Starship EVO Review Summary

An impressive building system and promising ship-and-vehicle creation are undermined by widespread bugs, frequent crashes, and a multiplayer mode that largely does not work.

Strong building system praised: Many players highlight the building system as intuitive, addictive, and well-executed, often calling it the best they have experienced. The modular and flexible nature allows for creative construction.

Overall positive game experience: The game is generally well-received, with many calling it good, excellent, or amazing. It is considered fun, interesting, and showing great promise despite early faults.

Promising potential and concept: The game's concept and foundation are widely praised as exceptional, with many expressing excitement about its future development. The idea is considered genius and full of potential.

Impressive ship and vehicle creation: Reviewers love the ability to build custom ships, mechs, hoverboards, and stations, with tools that support realizing complex visions. The ship building is frequently described as phenomenal and a standout feature.

Active and responsive developer: The developer is frequently praised for being dedicated, passionate, and quick to fix bugs and release updates. Communication with the community is also highlighted.

Widespread bugs and instability: Players frequently report the game as buggy, glitchy, and unpolished. Many describe it as a buggy mess that is unstable and often unplayable.

Multiplayer largely nonfunctional: Multiplayer is in a very early state and does not work for most players. It is described as barely playable, rough, and poorly made.

Port forwarding required: Multiplayer requires port forwarding, which most users cannot set up. Even with port forwarding or virtual networks, multiplayer often fails to work.

Frequent crashes: Crashes occur regularly, with some players experiencing them every 45 minutes to 2 hours. This severely impacts playability.

Survival mode shallow and barebones: Survival mode is currently barebones and shallow, with little to do. Players feel it is simplistic and not very developed.

Extensive spaceship building system: Ship building is a core feature with high freedom, allowing construction of ships, stations, mechs, and hovercrafts from blocks. Players can design complex vessels with detailed customization.

Galaxy exploration and vast universe: The game features a procedurally generated galaxy with thousands of star systems, planets, moons, and asteroid fields to explore. Players can travel between stars and visit planets.

Creative mode and sandbox freedom: Creative mode allows unrestricted building and exploration, with options to customize settings. The game is a sandbox with total creative freedom.

Building mechanics and workshop support: The game has detailed and intuitive building mechanics for constructions. Workshop support enables sharing designs, and building is a major activity being improved.

Multiplayer functionality and issues: Many players report that the game includes multiplayer and online co-op for up to 8 people, but some note that multiplayer is currently non-functional and may require port forwarding.

Frequent crashes and instability: Many players report frequent crashes, including regular freezes, random crashes, and crashes every 45 minutes to 2 hours. Some crashes occur during specific activities like mining in a ship or shooting mining lasers at trees.

Runs well on some systems: Despite performance issues for some, many players report smooth performance, including on older PCs and with large builds. The game runs buttery smooth on beefy machines and even on a 2016 build with a GTX 1070.

Low FPS on various hardware: Players experience low FPS on a range of setups, from low-end laptops to midrange and even high-end PCs. Examples include 20 FPS on an RX590, 1 FPS on a low-end laptop, and struggling to hit 60 FPS on capable hardware.

Poor performance on planets: Performance drops significantly on planets, with low FPS and stutters. Some players report unplayable framerates even on midrange hardware, though one noted improvement over time.

General optimization issues: Many players feel the game needs more optimization, with poor performance relative to visuals and janky performance in 4K. However, some note that optimization has improved.

Great for spaceship building: Many reviewers strongly recommend the game for players who enjoy building and customizing spaceships. It scratches the spaceship building itch and offers over 100 hours of fun for creative builders.

Buggy and unpolished state: Many negative reviews cite constant bugs, lack of content, and an unpolished experience as reasons for not recommending the game in its current state. Some warn about frustrating bugs and early access issues.

Worth the price: Several reviewers consider the game well worth its price tag, with comments like 'totally worth it' and 'more than worth it at its current price.'

Multiplayer is broken: Multiple reviewers warn that multiplayer does not work and advise against purchasing until it is fixed. They recommend wishlisting the game and waiting for multiplayer updates.

Similar to Space Engineers: Players who enjoyed Space Engineers, Empyrion, or Scrap Mechanic are likely to enjoy this game, as it offers a very similar experience.

Community fair range: $14.99 - $24.99.

Game completion: 25.0h.

Session length: 5.5h.

Endgame: 100.0h.

Reports generally describe a rough onboarding followed by fun once players clear the tutorial, learning curve, and reach space. A minority enjoy the early loop immediately, while others remain frustrated by bugs, grind, or multiplayer problems.

Reported time to anchor: 3h.

Friction: Confusing, haphazard tutorial and limited in-game explanations; Steep learning curve for engineering and building systems; Unintuitive building controls and block orientation; Tedious manual mining and early resource grind; Bugs and unclear system behavior; Multiplayer setup and instability.

Ship-Building Engineer: Designs and iterates ships, bases, and logic systems, often using genre references and real-world shapes as inspiration. Motivation: Deep creative engineering and ship/base design. Stance: buy.

Survival Exploration Newcomer: Solo survival: mines, refines, builds a first functional ship, and explores star systems at a relaxed pace. Motivation: Rewarding survival progression and space exploration. Stance: buy.

Co-op Multiplayer Seeker: Wants to build and survive with friends or on servers, including faction and community-style play once supported. Motivation: Social co-op survival and persistent multiplayer communities. Stance: no buy.

Across the returned cohorts, performance is strongest on the Windows <8GB VRAM and Windows 16GB+ VRAM systems, while the Windows 8-11GB VRAM and Windows 12-15GB VRAM cohorts are dominated by stuttering, low FPS, and crash reports.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Most reviews report playable performance at 1080p and reasonable 1440p, with isolated crashes and frame-rate degradation on some 6GB VRAM systems.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: negative. Several systems in this cohort report sub-60 FPS, stutters even at 1080p, and unplayable performance, although some high-end setups run smoothly.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: negative. Reports are consistently negative, citing mediocre FPS, frequent crashes, and bugs on 10-12GB VRAM systems.

Steam Deck: Steam Deck feedback shows a playable but tinkering-heavy experience. Controller support is missing or requires manual remapping, Linux relies on Proton with inconsistent bug reports, and some users must cap performance to 30fps while tolerating occasional crashes. Positive Proton reports prevent a fully broken classification, but the game does not work seamlessly out of the box.

Linux and Proton: Linux users report that the game is playable through Proton, with positive notes on stability and no crashes. However, there is no native Linux support, one review warns of additional Proton-layer bugs, and another reports Linux-specific performance problems. The evidence does not indicate a broken or unlaunchable experience, but some friction remains.

Compared to Space Engineers: Reviewers frequently compare the game to Space Engineers and Empyrion, often highlighting greater building freedom and creative potential.

Single Developer Project: The game is created and primarily developed by a single person, often described as a passion project rather than a AAA production.

Active Early Access: The game has been in Early Access for several years, with ongoing development focused on bugs, quality of life, and balance.

Frequent Updates: The developer regularly releases updates, including bug fixes and new content, often on a daily basis.

Better Than Space Engineers: Some reviewers compare the game to Space Engineers and find it more polished, with better building and developer support.