Astroneer - survive, explore and build in a low-poly galaxy

This will be the final early access update before 1.0!

As a gift to everyone who supported us throughout development, a new suit has been added to the game! This “Retro” suit is exclusively for Early Access players of Astroneer as a thanks for your ideas, bug reports, feedback, and encouragement. Anyone who owns the game before 1.0 will receive the “Retro” suit, and we have no plans for making it available to post 1.0 players. Thanks so much for your support thus far!

Roadmap has post 1.0 goals:

General consensus on the product at this time is…?

Is this more like No Man’s Sky - exploration as the main pull? Or is there more to building / challenges / story (?) side of the game?

I haven’t fired it up in several months, but it was always fun when I did. Every (very regular) update added to and polished the framework that was there.

In the last certain I played there was NO story. It’s completely a sandbox. I don’t think they have any lands on adding one, either.

My impression is that it’s not so much a Kerbal Space Program or Minecraft but more like a colony-building game. Is that accurate?

More like Minecraft, but with more research and building pre-made structures.

Not exactly. Though I haven’t played in ages, it’s more like a low-key survival game. You run around, gather resources, use them to make devices that let you manufacture vehicles and all sorts of things. Then you can go visit other planets with various kinds of hazards and such.

Closest thing I’ve played would be dragon-quest builders, minus the combat

Full release on Feb 6

But is building / survival more important / developed? I found NMS almost singular focus on the joy of exploration boring quickly. Subnautica has the perfect balance of these elements IMO. Where does this game fit comparatively?

Tough to say. This was a survivalish game I had fun playing, and normally I find them too stressful. That’s why I said low-key. At the time, there wasn’t a huge amount to do beyond a certain point, but I know they have added a lot more since then.

How is this one as a couch game with controller?

It plays fine with controller. It’s the way I’ve been playing it 90% of the time. If you buy it on the Xbox or Windows store, you also get it on the other platform for free (and it lets you do multi player between the pc and Xbox with that one copy if you have additional family accounts on the Xbox).

I like it with the controller- I play on Xbox.

And I’ll agree with @Misguided- the survival bits are pretty low-key. I turn that tedious busywork down or off in these sorts of games whenever I can (Subnautica, Conan, ARK), and here it’s really just oxygen (which linings you explore distance), and then once you get vehicles that becomes moot, pretty much.

Coming out of early access on Feb 6. Watched some video yesterday and wow, does it look different from what I remember. Looking forward to messing with this again.

I am really looking forward to this one tomorrow. It has a really nice exploration progression thing going on.

How is multiplayer? I enjoyed NMS with friends, but the multiplayer was tacked on: we didn’t need each other, we were just neighbors in space. Does Astroneer multiplayer require any teamwork?

Honestly the last time I played was in 2016, so I really don’t know. I’d be up to try it sometime but I don’t know how necessary it is. It is probably like Minecraft in the more the merrier.

Same, I watched a streamer play the first bit just to see what the differences were and it all looked very promising. I loved the little bit I played back in '16 but decided to stay hands off until 1.0.

I though it was out today, and was bummed when i looked this morning and it wasn’t there. When did new releases stop happening on Tuesdays?

I’ve played with my brother a couple times (both on Xbox), but not since last summer, I think. The first few were crap, especially when someone got a vehicle, but eventually they fixed it.

This isn’t a huge universe like NMS, just a small solar system. You’re nearly always on the same planet, in the same area. Building and exploring together were fun. I’m excited to see what’s changed since the last time i played!

Edit: @Fozzle ‘like Minecraft’ is a perfect way of putting it. Just running around with each other doing shit. Fun!

Technically I guess it’s still going to be released on Tuesday if I am reading the reddit right (9PM PST), at least for us folks lucky enough to be in PST.