Planning to try it today? Have a look at the store first. Xbox Wire's October 30 schedule names today, alongside Game Pass and Xbox Play Anywhere support. Steam names today too, though it was still showing a release countdown during our morning check. Check your store rather than assuming it has unlocked already.
What the crew actually do
The dogs are engineered industrial workers. COSMO, the supervisor, sends them to gather materials, recover technology and set up operations. The job becomes more dangerous as they stay on the planet. Eventually the crew have to leave, ideally with the resources they came for.
The pipeline looks like the interesting bit. As described in the developer's reveal, it carries power and gives players places to deploy equipment. Stretch it farther and there is more ground to cover, as well as more infrastructure for the creatures to attack. The awkward part, presumably, is deciding how far to stretch it before the crew have too much ground to watch. We'll be interested to see how players divide that work.
The Grav Beam moves resources and equipment around, and doubles as a way to throw objects into a fight. The studio wants construction to happen alongside combat. In other words, putting the base together isn't necessarily a quiet job you finish before anything dangerous arrives.
Don't mistake this for a finished release
Steam lists both solo play and online co-op. Octopus Panic says the core loop is playable and plans further jobs, worlds, enemies and equipment during Early Access. Its estimate is roughly six months, perhaps longer; it hasn't attached a firm 1.0 date to that estimate. The Xbox listing also carries the warning that Game Preview is unfinished software and a final release is not guaranteed.
We haven't played this build, so there is no verdict here on how well those systems fit together. But it gives a group something specific to try: see whether keeping an operation running gets everyone involved, rather than leaving one person to do the repairs. There is usually somebody in a group who wants another minute to collect things. Here, that could leave the rest of the crew with a repair bill and an increasingly bad route home. That is the sort of small decision we'd hope the game makes room for.