Starbase's early access space race has begun
No pressure
Starbase looks like one of those games you could lazily suggest throws everything but the kitchen sink at the player, but after seeing the asset browser in the latest trailer, I think it might even have one of those in there, too. It’s Trine developers Frozenbyte’s fulsome space survival sim, one where you find resources, build ships, explore, trade, and fight with others. I could have listed way more things, but it was getting silly. And this is an early access release, so there’s more to come.
You can code. CODE! It’s very much a game where you need your big space brain engaged to make things happen. You start on a station in the orbit of a planet with the rest of the players (it is multiplayer, and claims to be a single, persistent universe). You mine asteroids, trade, and haul things. Growing out from there will take you to moons and other planets, all in ships you’ve built and tweaked yourself.
I hope it’s not a game that demands you become a jack of all trades. I love building ships, blasting things into voxel shards, and landing on planets. I’m not so sure I’ll be willing to work out bugs in the code of a space ship’s module in order to make it work. But it is multiplayer, so maybe I can just ask someone?
Frozenbyte warns interested players that they still consider this early access version an alpha release, with bugs and missing features, and to expect it to remain in early access for two more years. This initial release is largely to get people settled into mining and resource gathering. They said:
“After a short period of tranquil mining, ship and station designing and building, as well as relatively small-scale PvP engagements, the post-launch period will quickly start to heat up. The August updates will introduce Moon Bases & Mining and the massive-sized Capital Ships, while the September update that introduces Siege Mechanics will send the world into full-scale calamity, as player stations will become fully destructible and capturable.”
There’s no chance I’m not playing this. I’ve already downloaded it from Steam.