I’ve had my eye on Amplitude Studios for quite a while. The original Endless Space was a flawed but excellent space empire builder that only fell just short of its great ambitions. It did so much different and built such a unique universe – entire clone races, living bacteria that started with the whole map revealed, trade-centric factions that could never go to war – that the mechanical slip ups were only a minor distraction, but one that stopped it reaching true greatness. By all accounts, Endless Legend surpassed it in the fantasy Civ-like sphere. Now the developer is back with Endless Space 2 and the teaser trailer below.

But that isn’t all. Discovered via holding space on the official teaser site, there’s a second version of the trailer that shows off a little more detail and shows that ship to be carrying some valuable cargo.

The various glyphs present on the screen have been translated as part of a treasure hunt that fans embarked on yesterday. In the top right it reads Gray Owl, confirming that it’s a ship featured in stories relating to Endless Legend. The planet it’s taking off from is Auriga, where Endless Legend takes place, and escaping from the planet is one of the win conditions of that game.

One of Amplitude’s great strengths is this lightly interconnected universe. Auriga is in the Endless Space galaxy and pseudo tower defense game Dungeons of the Endless takes place beneath its surface and the consequences of it feature as an event in Endless Legend. Now Endless Space 2 will bring this complicated timeline forward again while simultaneously being a generation-spanning strategy of its own.

Also in the video is hidden a link to the first Games2Gether element of Endless Space 2, some in-universe lore regarding the ancient history of the galaxy. Games2Gether is Amplitude’s intiative for gathering community feedback and suggestions. In the past it’s helped create new factions, units and minor races for their games via voting systems.

There’ll be more about Endless Space 2 revealed at Gamescom. If it’s anything like the original, expect cinematic battles between massive fleets, a huge tech tree with multiple routes and having to govern entire star systems at once. That second trailer points to some time in 2016 as the release date.