Some games grab you for a weekend. Astroneer grabbed me for 2250+ hours and I’m still not done. This was the first ever game I played in Early Access on Xbox. If I recall correctly, it was sometime back in 2019 when I first found it. At that time, I also joined a user’s Discord, which eventually became the official Discord server for Astroneer, due to the activity, and outstanding mods that ran the channel. Other users on that Discord server really contributed tons of hours of their time to helping others on the Discord. To the point that one of them (Hi Gina!) was actually hired to work at System Era.
I feel privileged to have been able to even assist in the building of the original Discord Wiki pages. I went into the game and spent many, many hours, combing the planets, caves and biomes until I found at least one of every type of research, so that there were images, values and metrics on the wiki page. The Wiki was eventually deprecated and then System Era added an Astropedia, which can now be accessed in game. They’ve also added a tutorial to help you learn the basic mechanics of the game. Or, you can just jump into a new game, and fend for yourself.
During the Early Access and even after 1.0 release, I started new games for each new event, and to me, being a person that was 9 when I watched the actual landing on the moon. I got chills and was transported back to that day when in this game, you can find the actual lunar lander, and then take a photo of your Astroneer on the lander, and you hear the actual audio of the moon landing taking place. Seeing the moon landing live on TV was truly the most memorable occasion of my life, and being able to revisit that era in Astroneer was really what led me to keep coming back to this game.
This game also introduced me to the aspect of speedrunning in games. Back when I was first learning how to live stream, setting up my Elgato Streamdeck, webcam and microphone, I also taught myself how to add metrics to track and submit my speed runs in games. I first did that with Astroneer. So it really does give me lots of memories and enjoyment jumping back into this fantastic, well designed and immersive game.
2026 Update: System Era is still developing DLC for it. The latest update (Megatech) is a paid one, but you can read more about that one in a future post here. Of course, The Megatech Update was after the Glitchwalkers update, which is another update that I’ve played and also merits its own post. But for now, let me just focus on the original game concept.
What Is It
Astroneer is a space exploration sandbox by System Era Softworks. You land on a starting planet (Sylva) with nothing but a starting shelter (habitat), a landing pad (that has a mission objectives interface connected to it) and you - as an Astroneer, with a backpack that has 11 small slots, an integrated oxygen tank, a battery pack, and your indispensable terrain tool.
In your backpack, there are 11 slots to store things, 3 on your terrain tool, 6 in your backpack, and two additional slots. Those two slots on top of your backpack (left and right) that allow you to control them by turning it on or off with a toggle of your keyboard or controller. As you collect stuff, the collected (or grabbed) item auto deposits it into your backpack, or you can manually place it in any of your slots as you choose. If you’re full, it drops on the ground, or falls down into that gaping crevass you just opened by digging up resources.
Using your terrain tool, you can deform the entire planet surface. You can collect soil or dispense soil, digging, or creating with your tool. It lets you flatten, build or dig as you choose, with an intuitive interface that works smoothly with your keyboard and mouse, or even better (in my opinion, using a controller). You also dig up resources that are visually identified by their different colors and shapes. These resources are randomly generated and found all over the surface and down through the caves and biomes all the way to the core of each planet. These resources can be used to build platforms, devices, and other more complex materials that are made from more than one resource. You can also gather research, both large and small, to open up new recipes that you unlock.
Meanwhile you start on the most habitable planet and dig, build, explore, and eventually colonize the entire solar system, which consists of several planets, all of which are different biomes, have different hazards, and are progressively harder to survive on.
By design, this game has no combat. No enemies trying to murder you every five seconds. There’s no weapons you can find or craft. But there are hazards like running out of oxygen, falling death, and being terminated by aggressive or deadly plants, gases and a combination of attacks. But I really like that it is just you, the Astroneer, exploring the terrain, and a challenging little universe to make your own.
Automation is a mechanic introduced that allows you to use auto arms, extractors, resource containers, rails, repeaters, sensors and switches. Combining these items with other base components to generate enough power, you can create massive automation of resources and materials. These can be stockpiled and used to complete the limited time events quickly.
There is also Missions in the game, that guides you through a storyline, simulataneously helping you to create necessary items you need to progress through it to the completion. But I won’t cover those here, you’ll have to play the game and experience it all for yourself.
Why It Works
The core loop is deceptively simple: gather resources, research new tech, build bigger and better bases, then pack up and fly to the next planet to do it all over again. But each planet has its own atmosphere, resources, hazards, and visual identity. The progression from “I can barely survive on the surface” to “I have a network of bases across seven planets” is one of the most satisfying arcs I’ve experienced in a sandbox game.
The terrain deformation system is genuinely impressive. You can dig tunnels to the planet’s core, flatten mountains, build bridges over chasms. The world feels truly malleable in a way most games only pretend to offer.
But here’s the reason I love this game so much. Community feedback was given about these common issues with grinding for resources and System Era engaged the community and introduced automation.
As I stated before you can automate resource collection using extractors, build a train system, and automate collection with sensors, switches and auto arms that can transport resources. Move it all from the depths of the planet core, transport it by rail all the way back to your base on the surface, or between bases on that planet.
I and so many other Early Access users got to experience the good, bad and ugly of previous variations of the game’s mechanics, how the platforms originally connected by dragging thick black tubes to build another platform, and modular space craft that allowed you to put seats and storage on it. To the present versions that have three levels of shuttles to build, small, medium and large.
This three size approach is now consistently applied to all of the items in Astroneer. There are 3D printers, that are small, medium and large, to print platforms, machines and shuttles that are also small, medium and large. Small items fit in your backpack, medium items (when packaged, can be carried), large items can be moved but not carried. Anything can be moved, locked in place, or with some exceptions, even blown up! There’s so much more to share, but let me talk about playing with your friends, or other random Astroneers.
Something else is how efficient and satisfying it feels to be the Astroneer. As mentioned, your backpack is your inventory that you carry with you. It also has functionality. And integrated into the backpack is also the Catalog, which shows all of your recipes or blueprints, that you can unlock. As your research gives you bytes, you spend those to unlock the schematics, then collect resources, stockpile your resources and materials into small, medium, and large resource cannisters, and finally build them!
Building them is done by printing them from your backpack (small items only) or on small, medium and large printers. And you can automate all of this activity with printers, by creating bases that are like resource collection factories, producing materials that can be printed into components that you use to build bases and modes of transportation.
Speaking of transportation, there are several modes in Astroneer. You can fly with a jetpack, a hovercraft, or cruise around with a small tractor and trailer(s), a medium or large rover, on foot, or best yet, carve down a mountain or race across the surface on your hoverboard! Also included is the shuttles, small, medium and large to travel between planets, a late game teleportation system, and of course the train rail system. All of these can be used alone or with other Astroneers.
Co-op
Speaking of playing with others, Astroneer shines even brighter in co-op. Having a friend (or three) exploring alongside you turns every expedition into a story. We’ve had moments where someone got lost in a cave system, someone else drove a rover off a cliff, and someone accidentally launched a shuttle without the rest of the crew. Those unscripted moments are what make this game memorable.
Back in Early Access, there were some hilarious mishaps that occurred, with vehicles getting stuck in the ground, flying away as if a tornado picked it up and threw it out into space, and other activity that was related to early versions, such as collecting little yellow globs to gain power, or collect blue globs to gain oxygen. Tethers now give you the option to provide oxygen and power to you and your fellow Astroneers, as long as the tethers reach a base that has an oxygenator attached somewhere in it.
Originally, innovative ideas like carrying a medium platform with you because it gave you oxygen allowed you to bypass that issue. But System Era to their credit, introduced other ways to extend your oxygen and to regain power to your backpack and your bases. Now there are several options, and as you build bigger and more bases, the oxygen and power become manageable, and don’t limit your ability as much as it does in early game.
The Nitpicks
The learning curve is gentle but the game does not hold your hand with explanations. You’ll spend some time figuring out which widget plugs into which platform. Late-game resource grinding can get repetitive – once you know what you need, it’s just a matter of going to get it. And the framerate used to dip when your bases get large and complex.
Some people didn’t like it when System Era added a currency into the game - Cubits. You spend real $$ to buy Cubits. Cubits are only used to buy / unlock cosmetic items. It’s not required at all. But it was a way to financially support System Era while the game was early access, and through to release 1.0 and beyond. To their credit, they introduced special events that were limited time that reward you with cosmetic outfits you could unlock and use. Other special events, when completed, also gave you cosmetic outfits. The effort and creativity of the cosmetics is amazing in my opinion and are well worth the investment of time or money.
Which reminds me, way back, in the early version, there were storms. I loved the storms, different planets had different storms, and some had debris in them that could kill your Astroneer, so you had to take shelter from the storm, even if you had dig a quick hole to hide in. Other storms would blow away or scatter any resources or research not secured on or in a platform. In some cases, if you either blew up your base, or had a really bad storm, you’d see resources or research suspended in mid air, and you’d have to build a structure or use soil and build a ramp to collect your items again.
The storms were permanently removed due to framerate and crashes, depending on how large your game save happened to be at the time. Thankfully, those issues are all now resolved. So over the course of time, System Era removed everything I didn’t like. But I miss storms.
System Era Softworks
I can’t really express how much I appreciate the game Astroneer without also talking about the people that made it. System Era Softworks, or System Era. Now, I’ve never met any of them in person. However, the Discord server, and the community there, can verify what I say here about how the System Era staff embraced community feedback and interacted with so many users including me - on that site, through podcasts, and originally through Vlogs and live streams posted on their website, announced on Twitter (now X), and in Discord.
Joe Tirado, the communications guy, was the one that would update the community with updates, hinting about things using a leek emoji, (code for leaks), and there were other “insider” things that the community understood only if you were active there quite often.
Another way I learned about the staff at System Era and their backgrounds was indirectly through the outstanding documentary created by NoClip. Find it here. NoClip by the way is a YouTube channel that relies solely on Patreon subscribers and reviews games, game developers and is to this day - one of my favorite YouTube channels. Go check out Danny and his NoClip team at their channel.
Finally, if you are a visual person and love data and statistics like me, then you should definitely check out this post from Joe Tirado, it talks about 3 years of Astroneer, and has an infographic that includes some amazing stats found, here.
The Verdict
Well, I’ve invested 2500+ hours into this game, and all achievements are unlocked on both Steam and Xbox versions. And I’d still go back to start a new save. As a matter of fact, I own this game on Steam, and Xbox/Windows. You can buy it directly from System Era here
Side Note: In case you’ve didn’t know, Xbox and Windows are both Micrsoft owned. So there’s this feature called Xbox Play Anywhere. That means you buy it one time, and you can play it on your Windows PC and on your Xbox console. So, knowing that I’ve bought five copies (and gifted three), because I support the developers of the game. That’s another thing I like about System Era - Astroneer is available on everything - Playstation, Xbox, Steam, Windows, and Switch. System Era recently redesigned their branding and logo because they have a new game coming in 2026 - Starseeker!
Astroneer is one of those rare games that’s exactly what it wants to be, with no pretense and no filler. And if you’ve ever played with other toys like legos, lincoln logs, kinnect, or similar things that slotted together, and you could see, hear, and feel the design and engineering invested into the toy—you get that in Astroneer too. When you put research, materials or resources on platforms or in your backpack, there’s a haptic connection and satisfying click sound that really helps to immerse you into the game. So if you want some relaxed and fun gameplay that combines exploration, building, and the idea of making an entire solar system your playground—alone or with friends—this is the game for you.
10 / 10 – Would dig to the center of the planet again.