I yearn for the cosmos. Jumping from planet to planet, discovering long abandoned outposts, and uncovering the depths of the universe. Astroneer is basically that, with Minecraft tossed in for good measure. Yes, it’s another survival-crafting game, but in space. It’s excellent.
We (I played cooperatively online) played on a dedicated server from one of the official providers that System Era lists on their website. The benefit with using an official provider is the ability to cross-play between PC and console. I played on both PC, through the Xbox app, and on my Xbox, easily connecting to the server and having all of my items and upgrades between the two. The Xbox controller was good enough for me, so I even used it on my PC pretty much the entire time.
Setting up a server was easy enough. I pay a couple bucks, put in a world name, set myself as the admin, and it starts right up. Connecting was just as easy, as long as you’re used to the way Minecraft handles it. We had a little trouble early on with one of the quests never completing, but nothing game breaking. It was just the one where you have to roll really fast in the hamster ball, nothing crazy.
I got sucked into the game almost immediately. The exploration, mining, crafting, and traversal hit that sweet spot in my brain. I explored every inch of every planet and moon, activated every pillar, and completed every quest. You name it, I did it. After receiving every achievement in the game, I pushed on and kept building, mining, crafting, rinse and repeat. I was hooked on the gameplay loop until suddenly I wasn’t.
After putting about 200 hours into it within a month and pretty much burnt myself out on the game completely. It’s been about 6 months since I last played it, and I don’t have any immediate desire to jump back in. I do believe there is a big content update coming later this year, with some additional story elements if I remember correctly. Once that releases, I will most definitely be returning to the cosmos with the boys.
