As we speak we acquired our first take a look at gameplay from Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, the following sport from Astroneer developer System Period Softworks and revealed by Devolver Digital. It appears like numerous enjoyable, although I do have a pair reservations proper out of the gate.
Starting at an area station filled with astronauts, as much as 4 gamers can embark on missions collectively, visiting a weirdo planet for some co-op chaos that features finishing aims, battling alien lifeforms, and gathering “house loot.” You possibly can glide throughout colourful landscapes, swim via alien oceans, and have encounters with all the pieces from monstrous extraterrestrial brutes to innocent sentient carrots.
Your instruments allow you to deform the alien planet, too: tunneling via the bottom, constructing land bridges to cross gaps, and aiming water nozzles to “de-goop” essential scientific gear that the native fauna has gummed up. When a mission has been accomplished, you come back to the house station and put together for the following expedition.
That each one appears like an excellent time, however the place I am a bit iffy on Starseeker is that each mission is on a timer. “The clock begins ticking the second you step out of your touchdown shuttle,” says System Period. “On each expedition, you solely have a restricted quantity of oxygen and might want to get again to the Star Seeker [the space station] earlier than it runs out.”
Yeah, that half. I do not adore it. I am conscious a time restrict can add a way of pleasure and urgency, and that extraction video games and session-based co-op missions can actually elevate the stakes and get your coronary heart racing. However I believe timers may put the kibosh on completely different sorts of enjoyable, particularly in the case of exploration and chill co-op hangs with mates. Do I actually need to be rushed off a planet by a timer if I am having a good time with my friends?
What’s additionally unclear, even after about quarter-hour of gameplay, is what you do after missions. Do you’ve gotten any kind of participant base you’ll be able to construct with your folks? Is there any constructing in any respect, collaborative or in any other case? Or do you simply hand around in the house station, which kinda appears like a foyer or widespread space, kind of just like the House Anomaly in No Man’s Sky?
I do know it flies within the face of the very idea of expeditions, which is the purpose of Starseeker, however finally would not gamers desire to carve out a house on a bizarre alien planet as a substitute of hanging out on a considerably generic-looking house station they did not get to design themselves? The Steam web page does describe the house station as “ever-evolving,” which might imply that the loot you achieve from missions means that you can unlock upgrades for it, however that does not essentially imply it is a spot you’ll be able to truly construct on.
Am I simply leaping to rash conclusions with out sufficient data? May very well be, and if I need to construct bases with mates I might simply shut up and do it in Astroneer, which remains to be being developed alongside System Period’s new sport. Hopefully we’ll be taught extra about Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions within the close to future—it is deliberate for 2026, which can be right here earlier than we all know it.
