Astroneer

Space survival games certainly aren't anything new but Astroneer's delightful and intuitive approach to the genre is worth experiencing.

Astroneer nicely builds on the Early Access release. The world is much more polished and it finally gives players something to do beyond simply digging up the earth and crafting new techs.

Astroneer is a wonderfully scrappy game that's been polished up since initial release in 2016 to become the best version of itself yet on the Nintendo Switch. It will, at times, frustrate you with its genial jank, and wrestling with its unpredictable physics and easily-distracted camera might suck some of the joy out of it, but if you love Minecraft, Terraria, No Man's Sky, and Subnautica, you'll surely love this, too.

Survival games have become more and more popular in the past few years, offering incredibly varied experiences that cater to a vast audience of players. No Man's Sky, while having had a disappointing launch due to missing features that were promised before release, showed that a survival game set in space could definitely work, with the right tweaks to the formula. Astroneer by System Era Softworks shares its basics of space exploration but develops everything in a very interesting way.

System Era Softworks released its first full version of Astroneer on the 6th of February. After nearly two years in Early Access, the game has a gathered a dedicated and passionate following on Discord and Reddit. Once I experienced Astroneer’s peaceful gameplay and colourful graphics, it was easy to understand why.