A little bit of space travel, anyone? Last time I checked in on Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, the sort of spin off of regular ole Astroneer, it had only just shown off some gameplay for the first time. Apparently somewhere along the line I blinked and now here we are on its early access release day!
But how about what you should expect from this launch? “What you’ll find on day one is the starting shape of the game,” explain System Era Softworks. “What the launch on June 11, 2026 represents is the beginning of the conversation we have been wanting to have with you for a long, long time. The game will grow. It will adapt.” What this means in practice is that you and some of your buddies can go explore an alien planet (the first of several to come), do some missions, fend off some critters, get some resources, and return to your space station before you run out of oxygen.
The early access release is already ready to go with things like cross-platform and -progression, there’s a whole bunch of missions to dive into, some story bits to discover, so it doesn’t sound like you’ll be bored in five minutes (unless, ya know, this isn’t your sort of game, and if so, that’s on you, buddy). In terms of how long the devs estimate that Starseeker will be in early access for, they’re currently saying around one year, noting that they “want to work sustainably while leaving enough time to respond to player feedback.”
There is a roadmap with various updates you can expect too, just without any dates attached to them. The first update will focus on ocean gameplay and comes with a new region, the second is more about endgame threats, the third will add in some expedition modifiers like weather, extraction pressure, and endgame station rewards, and updates four and five will build upon that with quality of life improvements and new events.
You can pick up Starseeker: Astroneer on Steam now.
