Starbound

 PC
User Score
7.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 508 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 306 out of 508
  2. Mixed: 130 out of 508
  3. Negative: 72 out of 508

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  1. Frost_Cube
    Feb 1, 2021
    6
    Don't follow what the haters say. Play the game yourself and you will see that its amazing. The music, the art, the adventure is all greatly done, and plenty of mods from the community and the fact that you need little to no knowledge to mod t
  2. OskehCat
    Mar 9, 2022
    6
    Honestly, this game wasn't really that great for me. The gameplay and graphics are fine, but I think the part I don't like is just the mission system and general story. As far as story goes, for a "sandbox" game there is a lot of it. The missions were really confusing at times, for example after leaving the first planet it shows you 5 other planets and says "go find this species". And itHonestly, this game wasn't really that great for me. The gameplay and graphics are fine, but I think the part I don't like is just the mission system and general story. As far as story goes, for a "sandbox" game there is a lot of it. The missions were really confusing at times, for example after leaving the first planet it shows you 5 other planets and says "go find this species". And it just was boring, walking around the entire planet and then oh, the species is not here, time to do this again. tl;dr: This game feels very unpolished, but I might come back to it another time.… Expand
  3. jdmsjmsrscgm
    Sep 12, 2023
    6
    One of the biggest attractions of Starbound is the feeling of almost infinite exploration it offers. The game features a procedurally generated universe with billions of planets, each with its own characteristics, biomes, resources and challenges. The variety is impressive, and players can spend hours exploring exotic planets, mysterious caves, and alien cities.

    Starbound's 8-bit pixel    One of the biggest attractions of Starbound is the feeling of almost infinite exploration it offers. The game features a procedurally generated universe with billions of planets, each with its own characteristics, biomes, resources and challenges. The variety is impressive, and players can spend hours exploring exotic planets, mysterious caves, and alien cities.

    Starbound's 8-bit pixel art aesthetic is charming and nostalgic, evoking classic games from the 8-bit era. Despite its visual simplicity, the game manages to convey a sense of depth and atmosphere. The details in the landscapes, character animation and creature designs are remarkable and contribute to immersion in the game's universe.

    Starbound is especially fun when played with friends. The game supports cooperative multiplayer, allowing players to team up to explore, build, fight enemies, and complete missions together. Collaboration is encouraged, and building bases on planets is an important part of the experience, which makes creating a personal space and exploring the universe even more rewarding when shared with friends.

    In addition to exploration, "Starbound" offers rich building mechanics. Players can create their own custom bases, colonies, and even spaceships. Creative freedom is extensive, and the variety of materials and objects available for construction allows players to completely customize their spaces.    … Expand
  4. Zen-Zinxe
    Jan 29, 2015
    5
    While the graphics and sounds are really nice. The game itself is charming and has a lot of potential, it is held back by being essentially a simplistic Terraria where you can visit different planets. It's been ages since a "stable" update was released so for those who can't be bothered to beta test the game for them won't see any changes for months at a time.

    A big update just rolled    While the graphics and sounds are really nice. The game itself is charming and has a lot of potential, it is held back by being essentially a simplistic Terraria where you can visit different planets. It's been ages since a "stable" update was released so for those who can't be bothered to beta test the game for them won't see any changes for months at a time.

    A big update just rolled out for the game and it's finally starting to take shape, however I would definitely not recommend until they officially claim the game is in a 'finished' state. Which may be a lot longer than any one is willing to wait. Hold on to your money for now.    … Expand
  5. Vel
    Oct 10, 2016
    5
    First off, I would recommend ignoring all reviews before 2016, as those were for an "early acess" version, and the final game version was only released in 2016. The final release is much different than the early access version.

    Overall, I would only half recommend this game. If you enjoy 2D sandbox games like terraria, you will probably like this game. It has more story, mission, and a    First off, I would recommend ignoring all reviews before 2016, as those were for an "early acess" version, and the final game version was only released in 2016. The final release is much different than the early access version.

    Overall, I would only half recommend this game. If you enjoy 2D sandbox games like terraria, you will probably like this game. It has more story, mission, and a coherent progression. Most of the missions are a bit of a grind, but it isn't too bad. And I think the boss battles are much better than terraria.

    The down-side is that there are still bugs and issues. For instance, I was recently playing the game and my power temporarily went out. I figured this would be no big deal, I would simply load from the last time I saved the game. WRONG. The game somehow deleted my planetary bookmarks, and set back portions of the main storyline to the very beginning of the entire game (ie it somehow corrupted portions of my current save file, even though I wasn't in the process of saving when the crash happened). So there are still issues to be worked out. Be forewarned.    … Expand
  6. theirrelephants
    Aug 8, 2016
    5
    This is basically Terraria except that you can travel to planets with different tile sets.

    Kind of disappointing, but still good for a dozen or two hours of fun.
  7. Sjalka
    Aug 3, 2016
    5
    Starbound is kind of average in my opinion. It does not shine in any respect - delivers about what you expect .. and does not let you down in any significant way. Maybe there are a little too many side scrolling pixel-art survival games out these days - but Starbound simply does not stand out.

    Maybe i am not progressed enough to make such a call - but i would have expected a lot less    Starbound is kind of average in my opinion. It does not shine in any respect - delivers about what you expect .. and does not let you down in any significant way. Maybe there are a little too many side scrolling pixel-art survival games out these days - but Starbound simply does not stand out.

    Maybe i am not progressed enough to make such a call - but i would have expected a lot less planetary crafing and building and a lot more starship designing and so. Instead my ship is just a kind of hut in space with little to no function other than a base of operations. ... But as i said - maybe i have not progressed enough - so that might be a thing later in the game.

    Exploration is not the most exciting thing in Starbound ... because the plant(s) are not exactly very different in my opinion. Sure - there may be a slightly different background and terrain theme - but all in all ... its all quite similar.
    Added to it is the feeling that it hardly feels like a sci fi game. Equipment, weapons and all the stuff is very low tech and boring. (I like to point at the game "Sid meiers - Alpha Centauri" which allowed technology so far off in the future .. but still in a kind of logical way - that it simply felt like sci fi)

    Starbound on the other hand feels like the stone age - like one of those sci fi movies set thousands of years in the future - where they still use ballistic weapons like shotguns.

    Well - enough of my ramblings ... all in all the game is ... as i said .. average. If you liked Terraria - and you simply cannot get enough of that kind of game - Starbound might satisfy your needs.    … Expand
  8. JERupp
    Jul 30, 2014
    5
    Another example of the pre-order/early-access scam. Chucklefish collected over 4 million dollars to make this game, and what we got instead was a half-baked Terraria with the ability to visit multiple boring worlds. Without the work of the independent mods for this game, I would have given it a solid 2 out 10.

    On principle, I would say to not reward this company with your patronage. On    Another example of the pre-order/early-access scam. Chucklefish collected over 4 million dollars to make this game, and what we got instead was a half-baked Terraria with the ability to visit multiple boring worlds. Without the work of the independent mods for this game, I would have given it a solid 2 out 10.

    On principle, I would say to not reward this company with your patronage. On rationality, I would say you should just go out and buy Terraria instead. You will actually be paying someone for a great game, and not to help create an "indie" publishing company that spits out half-finished games to pay for creating more half-finished games.    … Expand
  9. Theanchorman900
    May 21, 2014
    5
    Games fun for a few hours but it lacks true depth yet. The progression is just a raw numbers game i.e stronger armors and weapons which barely vary beyond having larger numbers. The armors and weapons and armor do look visually decent but this game is mostly superficial at the moment. The Music is pretty good - although when you come across a small monster epic battle music plays everyGames fun for a few hours but it lacks true depth yet. The progression is just a raw numbers game i.e stronger armors and weapons which barely vary beyond having larger numbers. The armors and weapons and armor do look visually decent but this game is mostly superficial at the moment. The Music is pretty good - although when you come across a small monster epic battle music plays every time which detracts from the immersion. If you have read this review thanks. I'd basically advise you to avoid the hype and the rose tinted opinions of the positive scorers as the game is still a working progress. Don't let potential cloud your judgement. I'll score it higher once it earns it.… Expand
  10. Vulfie
    Jan 9, 2016
    5
    This is a hard one to comment on.

    Is it fun? I think so. Did I enjoy it more than Minecraft and Terraria? Yes I did. I really did. I enjoyed the feeling of exploration in this game. You come across so many NPC towns, cities and colonies. So many dungeons, so many quests. It feels like you are exploring a pre-existing universe, and not just dumped on a blank-slate planet and have to    This is a hard one to comment on.

    Is it fun? I think so. Did I enjoy it more than Minecraft and Terraria? Yes I did. I really did. I enjoyed the feeling of exploration in this game. You come across so many NPC towns, cities and colonies. So many dungeons, so many quests. It feels like you are exploring a pre-existing universe, and not just dumped on a blank-slate planet and have to build it up yourself. I realize that's what a lot of people like about Minecraft and Terraria, and maybe that's why so many people went into Starbound expecting the same when it's actually quite different.

    But can I recommend this game in its current state? Hmm... There is no question that this is game, even in Early Access, is far better made than the majority of games I've played in the last few years. The quality that went into this game puts Fallout 4 to shame, and that game had an enormous budget and a professional development team (Are you getting tired of indie games being vastly superior to AAA releases? Me too.)

    But I guess I can't ignore the elephant in the room any longer. Yes it is Early Access. It has been Early Access for 2 years now, and will probably remain in Early Access for a long, long time. Starbound is shaping up to give games like DayZ and Project Zomboid a run for their money in the "Which game will be finished first" race. Project Zomboid has been in Early Access for almost 5 years now and I think it's safe to say that Starbound will probably still be Early Access 3 years from now too. I have unfortunately ran into the EA wall a few times in Starbound. Heavy frame drops at random points, a lot of items in the game do not have their functions in place yet, racial traits are not in place yet... So on.

    Does that make it a bad game? No. It's still very enjoyable, and like I said it's remarkably high-quality. But Early Access... Pay full price for a game that may never be finished... I'm sure many of us on Steam have fallen into that pit before and you probably don't want to put yourself in that position again. I can't blame you.

    Summary:

    As it stands, I enjoyed this game a lot. I enjoyed the sense of exploration and adventure. I enjoyed having one tool that mines, cuts down trees and destroys backgrounds. I enjoyed exploring NPC cities. I enjoyed having a ship you can make your home, and upgrade it to add more and more rooms. But I just can't recommend this game (Or any game) while it's stuck in Early Access. Especially if it has been stuck there for as long as this game has been. And there is a strong possibility that this game will never be finished.    … Expand
  11. dafrak
    Aug 18, 2016
    5
    An average SF clone of Teraria built around hype, with no hype real score is about 5. Most of game look unifiinshed, shallow and repetitive like developer got good starting idea but lost focus on the way. Gameplay consists esentialy of collect ore1 to build tool2 to collect ore2 to build tool3 etc, then you move to another planet and start all over again. It is interesting while yourAn average SF clone of Teraria built around hype, with no hype real score is about 5. Most of game look unifiinshed, shallow and repetitive like developer got good starting idea but lost focus on the way. Gameplay consists esentialy of collect ore1 to build tool2 to collect ore2 to build tool3 etc, then you move to another planet and start all over again. It is interesting while your expand your first base but there is no sense of purpose or goals to acomplish and game quickly becomes boring.… Expand
  12. Alex_Milkovich
    Aug 3, 2016
    5
    This game isn't good or bad. If you like playing in sandboxes or if you like space theme this game will be a good purchase.
    In my case it's 5 out of 10, because:
    1) it has some bugs,
    2)it doesn't work in full-screen
    3)it's not very interesting for me
    e.t.c.
  13. nik_balani
    Jun 20, 2020
    5
    Starbound started with a lot of promise - interesting story and free reign crafting. However as mentioned by other reviews - the crafting doesnt add a lot to the story or progress in the game and the infinite number of worlds becomes annoying when you are trying to remember where things are stored/found. I played about 20 hrs worth and realised I hadn't gotten very far so abandoned the game.
  14. SurrealKitten
    Sep 1, 2020
    5
    Pretty fun early on, until you realize the main story is a grindfest with little actual plot and repetitive missions.

    Want to get to the next boss? Search galaxy after galaxy for procedurally-generated artifacts to search. So interesting! Want boss weapons? Go through the same 20 minute long stages over and over again to farm for that 10% drop! Want legendary artifacts? Dig for 10    Pretty fun early on, until you realize the main story is a grindfest with little actual plot and repetitive missions.

    Want to get to the next boss? Search galaxy after galaxy for procedurally-generated artifacts to search. So interesting!

    Want boss weapons? Go through the same 20 minute long stages over and over again to farm for that 10% drop!

    Want legendary artifacts? Dig for 10 hours on 100 different planets, good luck in the dark! Or use admin mode and speed up the process, while rendering the game much less fun.

    Things like these eventually suck out the charm of the game. Potential buyers beware.    … Expand
  15. rampag
    May 12, 2021
    5
    I played the early stages of this game and now i return after years to see that this game, sadly, was clearly rushed making this game with "a lot" of features that are simplely bad done or even annoy.

    For example, crew thing, you are supposed to be able to recruit people. How? doing missions until someone like you enought, that is annoy itself because you wont have much options to    I played the early stages of this game and now i return after years to see that this game, sadly, was clearly rushed making this game with "a lot" of features that are simplely bad done or even annoy.

    For example, crew thing, you are supposed to be able to recruit people. How? doing missions until someone like you enought, that is annoy itself because you wont have much options to chose who give you missions, and doing a chain of random quest everytime you want a new crew member its just too much work.
    So after actually hours of doing random quests, nobody wanted to join... yes, even if someone give you various quest, it doesnt mean he will give you more or join to your ship, so all i did was a waste of time.
    The quests they give are the most boring and basic thing one can imagine, its just "go and kill this", "go and give me this", "go and talk to this dude" THE END, who would want to do this? the combat in this game is absolutly basic and exploration most of the time unrewarded.
    So, why i would spent so much time trying to get a new crew memeber doing quests if doing it is so boring? Because they FORCE me to do it as there is no other way (except hiring penguins) and i want to make my ship better and get other benefits.

    Someone here has given a 10/10 review telling us to dont listen the "haters" and check the game by ourself but the only think im seeing is the dev rushed the game so fast that they didnt test or play their game THEMSELF otherwise that **** mechanic would not be here.
    This is an example but there is a large amount of them where i feel everytime the devs didnt even tested enought and simplely, at some point, they gave up on this game so they rushed all the mechanic and things they promised to make it "work" and dont be looked like a scam game.

    Your pet in your ship will follow you around like a creep so there will be a lot of time when you will try to click in some object like your chair to flight another planet but your pet will be in front of such object so you would not be able to click, instead you will have to deal to find the exact pixel to click in your chair.
    This is another example where you can see that if the devs had taken a second to test, the would have found this problem and fix it as simple as making the pet dont follow you or just dont stay in front of an interactable object.

    Totally underserve amount of positive rating, the problem is not the amount of content, the problem is what kind of content, there are 10000 planets but only around 3 which are different enought, 10000 monster and again, only 3 which are different enought, 10000 quests (including main quests) that are simplely bland and uninteresting go from X to Y where the best i can say is some bosses are sometimes fun enought but there are no many bosses anyways.

    5/10 is what they deserve because indie and if you have a lot of time to waste and like this kind of game... well, who i am to tell you what to do?
    But honestly, im really dissapoint with this game and if all the games are rathing like this... im dissapoint with the user reviews... like... there are comments wit "10/10 wow, AWESOME" but 0 proof or reason about why that score... I could be wrong or this game just no be my taste but at least i give a reason.    … Expand
  16. Kedisi
    Jul 3, 2018
    4
    It's Jule 2018 and the last update was in Oct 2017.

    The devs could swear they're doing the console version or whatever but the fact is - we have abandonware here. They had some ideas for 1.4 then "delayed" the release, then gave up cuz "weee, XBox". Come on, anybody who wanted to play SB already played it on PC. An endless universe. Great graphics. Great music. Great concept. A    It's Jule 2018 and the last update was in Oct 2017.

    The devs could swear they're doing the console version or whatever but the fact is - we have abandonware here. They had some ideas for 1.4 then "delayed" the release, then gave up cuz "weee, XBox". Come on, anybody who wanted to play SB already played it on PC.

    An endless universe. Great graphics. Great music. Great concept. A crapton of neat ideas, but like 5% of them is finished. A cemetery of ideas, if you want.. The story sucks. The balance is crap. The devs is mostly ignoring negative feedback and for some (no) reason put their own good findings in gameplay on the shelf: racial perks? yeah, cool, but no; item tags? sure, but they will be invisible; mode without stuff drop on death but with hunger? FU player. And you got nothing to do here in like 48 hours at best. Old Terraria has more content and more challenge than SB in it's current form.
    Yeah, you could say "SteamWorkshop" and mods, but guess what - Terraria was great -without- any mods.

    The devs act now like the Novakids they've introduced - took Terraria, reworked it, then lost the interest and left the game half-baked. I loved Starbound until they dumped it. Sooo salty.    … Expand
  17. R77
    Jul 23, 2016
    4
    There were high expectations for this game after three years of development and a long beta process, and it missed almost all of them.

    The Good: - The music is excellent, and the game sounds great overall - The art style is fun - The variety of weapons (although the combat mechanics make this almost meaningless) The Bad: - The inventory system - which should be the core of a    There were high expectations for this game after three years of development and a long beta process, and it missed almost all of them.

    The Good:

    - The music is excellent, and the game sounds great overall
    - The art style is fun
    - The variety of weapons (although the combat mechanics make this almost meaningless)

    The Bad:

    - The inventory system - which should be the core of a game with thousands of items - is badly broken. This is after years of testing. There are now five separate inventory screens, and the UI that controls them is clunky and frustrating. Items that used to stack no longer do, which leads to inventory crowding almost immediately.
    - The story is bland and unoriginal. This would be fine if it wasn't a mandatory part of the early-game, but you're now required to run the same broken dungeon you were in beta before you can do any real exploring. It still sucks.
    - The quest hub/town area has undergone only cosmetic changes since early beta, only now there's a story dungeon sloppily cobbled onto it.
    - You now drop healing items and other important items on death on the normal difficulty mode, which adds a layer of meaningless frustration.
    - Combat is the same 'try not to let the monster hit you' snoozefest as before, only now you sometimes have functional weapons when they aren't glitching out.
    - Enemy variety was supposedly going to be huge, but I found myself running into the same six aliens over and over. I guess this got scrapped?

    I know $15 isn't very expensive, but considering how much money these developers made through early access and what a long development cycle this had...I expected much more. Unless Starbound gets the fixes it still needs and an almost complete inventory/combat overhaul, I see no reason to come back. Save your money.    … Expand
  18. MAJLich
    Jan 13, 2017
    4
    Not worth playing. The beginning of the game I was motivated to play. Soon after, the game becomes repetitive as you progress, the controls become cumbersome. It really lacks true depth. I get a slight lag when there is lot going on and slows my movement down to change equipment that causes me to die.
    There is infinite building but you can't get the detail easily and no benefit building    Not worth playing. The beginning of the game I was motivated to play. Soon after, the game becomes repetitive as you progress, the controls become cumbersome. It really lacks true depth. I get a slight lag when there is lot going on and slows my movement down to change equipment that causes me to die.
    There is infinite building but you can't get the detail easily and no benefit building on these worlds. Just a standard building game. I can't seem to get the benefit of more crewman either.
    The last boss is virally impossible for me at least since it's near impossible to dodge and the lag slows my play down just enough that I can't heal by one click or even two clicks of the mouse.
    Overall, becomes boring and the controls are too cumbersome for boss battles. What a disappointment. The critics score is too high. Less than average game.    … Expand
  19. SomeonReviews
    Jun 19, 2020
    4
    I really wanted to like this game. Terraria in space. It sounds amazing! But its just not fun. The gameplay loop is just... unsatifisying. The UI is a mess and just confusing, just like the entire game. Its just confusing. Why make an open world sandbox, with tutorials, a story mode and fetch quests. What game do you want to be Starbound?! Soundtrack and mod support are pretty good though.I really wanted to like this game. Terraria in space. It sounds amazing! But its just not fun. The gameplay loop is just... unsatifisying. The UI is a mess and just confusing, just like the entire game. Its just confusing. Why make an open world sandbox, with tutorials, a story mode and fetch quests. What game do you want to be Starbound?! Soundtrack and mod support are pretty good though. Wouldn't reccomend.… Expand
  20. hakai124
    Jul 24, 2016
    3
    For a game that's allegedly finished it sure feels like a beta. Oh wait *launches game and reads the window*, it appears to say Starbound Beta.

    Joking aside this game has a myriad of problems, some good things too but mostly problems. Pros: Decent presentation Good soundtrack For me runs better than it ever has before but I understand a lot of people are having problems with it.    For a game that's allegedly finished it sure feels like a beta. Oh wait *launches game and reads the window*, it appears to say Starbound Beta.

    Joking aside this game has a myriad of problems, some good things too but mostly problems.

    Pros:
    Decent presentation
    Good soundtrack
    For me runs better than it ever has before but I understand a lot of people are having problems with it. That being said it still has random frame drops on my machine. GTX 970, AMD FX-8350
    A lot of different loot and cool abilities
    Varied surface landscapes

    Cons:
    Incredibly poor UI decisions; draggable windows that don't stay put in between closing and pulling them back up, the hotbar can't be truly customized to put things where you'd like them, inventory/options/crafting all accessed from separate buttons (this is an issue for me because this game is similar enough to terraria that the UI feels like it should be the same)
    The questing is generally terrible fetch/delivery quests
    The varied planet surfaces don't matter when you spend a large portion of time underground
    Mining and digging a straight tunnel is tedious
    The endless save wipes between every version (this doesn't matter if you're new but for anyone whose been playing since the early access release this is a problem)
    The whole game is a grind

    I could go on and on but honestly it's not worth it. If you've played Terraria and think this looks good, just play Terraria again. All that being said if I have to give this game a score it gets a 3/10.    … Expand
  21. skrik
    Sep 3, 2014
    3
    I wouldnt say its a scam like other did. I think the team wants to make a good game, but... they dont know how to. A game has to "feel right" and a big mistake in game devlopment is to add a ton of content and **** before it does. Starbound has done this mistake full force and the exploration and combat feels extremely dull and bland. On paper and on the blog it sounds awesome and I wasI wouldnt say its a scam like other did. I think the team wants to make a good game, but... they dont know how to. A game has to "feel right" and a big mistake in game devlopment is to add a ton of content and **** before it does. Starbound has done this mistake full force and the exploration and combat feels extremely dull and bland. On paper and on the blog it sounds awesome and I was super excited about it but after 9 hours ( i ve tried and retried over 4 or 5 characters along the updates) i never had fun. it's really sad to say but yep, didnt have fun a single minute.
    Fights are slow and boring, gravity is always too low and controls dont feel nervous or tight. Muddy at best. Game is super unbalanced ( which is ok for the early beta, but its been in beta for a year now and i havent seen much change...). Character progression is boring, nothing exciting to be found in exploration. "quests" to push you to a next step feel forced and break the fun a game like terraria had in its sandbox system and freedom of exploration. Terraria had genius in the fact that you could discover everything yourself ( i never had to read a walkthrough), starbound hasnt found a way to teach the player to play the game in a clever way and instead tries to take him by the hand telling him what to do turning the experience into a fetching bore.

    I have lost hope in Starbound right now. I ll come back and update my review in a few months if things have evolved.    … Expand
  22. jparker782
    Jul 11, 2014
    3
    This game had a lot of potential but it seems to be effectively abandoned by its developers(save for an occasional blog post about their "progress"). Avoid this one and save your money.
  23. JoeJoeJoeJoe
    Aug 25, 2016
    3
    This game has had excellent appeal during its Beta and Alpha stages, and I absolutely love the freedom of exploring planets and stuff. HOWEVER level design in challenges that have since been introduced give it an almost "rogue'-like appeal. I absolutely detest this, and this prevents me from enjoying the game that I know is stuck behind these extremely, extremely, frustrating and punitiveThis game has had excellent appeal during its Beta and Alpha stages, and I absolutely love the freedom of exploring planets and stuff. HOWEVER level design in challenges that have since been introduced give it an almost "rogue'-like appeal. I absolutely detest this, and this prevents me from enjoying the game that I know is stuck behind these extremely, extremely, frustrating and punitive challenges. I will never play that game, and I will never forgive Chucklefish for this.… Expand
  24. aceofspace
    May 1, 2016
    3
    Boring. Incredibly boring. No meaningful content, progression feels pointless, combat mechanic is dull, exploring is only skin-deep (one "procedural" world is as good as any other). The one single plus is that some of the writing is decent. But oh man, that combat is terrible.

    A great concept ruined by its execution.
  25. Moo-vies
    Aug 9, 2016
    3
    Game is disappointing.
    The crafting is extremely limited. There is a total of 6 arbors to craft in the game. 6, with aesthetic variations.
    Seriously, the game is boring past the first 10 hours of discovery. There is no character whatsoever, everything is smoothed out and neutered. Story, graphics, ideas, possibilities. To release such a gut out product cut of functionalities    Game is disappointing.
    The crafting is extremely limited. There is a total of 6 arbors to craft in the game. 6, with aesthetic variations.

    Seriously, the game is boring past the first 10 hours of discovery.
    There is no character whatsoever, everything is smoothed out and neutered. Story, graphics, ideas, possibilities.

    To release such a gut out product cut of functionalities present in early access after 5 years of development is a spit in the face of the customers.

    Never again Chucklefish.    … Expand
  26. MaxPay
    Nov 29, 2016
    2
    Disconnected and barebone mechanics render a shallow experience that's already grindy by nature.
    If the goal was to conquer the galaxy, for example, then things like building colonies, upgrading ships, terraforming and so on would be useful features.
    But your mission is to scan all the furniture in the universe! And not as you go along, but in racial order! Performance issues still    Disconnected and barebone mechanics render a shallow experience that's already grindy by nature.
    If the goal was to conquer the galaxy, for example, then things like building colonies, upgrading ships, terraforming and so on would be useful features.
    But your mission is to scan all the furniture in the universe! And not as you go along, but in racial order!
    Performance issues still exist after 5 years. Large amount of content was cut from the game like racial differences, lore, weapons, tech, armor... And they added same monsters to every planet!
    Visiting other planets gets old fast, cause of frequent deja vu.
    2 points are for pixel art and soundtrack.    … Expand
  27. hassall
    Dec 16, 2016
    2
    the game is boring past the first 10 hours of discovery. for me this game is dull and boring. The crafting is extremely limited. I remember m friends telling me about this game and i played it and it just sucked. this game is no where near done.
  28. Krogort
    Sep 19, 2014
    1
    Seems to be one of many early access/kickstarter scam.
    Dev team cashed out after filling their pocket due to the hype generated by the announcement and early release.
    We are left with little content and a total lack of support from the developer.
  29. Alexander_Z
    Jun 19, 2014
    1
    As is the game is unfinished. That wouldn't be so bad except in seven months time they have done nothing of note besides expand as a publisher. Work on Starbound has slowed to a crawl. The game itself is in a state where it is little more then 2D Lego's and there are other block building games out there that are more complete and cheaper then the asking price of this unfinished work. IAs is the game is unfinished. That wouldn't be so bad except in seven months time they have done nothing of note besides expand as a publisher. Work on Starbound has slowed to a crawl. The game itself is in a state where it is little more then 2D Lego's and there are other block building games out there that are more complete and cheaper then the asking price of this unfinished work. I would love to talk about the gameplay more but there simply isn't any to be had as the work is simply not fun at all in its presently and likely soon to be rushed out 1.0 state that is slated to be missing features. As is the developers have also gone back on their word several times involving the mechanics and gameplay, date of release, and are blaming their userbase for these faults. 2015 at the time of this writing slated as the release date. They have been noticably changing the release date since -2012-.

    I find this one of the most disturbing early access games on Steam in terms of lost potential. I would warn people to instead pick up Terraria, Minecraft, or a host of other games in a better state and that are still being worked on diligently. What is here is only the most basic of block games and looks to remain that way so I give this a 1. Chucklefish at present is to concerned with other matters to make this game the product it could have been.    … Expand
  30. Whisena
    Jul 17, 2014
    1
    This game is the exact reason why I don't like early access anymore. Developers go us into buying their game with colorful promising features, and only to take our money and laugh at our foolishness for paying for unfinished product. I would never buy another early access from Chucklefish,
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Awards & Rankings

54
#54 Best PC Game of 2016
32
#32 Most Discussed PC Game of 2016
74
#74 Most Shared PC Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 21
  3. Negative: 0 out of 21
  1. Everyeye.it
    Oct 24, 2016
    82
    Starbound is one of the very few games that gets both "open world" and "sandbox" done right. The amount of activities available is astounding and the best part is you can avoid them all, if you wish to do just that.
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  2. CD-Action
    Oct 14, 2016
    85
    The price to fun ratio is amazing, but Starbound’s biggest advantage is the freedom it offers. I took a long break from Elite Dangerous to play this indie gem – it’s that good! [10/2016, p.58]
  3. Games.cz
    Sep 19, 2016
    70
    Starbound is not as polished and debugged as other games, and sometimes it may seem repetitive. But compared to more "modern" sci-fi games its explorative, almost melancholic spirit and emphasis on building catches your heart. Spare a few hundred hours of your time, the ultimate boundary once again calls for the survey.
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