I’m going to start off this preview of STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions by telling you up front that I won’t be able to be impartial here. Not because I know anyone at System Era, nor is it because I have any financial investment in the company or product. No, it’s because I loved Astroneer like you read about. It’s maybe my all time favourite cozy survival game, and seeing a sequel announced had me giddy with excitement.
You can decide now if that means you don’t trust my opinion, but what I will say right out of the gate is that having played STARSEEKER, I now completely understand why the team didn’t just call it Astroneer 2: ‘Neerer than Heaven, and that’s because this isn’t the sequel to the game you might imagine, instead it’s kind of a PvE extraction title. And yes, I’m being serious here.
The loop of STARSEEKER is that you’ll start out in the main hub ship and then head out to a planet to complete quests you have decided on. This is very much a group multiplayer affair, but you can play solo. Groups of four Astroneers will head down in solo ships, with pooled resources. You’ll exist in the same instance as other people (up to 60 in the hub the team thinks, but that’s not final), and you’ll be questing around for things like Exo caches, and generally hoovering up resources as usual.
One thing to note is that tethers are gone. You no longer start out slow having to place tethers around to keep your oxygen and power up, and instead you have a 30 minute time limit before you run out of oxygen. This means you need to plan your route, ping resources, enemies (there’s rudimentary combat now!), and get back to a ship before that time runs out, or you lose what you’ve gained. Even your gear can be taken, and if you fail to extract, you will lose pretty much everything that’s been grabbed and stored in your backpack; which by the way can hold twelve items.
It’s difficult to know at this stage how much of the original game is in here, so to speak. At your space station hub you can craft things, and when you return from a successful expedition all your resources will go into your storage, meaning you can get crafting for better gear at the numerous machines littered around the hub. Unlocking blueprints as you play means better gear, but I’d be lying if I didn’t miss the base building from Astroneer. That said, Starseeker is clearly not that same game, and that original game still exists, so while it takes some getting used to, it does retain the addictive nature but in a slightly different way.
There already seems a good amount of enemy variety, but they are hyper aggressive and playing solo this makes it very difficult. You might be casually scanning resources you’ve decided to do on this particular expedition, but a massive enemy you didn’t know was around will wreck you quickly. Given that in team-play your resources are shared, it’s good that you can group up and heal, but hopefully you’re not paired with someone who decides to just use all the heals up for themselves. So far, the multiplayer experience is the better one, simply due to how the current balance is set.
In among the scanning and exploring, you’ll find Field Ops, which are challenges ranging from sedating the enemies to collecting goodies within a set time limit. There’s no shortage of things to do, and even the Exo-caches aren’t just a one-off idea, with some requiring puzzles to solve in order to access them in a safe way. There’s even a Breath of the Wild-style climbing mechanic now, and you can swim around and find underwater treasures if you fancy.
STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions feels very community driven, as well. You’re working towards a common goal of grabbing enough Task Tokens to complete a larger quest. There are also characters and quest-givers who can trade with you, or just let you turn in completed quests to get new items. There’s a lot going on here, and the community home hub will even shout out who has been doing well with a little banner that makes it feel like a living environment.
And that’s very much something System Era has also achieved: a community-led feeling. This all has the look and appearance (and importantly, the sound) of the original game. It’s still a tactile delight, with almost Lego-like pops and clicks of the resources as you collect them up. But this is a very different Astroneer game. I hadn’t got “Astroneer but an extraction game” on my bingo list for 2026, but having played it, I’m no less excited for what the team is cooking up here.
Being an early look, I feel there’s a lot more to come. STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions is shaping up nicely, but the most important message you take away from this is that it’s a different kind of Astroneer game. The warmth, humour, and love for what is being made is felt everywhere within the experience already, and it’s going to be a seriously interesting journey when it’s ready to be fully experienced.
STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions is coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5 in 2026.
