Reaching for the Stars
Astroneer has always been one of those games that makes exploring space feel strangely relaxing. It was a cozy, survival game where players could explore, harvest and build on planets. Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions isn’t any of that, instead it’s a multiplayer, live service type game and its in early access currently but I already don’t like it as much as the original.
Instead of giving players a giant sandbox to settle into, STARSEEKER focuses on expeditions. Players will head out from the ESS Starseeker, a giant research hub that is filled with various stations for use and all the other players. Think the Nexus in No Man’s Sky, it’s the meeting place for players. Once sorted players will drop onto a planet, complete objectives, gather resources, scan the environment, and try to make it back with everything you collected. The result is a much more focused experience that feels closer to an extraction adventure than the traditional Astroneer formula.
MSRP: $29.99
Platforms: PC (reviewed), Xbox, PlayStation, Switch
Price I’d Pay: $19.99
That change is going to be a dealbreaker for some longtime fans, going from a game that you can play single-player to one that is forcing multiplayer is going to be a tough sell. But then adding the extraction type elements turns this into more of a hardcore game than a cozy type one. I suppose the good thing is that there are no gun-toting mercenaries waiting around every corner. The danger comes from the environment, hostile creatures, managing your resources, and simply pushing your luck a little too far.
In fact, the biggest change to the Astroneer formula is the way exploration is handled. The original game allowed players to explore and settle down at their leisure. But in Starseeker, players are on the clock; they have a job to do, so its more about ensuring you are ticking those boxes to completion rather than set down roots for long term exploration.
Starseeker is a game built around cooperation, and having a group of friends along for the ride changes the experience considerably. I don’t have friends that want to play it unfortunately, luckily you can play with randoms, which is almost needed to help divide up tasks for each expedition. For instance, one player can focus on gathering materials while another explores, scans, or handles objectives. Before long, everyone develops their own little role within the expedition.
Visually, Starseeker retains the colorful and vivid presentation that made Astroneer so appealing. The alien environments have plenty of personality, and the whimsical aesthetic keeps the experience from becoming another overly serious space survival game.
Listen, the elephant in the room is the fact that this game is in early access. There are bugs, rough edges, disconnects and more. This is not a finished version so you have to be able to accept the above if you are willing to buy in right now. I am not holding all those issues against the game, I have little doubt that as time moves on the issues will be ironed out along the path to 1.0. My biggest gripe with the game is that it presents as an ‘Astroneer 2’ but it isn’t that and if you are coming from the first expecting that; well, you are going to be disappointed.
Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions feels like an interesting evolution of the Astroneer formula. While it retains the colorful exploration and resource gathering of the original it takes those elements and wraps them in a cooperative experience. The result is a mixed one for me, I enjoyed the original very much but I just wasn’t able to get into this one, but if you can convince your friends to join you; I think there is fun to be had here.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
