- Rewarding terraforming with visible planet changes.
- Relaxing, engaging survival gameplay without combat.
- Addictive progression system enhances gameplay loop.
- Enjoyable multiplayer enhances collaborative experience.
- Numerous bugs and graphical issues impact experience.
- Repetitive gameplay and grindy resource collection.
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 91% · Negative 9%. Score: 9 / 100
Positives:
- The game offers a relaxing and engaging experience. Reviewers praise the beautiful visuals, soothing music, and the absence of intense combat, making it perfect for unwinding. The gameplay is simple yet addictive, providing a sense of progression and creative freedom.
- Terraforming is core, rewarding mechanic. Players find satisfaction in transforming a barren planet into a lush ecosystem, with visible changes to the landscape, atmosphere, and the emergence of life. The game provides a sense of progression and accomplishment as the planet evolves.
- The game balances survival and crafting well. It offers a unique, casual experience without typical combat, focusing on exploration and world improvement. The game simplifies mechanics compared to similar titles, making it more accessible and enjoyable.
- The game features a dynamic, evolving world. Players witness the planet's transformation with changes in weather, vegetation, and the emergence of new biomes. This creates a rewarding sense of progression and impact on the environment.
- The game has an addictive progression system. Players are consistently rewarded with new content, upgrades, and a sense of accomplishment. The well-designed progression curve keeps players engaged and motivated to continue playing.
Negatives:
- The game suffers from numerous technical issues, including outdated graphics, frequent bugs, clipping issues, inconsistent textures, and poor optimization. Many reviewers felt the game was unpolished and resembled an early access title despite its 1.0 release. These issues detract from the overall experience and immersion.
- Many reviewers found the core gameplay loop repetitive and grindy, especially concerning resource gathering and terraforming. The slow pace and lack of engaging content, particularly in the late game, lead to boredom and a feeling of tedium. Some reviewers felt the game lacked depth and complexity.
- The game's story and lore are minimal, shallow, and unengaging, failing to provide a compelling narrative experience. Reviewers found the plot to be underdeveloped and the characters lacking depth. The absence of a strong storyline detracts from the overall sense of purpose and immersion.
- The game suffers from clunky and frustrating building mechanics due to issues with snapping, alignment, and object placement. Limited inventory space and the inability to stack items exacerbate these problems, leading to tedious resource management and base construction. These issues detract from the overall enjoyment of the building aspect.
- The game features flawed vehicle and movement mechanics, with the rover being clunky and prone to getting stuck, and the jetpack having limited functionality and control issues. These issues make traversal frustrating and detract from the overall exploration experience. Some reviewers found the vehicles to be nearly useless.
Gameplay:
- The core gameplay loop revolves around terraforming a barren planet by gathering resources, building structures and machines to increase atmospheric pressure, heat, oxygen, and biomass. As the planet transforms, new areas, resources, and technologies become available, shifting the gameplay focus from basic survival to exploration, automation, and base expansion. The game visually represents terraforming progress, with the landscape evolving to include blue skies, water, and plant/animal life.
- Exploration is crucial for gathering resources, especially rare minerals and advanced materials needed for expanding facilities and crafting advanced gear. Resources do not respawn, encouraging players to explore diverse biomes, caves, and shipwrecks scattered across the map. Automation can alleviate resource scarcity in the mid-to-late game.
- The game incorporates survival mechanics, requiring players to manage essential needs like oxygen, food, and water. These elements are more prominent in the early game, motivating initial exploration and base building. As players progress and unlock new technologies, these survival aspects become less demanding.
- The game has a story, but it's not as deep as Red Dead Redemption 2. The story is spread out, making it easy to not care much for it. The storyline is not essential to complete the base game, but is needed for Steam achievements.
- Exploration uncovers lore, backstory, and the history of previous inhabitants through shipwrecks, messages, and abandoned structures. Portals to distant wrecks offer additional opportunities for exploration and resource gathering, though the resources found may be similar to those already available.
Performance:
- Players frequently report clipping through terrain, falling through the map, and other collision-related bugs. Some of these bugs can be minor, while others can force a restart. The frequency of these issues impacts the overall polish of the game.
- Performance varies significantly. Some players report smooth gameplay even on older hardware, while others experience FPS drops, stuttering, lag spikes, and crashes, especially in later stages with large bases or in specific areas like the DLC with fog. Recent updates are also reported to have introduced new performance issues.
- Some reviewers feel the graphics are dated, resembling older games. While some find the visuals pleasing, others note that the game's engine is showing its age. This is a subjective point, but it impacts the overall presentation for some players.
- The game has a relatively small file size and short loading times. This is a positive aspect for players with limited storage space or those who value quick access to the game.
- The game includes a function, activated by the F4 key, to help players who get stuck. However, some players report that this function can also be abused to glitch through the map. This is a double-edged sword, providing a fix but also opening up exploits.
Recommendations:
- The game is overwhelmingly recommended by reviewers. They praise its fun, engaging, and addictive gameplay, often highlighting its value for the price, especially when on sale. Many reviewers express excitement to continue playing and explore future content.
- Many reviewers compare the game favorably to Subnautica, citing similar exploration, crafting, and survival elements, but often with a more relaxed and less stressful experience. Some even suggest it surpasses Subnautica in certain aspects, making it a must-try for fans of the genre.
- A core element of the game is the engaging terraforming mechanic, where players transform a barren planet into a vibrant ecosystem. Reviewers find the process of watching the world change and develop to be deeply satisfying and rewarding, making it a central draw of the game.
- Despite its potential, many reviewers express concerns about bugs, glitches, poor optimization, and a lack of polish. Some find the gameplay loop tedious, the world uninspired, and the mechanics shallow, leading to a recommendation to wait for fixes or purchase on sale.
- Many reviewers express excitement for future DLC and updates, hoping for new content, maps, and features. They support the developers and are eager to see how the game evolves, indicating a strong interest in the game's continued development.
Miscellaneous:
- The game's premise centers around a convict tasked by the Sentinel Corp to terraform a desolate planet as a form of punishment or debt repayment. The narrative is light and serves primarily as a backdrop to the gameplay, revealed through exploration and scattered clues.
- The game receives continuous updates and improvements from a dedicated development team, including quality of life patches, new content, and bug fixes. The developers actively engage with the community and plan to release both free and paid DLC in the future.
- The game incorporates base building, crafting, and exploration elements, drawing comparisons to Subnautica in its mechanics and gameplay loop. However, some reviewers feel that the game falls short of emulating Subnautica's quality and depth.
- The game was developed by a small team, often cited as two people, which is considered impressive given the scope of the project. The game size is workable.
- The game offers additional content through DLCs, such as 'Planet Humble' and 'Moons Update', which introduce new planets, resources, and gameplay elements. The concept of planets as DLCs is appealing to some players.
