Aphelion entered the market with several strengths. Developed by DON'T NOD, the studio behind the original Life is Strange saga, the game combined emotional storytelling, cinematic presentation & a unique partnership with the European Space Agency. However, we needed to ensure players understood why Aphelion deserved their attention in a crowded release calendar.

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Rather than relying on a traditional launch campaign, we partnered with DON'T NOD across a six-month creator programme designed to build awareness, trust & consideration long before release.

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Throughout the campaign, we maintained an organic creator programme that kept Aphelion in front of creators at every major milestone. Through dedicated creator mailers, targeted outreach, preview access opportunities & key distribution, we built an opt-in creator community of more than 2,000 highly relevant creators. The list continued to grow throughout the campaign as creators registered interest in future beats, allowing us to build momentum over time rather than restarting creator discovery at each stage of the launch journey.

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Bringing Space Science Into Gaming Culture

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Alongside the launch campaign, we designed & executed a unique creator collaboration between DON'T NOD & the European Space Agency.

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Working with astronauts, scientists & gaming creators, we organised a series of interviews & community Q&A recordings that connected Aphelion's themes of isolation, survival & exploration with real-world space science. Rather than treating the European Space Agency as a promotional partner, the activation positioned creators as curious participants, helping translate complex scientific ideas into engaging content for gaming audiences.

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Beyond the interviews themselves, the Q&A recordings were distributed to relevant creators at launch, giving them exclusive content they could integrate into their coverage. This allowed creators to enrich their videos & streams with genuine scientific insight, creating more distinctive launch content while giving audiences the opportunity to hear directly from experts working at the forefront of space exploration.

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One of the standout moments was an interview with Outside Xbox. Having previously worked at the European Space Agency, Jane Douglas brought a uniquely authentic perspective that perfectly connected the worlds of gaming & space exploration.

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Across Platforms

• TikTok acted as the campaign's primary discovery engine, particularly during the pre-launch phase. Using creator-led gameplay moments, storytelling, cinematic visuals & Spark Ads amplification, we generated large-scale awareness while driving traffic directly to storefronts. The platform ultimately became the campaign's largest source of clicks.
• YouTube focused on trust & consideration. We partnered with respected narrative, sci-fi & action-adventure creators to produce gameplay videos, reviews & story-led content that helped players answer a simple question: "Is Aphelion for me?" This evergreen content continued driving discovery long after launch day.
• Twitch served as the launch visibility driver. We coordinated an international creator push at launch, concentrating creator activity into a single window to maximise directory presence & establish Aphelion as a must-watch title on release day. This placed the game within the top rows of the Twitch directory during launch, increasing visibility beyond the paid campaign itself.
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By combining a six-month creator programme, a unique European Space Agencycollaboration & a coordinated multi-platform launch strategy, we exceeded campaign KPIs by 34% while generating more than 8.5 million views for Aphelion.