STARSEEKER has been in your hands for a couple of days now, and we have spent a lot of that time reading and hearing from so many of you. The reviews, the threads, the videos, the comments under the videos, Discord, everything. A launch is the moment you find out which parts of what you built landed the way you meant them to and which parts didn’t. Some of what we have heard is hard, and some of it is fair, and the fair parts are the ones I want to talk about here.
This is not a full accounting of everything. It is the handful of things that came up the most, where I think you deserve a straight answer from us rather than silence or a defensive crouch.
The single-player tag
This is the one I want to lead with, because it is the one where some of you spent money on an impression we gave you and then took back.
At launch, STARSEEKER carried a Single Player/Solo tag, and we pulled it about two hours in. You can absolutely play STARSEEKER on your own, and we wanted solo players to know they were welcome. But the game is built as a solo-but-shared experience, and "Single Player" set the wrong expectation for what that feels like.
The part we got wrong most is that we pulled the tag quietly, with no note. A silent change to something you based a purchase on is a bad way to handle it no matter the reason, and that is on us. Intent is not the point when someone feels misled, and I am sorry to the players who do.
So here is what solo actually looks like. There is no offline, disconnected STARSEEKER. You can play without friends or squadmates, queue for an Expedition and go it alone, but there will always be other players around you. The station and the planets are built to foster community and camaraderie as you play, which means STARSEEKER will always be a connected, online experience. There is a quote from another blog I wrote that is worth sharing here:
"When people ask why I wanted this to be the next game from System Era, this is what I tell them: I wanted us to make a video game that gives our team and our players something to be a part of together. One built on ethical sustainability for the people making it. One that fosters community and camaraderie among the people playing it. One that is deliberately built to demonstrate what can happen when people act selflessly and lead with generosity. Our next game had to be STARSEEKER for any of that to be possible."
I understand that means STARSEEKER isn't for everyone. If you bought it thinking it was an offline single-player experience, I'm sorry, and if you're able to, please refund it so you haven't spent money on something you didn't want. That was never our intention, and we'll see you back in Astroneer or in a future game from System Era.
On “micro-transactions” and “MTX”
We said STARSEEKER would have no microtransactions. We then put a cosmetic supporter pack in an in-game store on launch day. To some of you, those two things contradict each other, and I understand why.
When we said, “no MTX”, we meant something specific, and we assumed the word carried that meaning to everyone. It doesn’t. For a lot of players “MTX” just means “a thing in this game I can pay additional money for,” and by that definition a supporter pack qualifies, full stop. We also called out the existence of supporter packs ahead of launch because we wanted to be transparent about them. Saying, “no microtransactions” in one breath and “here comes a supporter pack” in another landed as contradictory rather than transparent.
So let me skip the word and describe the actual thing: STARSEEKER’s supporter pack (and any future supporter packs) are cosmetic only. They are sold once at a fixed price, on the platform store. There is no premium currency, no loot boxes, battle passes, no recurring spend, and nothing that affects play gated behind a purchase. The items offer new things to wear or extend the look of suits you already earn by playing the game normally. That is the whole model. To us, that is the standard we are holding ourselves to. "No MTX" was us saying we’d never have any monetization model where small, individually priced in-game cosmetic things are purchased for a premium currency that has a direct impact on the game’s economy, progression, and game play.
We see where that’s gone wrong and going forward will speak to our model plainly with a better understanding of how this is seen and felt by other players.
This isn’t ASTRONEER 2
A lot of you came in hoping for ASTRONEER 2, and I get the disappointment when that is not what you found.
STARSEEKER is its own game, set in the same universe, built around an entirely different core idea. We have been saying that for a while, but a launch is louder than any interview, social media post, or upload to YouTube, and I would rather say it once more clearly than assume it landed. ASTRONEER is still in active development with an engaged community of players, and STARSEEKER is not a replacement for it. STARSEEKER is a different thing we wanted to create. Whether it is for you is a fair question to ask, and the game itself is the best answer I can offer.
Server issues
Some of you couldn’t get in, or got dropped on the first day just hours after launch. That really sucks. That is the worst possible time for it to happen, when are you excited and ready to play, and we know it.
We’ve since addressed the issue and should not see that particular problem happen again. In the meantime, anyone who tried to or successful were able to play in the first day of the game being live should have the following items waiting for them in their STARSEEKER inbox:
300 Credits (normally earnable and used on cosmetic unlocks)
500 Bytes (normally earnable and used on Printing new items)
Power Mod V1
Stamina Mod V1
I know this doesn’t take back the time you lost waiting on us to solve the issues, so consider a token of our appreciation for your patience while we got that sorted. If you’re someone who left a review regarding this issue, if it’s fixed for you and you’re enjoying the game, it would mean a lot for you to consider updating your review letting folks know you’re able to play STARSEEKER.
Where this leaves us
I want to be clear about what we are and are not changing, because “we hear you” is worth nothing if it's vague.
What we are fixing is how we handle this. The silent tag changes, the confusion around how we describe the business model, and the server stability. Those are on us, and we’re actively addressing them now.
What is not changing is the game we set out to make. STARSEEKER is a connected, online, shared experience, and the model is what it is: buy the game once with completely optional cosmetic supporter packs, nothing that touches play. We are not turning it into an offline game, and STARSEEKER is not Astroneer 2. I want to be honest about that rather than make promises we can’t keep just to win people back. If it isn’t the game you were looking for, I understand completely, and hope we make something down the road that is.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to write their feelings on the game, positive, constructive, or otherwise. We’ve read it all. Keep it coming. We are listening, and we are just getting started.
Adam – “Astroneer's dad” and Creative Director for STARSEEKER