Astroneer

Astroneer is a sandbox adventure game played from a third-person view. Its open world planets, where in terraforming can take place, are subject to procedural generation, with the exception of some planet-specific resources. The player controls an astronaut (called an Astroneer) who navigates on foot, by rover, through teleportation, or by spacecraft. Navigating the planet is essential for finding resources, including materials and research items.

Craftable items include rovers, printers, jets, buggies, tractors, spacecraft, storage silos, atmospheric condensers, research chambers, component smelters, batteries, generators, turbines, solar panels, and more shelters. The game contains two base crafting materials, Resin, and Compound, which can be found in abundance on all planets. Other, more rare resources can be found while exploring planets, or by using smelters, chemistry labs, or atmospheric condensers. Resources are used to create a variety of items when used by themselves or in combination with other materials using machines in the game.

The game features an open-ended storyline that encourages creativity and self-paced progression, alongside optional tasks and missions that expand the game's lore through cutscenes and data logs.

The player begins the game aboard a man-made interstellar spacecraft originating from an unknown planet and lands on Sylva, the starting planet. In order to advance the main storyline, the player must discover and activate an alien Gateway Chamber before descending into the planet's subterranean layers. These layers become increasingly hazardous at greater depths. Once the player reaches the last layer, they need to descend through an alien structure.

The game came about after Adam Bromell showed his friend Paul Pepera a "personal art project" consisting of a space man. According to Bromell, the two "started kind of riffing on this, like is there a possibility of a game in here?" Eventually, Pepera contacted two of his friends and the four started System Era to develop the game. At first, they worked on the game only part-time, after about two years of development Bromell in an interview stated that they were about ready to commit to the project full time.

The art style was partly inspired by a desire by Bromell to get away from something that looked like Minecraft, stating "there are enough games that do that already." Instead, the team adopted an art style that consists of "curved geometric, sort of broad vibrant colors." Bromell notes that the "no-frills" art style served a practical purpose as well, as it let them quickly build new ideas into the game. Initially, the game used a more traditional high-polygonal style, however after participating in a diorama building contest concerned with the "low-poly" style, he changed his mind.

Astroneer received "mixed or average reviews" from critics for Windows and Xbox One, and received "generally favorable reviews" for Nintendo Switch, according to review aggregator Metacritic.

Shacknews gave the game an eight out of ten, praising the atmosphere, exploration, crafting, base building, setting, casual survival elements, cooperative play, and pleasing aesthetics, while criticizing some minor technical issues. USgamer said that the game was "on the soft side of the survival spectrum", ultimately concluding that "[...] Astroneer falters in not having more interesting things to find within each planet. In the end though, it's a lovely little game if you want to survive without all the pesky hunger and thirst you find in other games."