brutal. The cave descent is claustrophobic and tense, especially the living mercury and the tremors. The final confrontation where Jed triggers a fissure to drop the talker Vain into a pit, then releases the fungus, it’s not a big explosion but it’s so satisfying. The fungus spreading like living shadow, consuming the weapon’s power, that’s a beautiful visual.

Number 8. Narrative Gut-Punch: 8 out of 10

Finding out that Marcus and Elena died for nothing, that the dampeners they destroyed were keeping everyone alive, that hit hard. Jed having to swallow his hatred and work with the people who glassed his city, that’s real emotional weight. And the Krillex admitting they didn’t consult humanity because they didn’t consider us important enough, that’s the ugly truth of colonialism.

Number 9. Endgame Payoff: 8.5 out of 10

The fungus works. The World Ender goes dormant. The Krillex leave, and they officially classify Verdant as restricted, no further operations without human consent. It’s not a happy ending, thousands are dead, but it’s a win. The last line, “It belongs to the ones who’ve walked its trails,” is perfect.

Number 10. The Overall “HFY!” Factor: 9 out of 10

This is classic HFY. Humans are underestimated, we use our environment as a weapon, we turn our weakness (being pre-stellar) into a strength (knowing the planet better than the invaders). And when we realize we made a mistake, we swallow our pride and work with the enemy to fix it. That’s humanity at its best and most stubborn.

HFY HUB Score – 8.5 out of 10

Video Courtesy of – Starbound HFY

Video URL – They Expected Easy Conquest… We Taught Them Guerrilla Warfare