The tethers are a great way to introduce intuitiveness into Astroneer, and really ties into everything I love about this game. It can get quite scary at times, seeing as there are really dangerous plants lurking around, but other than that it’s quite a serene experience that really makes you feel tiny in terms of the solar system’s massive scope.įor most of your exploration on foot, you will rely on tethers. I actually adore this part of the game the most, as the underground caves in Astroneer are really well done and pretty immersive. The most basic materials like compound and resin are found abundantly above ground, but for the actual minerals that get turned into metals for more complex structures, you’ll have to dig deeper underground. Going back to exploration, not everything grows above ground. The terrain tool can mine every kind of terrain there is - but some will need upgrades before you can do so. After some time, you’d find that you can build shelters as well, and with a bigger ship you can start colonizing the other planets in order to streamline your mining experience. This allows you to mine different natural resources on other planets, which you can bring back to your home base in order to advance in the progression system. For instance, Sylva, the starting planet, only has the most basic materials, just enough to let you construct a small spaceship and a basic thruster to get you on a round trip to another planet. Astroneer features a number of different natural resources which you gather to make basic materials, but not all of them can be found on all of the planets. This brings us to the next major area of gameplay, which is exploration. These systems goes hand-in-hand with each other – you can’t really unlock new stuff to build without a new printer, and printers sometimes need materials that are not even on the planet. Progression is tied very neatly into four printing tiers, while most of the items under each tier requires you to spend research points on make. The most basic items can be printed directly through your backpack. There are no incentives to hurry up and unlock all tiers, and you can easily spend a bit of time just mining compounds to build tethers to explore further and further away from your home base. There’s not a lot of complications with regards to the core loop, which basically has players mine materials and use these materials to construct stuff from printers to further yourself in the game. Once you get a grasp on the system, it’s smooth sailing from there on out. Getting out of range of the shelter, or any other sources of oxygen, will steadily deplete your oxygen bar, so at first you have to mine relatively close to shelter. You also get a landing pad, which can spawn some starting items. At the start you only have a shelter, which provides you with both power and oxygen whenever you are near it. Photo: System Era SoftworksĪstroneer starts off by dropping you into an Earth-like planet called Sylva, one of seven astral bodies in this fictional solar system. Of course, there are still stakes to be had, and if you want to advance you have to make decisions that involve risks, but there’s no rush to get into them, allowing you to enjoy the game at your own pace. Everything in the game is presented with intuitiveness and ease of understanding in mind, which lets you play in a more relaxed state, as opposed to worrying about management and tension all the time. This part was where I was really, really hesitant at first to dip my toes in the game, as titles where this kind of open-ended gameplay is presented usually fall short, mostly because of how gimmicky and atrocious it sounds on paper.Īstroneer avoided that pitfall entirely, however, with a deep focus on making things easier and more convenient for the casual and average player. The game is first and foremost a planetary exploration title set in a distant system, where there is no set goal in place other than to survive and keep playing. The bulk of what makes Astroneer so special lies in the way it plays. If you want a good challenge, go deeper underground.
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