Starbound

Starbound excels as a crafting and exploration game, as a 2D platformer with varied and engaging combat, and as a Zelda-esque story RPG with a detailed world and memorable alien cultures to interact with. The sheer volume of different kinds of locations to discover, items to craft and build great structures with, and flashy ways to vanquish aliens prevent any part of the experience from getting boring quickly. It can feel overly punishing and time consuming, particularly in the first few hours. But the freedom to uncover the secrets of the galaxy and make its worlds your own is worth the wait,...

Explore the farthest reaches of space to discover new planets and fight unique creatures while trying to find the perfect place to call home.

Starbound is a survival/exploration experience that has been in some form of early access for years, but it is finally launching into orbit with an official release. Players begin in deep space, surrounded by unfamiliar planets and with a malfunctioning ship at their disposal. From there, the universe opens up slowly, revealing new activities and items that help ensure your survival and prosperity, drawing you in to a vast universe to discover alone or with friends.

Dig through planets—and hours—in the charming space sandbox Starbound.

I'm sure there will come a point — after all the updates, after its full final release, after I've mastered the dangers of Sector X — where I finally feel done with Starbound. Even an infinite game can't pull me in forever. But its slow start aside, this is the closest I've experienced to an endless game without major compromises in content.

This process doesn’t stop now that Starbound 1.0 has released. The team is dedicated to adding content and fixing bugs in the system. This is worth noting before I tell you that the game isn’t perfect: It still has its share of AI glitches and graphical hiccups, and worlds can be slow to load even when playing offline. But these are things you can expect to change for the better, because the developer has set a precedent. If something is wrong—if the players have a complaint—it has been heard and it will be answered. Starbound will continue to be the best it can be, the next virtual frontier f...