Starbound
Developer Chucklefish
Starbound is a 2016 action-adventure game by Chucklefish. It takes place in a two-dimensional, procedurally generated universe which the player is able to explore in order to obtain new weapons, armor, and items, and to visit towns and villages inhabited by various intelligent lifeforms. Starbound was released out of early access in July 2016 for Windows, OS X, and Linux, and for Windows via Xbox Game Pass in… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
336 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Oct 7, 2026 · last updated Oct 7, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
139 positive · 99 negative
95% range 52–64%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 139 | 99 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
98 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 336 · most liked firstdevelopers profited from the unpaid labor of teenagers making this game. see Chucklefish's page on Wikipedia. do not buy!!!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game, but the company decided that one of it's potential best sellers was abandonware material instead. Then they go and release a vinyl for their "10th anniversary" even though they've done *nothing* for this game in years. If they decided to update this game with some major updates I'll change my review to a thumbs up, but I know that won't happen. This game was such a huge part of growing up, and it's sad that the company abandoned this title and then desperately clawing for more money…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game's great. Chucklefish is terrible. I wouldn't recommend buying anything else made by this studio, and I would only recommend buying Starbound if it's on steeeeeeep sale- since I gush to my friends about this game a lot, every now and then I'll have some that are interested and I make sure to poke them whenever I catch this on sale for less than $5, which happens basically every seasonal sale. I can't in good faith recommend that a person spend any more than that on this game. Now, on to the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Complete Starbound Cooking Collection - The total caloric content of all ingredients required to cook everything in the game as of as of v1.3.2. This accomplishment is best paired with the Starpounds mod; fat Florans, my beloved ~126,000 calories Ingredients source: www.reddit.com/r/starbound/...
unlabelledView post →Chucklefish. Please. Do the 'right' thing. You can still save this project, you can STILL do the right thing after all the mistakes. This game is beloved, don't be wicked, selfish, and cruel, you can STILL profit after the fact. Admit the mistake, and let the game flourish again, give it the attention it needs in the form of an unchained edition for the development community you betrayed. Admission isn't the end, its just admitting wrongs happened, and its been years. We all…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First things First: The Dev Scammed all the people who worked on this Game and should be Held accountable. Starbound is a Good 2-d Space surival game with some good soundtracks and it had the potential to become a better Game but this Never Happend.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I ended up playing Starbound throughout the entire holiday with friend... After installing a bunch of mods, I created the in-game avatars of my OCs Bái Líng and Mò Huí, and had them go on adventures together. 🍊
unlabelledView post →Toby Fox was originally a composer for the game Starbound. Alongside an early version of "Snowy" from Undertale, there are three other unused songs in the code that likely also belong to him, as they are made with his commonly used soundfonts and VSTs.
unlabelledView post →Hi new people, I've been making games for a decade now! You can see my Art & Animation in games like Wargroove, Starbound, Kingdom Two Crowns, Witchbrook and more! I'm now working on my own game, Loco Motive - where you have to solve a murder aboard a steam train! #gamedev #pixelart
unlabelledView post →As an early backer of this game I am crushingly disappointed at where it ended up. It was sold as a big multiplayer Terraria spanning infinite universes and full of great features. (Including server admin tools which we never got which sucks because I was set on hosting public servers for it.) This game is a bit of a mess multiplayer wise, the performance and optimisation of the server software is dismally poor and the developers just kind of gave up and focused on making it a single player…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So I noticed that there were a lot of paid reviews here so I though I would add my two bits, this game is functionally abandoned. If you want to play it go and play anyone of the open source projects you'll have a much better time than playing this garbage. P.S. The lead dev likes to claim he's being review bombed 24/7 and uses bots/paid shills to boost his number on online platforms.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I absolutely loved, and still love from time to time, this game. Development stopped many years ago, and having no further updates & no Starbound 2 announcement hurts me almost physically even today. Perhaps one day someone would make a perfect spiritual successor of this game, maybe even better than the current iteration. But since now, I have yet to see a game so wonderful. Similar games? Yes, there are plenty out there. But how many of them would check the same boxes as Starbound? None of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wish steam gave a mixed option for reviews for this game more than any other. 1,500 hours! This is a deeply flawed game in a great many respects, that was made unethically in many more respects as well, I have never felt right giving it a positive review. 1,500 hours though, kind of hard to ignore that kind of number. There have been other games to take up as much of my life for sure, but as far as games I've played through steam alone- I think this is my actually most played title... And I…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don't get me wrong, it's a great game but chucklefish decided to abandon this project a long time ago thus developers who worked on this are gone. Yeah voluntary contributors weren't paid as they should have been paid. That was a scummy move. So what we have is an abandoned game but luckily the game has modding support therefore if you get bored from vanilla base game then you can mod it as you'd like. The community loves this game, the mod support is awesome. With one limitation that the game…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The fact that Terraria still gets updates and this game doesnt, while this game blows all the others in this space out of the water is heart breaking. This game is by far the best in this genre in my opinion.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →outside of all of their insane controversies (seriously, look it up), genuinely one of the most frustrating games ever made; it was meant for greatness and they decided to settle on plain buggy mediocrity, all while adding (or removing) random nonsense instead of fleshing out the game or fixing its numerable issues (like the server lag.. in singleplayer?? wow they were ahead of their time) mods probably make it a lot better, and i'm sure there are still big modders in the scene, but a lot of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This could have been something truly special. I remember the first versions were so charm and love filled, albeit at the expense of unpaid underage labor, but beyond that the game has fallen so flat that I can't logically find a single reason why you would pick this over Terraria.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just go play Terraria. The developer/publisher is a massive piece of ♥♥♥♥ (so bad that ConcernedApe bought the rights to his own game back so he wouldn't be kicked off of his own IP) and the game is not good, it's not what was promised, the developer abandoned it in an unfinished state, it was developed using exploited free labor, and the game is almost nothing like what this page presents. Go spend your money on something better.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Also played some Starbound recently. Such a shame the game is still unstable as fuck with mods :(
unlabelledView post →If you play any of these games and posts about it: * Factorio * Stardew Valley * Cyberpunk 2077 * Genshin Impact * Terraria * Starbound * Any other storyline-based 2D pixel art game I didn't know of Reply below so I can follow you.
unlabelledView post →After 6-ish years of not playing, I decided to give Starbound a revisit as part of a personal "research" project. I even took notes and everything. My goal was to reflect on the games that made me want to make games, and Starbound was the first on my list. Almost all of my notes were complaints. The first conclusion I came to is that Chucklefish doesn't know how to make their players' time feel rewarding. An example that every Starbound player will know is that there's TOO. MANY. CONTAINERS.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TLDR: A vast but ultimately shallow vanilla experience that grows stale fast, with the modding community's deep additions doing most of the heavy lifting to make it worth recommending. PROS: ➕Steam Workshop integration ➕Extensive modding community ➕Infinite planets/game world size CONS: ➖No UI scaling option ➖No more content updates after 2019 (?) ➖Gameplay loop can get repetitive ➖Planets can be boring and too similar as you explore ➖Requires mods to add fun game systems -…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've played this game on and off for years, really tried to like it, but I gotta finally admit, it's a terrible game. Everything about it is annoying, it's marred by a history of controversies and poor treatment of their own "interns" and it very much shows. Movement is slow, quests are fetch, enemies are bullet sponges, weapons are weak, nothing feels satisfying. One star, music is awesome.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The story of this game is quite dramatic. Unfortunately littered with a terrible company and lots of teenagers exploited labor, for a final product that ultimately disappoints more than anything. One of the few times were the Early Access was better than the final release. Trying to sell a Vinyl after having abandoned the game and not having addressed any of this is quite pathetic.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is basically abandoned by the developers after having got their money, 13+ years of a game that had potential to be next Terraria, only to massacred during its development and left to rot, only reason this game is still alive and thriving is because of the dedicated Modders. Now after that long time the devs come back with a Anniversary Vynil that is just a spit in the face to their last fans that still dwell on this game, trying to make a quick checkout as their funds run low.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →196 PAGES OF AVALI LORE ?!?! I wasn't aware of your game outside of Starbound and mods, Avalis ! drive.google.com/file/d/10_27... I'm gonna need to study ! 🎨 (right) by @soogi.bsky.social
unlabelledView post →Shameless devs, for the 10th anniversary and for any signs of life since 2 years, we get a vinyl record. No update, no nothing, a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ vinyl record... It's insulting. The game is good, but it has so much untapped potential and could've been really really great if the devs cared at least a tiny bit about it. Only reason it's alive is because of the modding community (which props to them for carrying it this far).
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There are very few games I've played that have failed to deliver on such a promising premise in the way that Starbound has. I bought this game over a decade ago and my opinion of it in that time has only worsened in spite of the updates the developers released which I had mistakenly hoped would improve the game or fix some of the fundamental issues with it - they never did. Starbound is all style and no substance, it's ideas are amazing and, on paper, would make for such a cool game that would…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A wonderful game left to rot without promised content by it's... uhh... very loving developers I can only recommend buying it if you plan on MODDING. Please at least get Frackin Universe! It expands upon the game and fixes SO much. I seriously cannot stand playing through the base game anymore without FU installed, it makes everything make sense.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nova kids (from Starbound) It was a game that I quite liked until I found out about unpaid wages. #outlaw #pixel_dailies #pixelart #ドット絵 #픽셀아트 @pixeldailies.bsky.social
unlabelledView post →As I'm writing this, I have a little over 1000 hours on Starbound, and honestly, I don't regret it one bit. It is by far my most beloved game, ever. It's a darn shame more people don't talk about Starbound, because there's a lot to be said about it. The game itself is fantastic. Just the vanilla experience has enough content for you to keep playing for hours on end. In fact, I keep finding myself discovering new things about it. If you take your time to explore the universe and play around…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Do NOT buy this game. I loved my time playing this game and the vibes & species are cool, but the creators should not be supported. Long story short, they exploited the labor of multiple people during development, including Toby Fox. Do not give these people money.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The base game is fine. Like it's genuinely just fine. It does what it says, you explore planets, you build stuff, you follow a story that exists and has a beginning and an end and some genuinely interesting lore tucked into it if you actually pay attention, and the different races have way more personality than they probably needed to which I appreciated a lot. The Floran alone are worth acknowledging, like whoever wrote their dialogue was having a great time and it shows. But as a complete…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Developers abandoned this game for years and then, as if nothing had happened, droped a vinyl release for 10th anniversary. They take us for dumb fools or what..
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The devs abandoned the game and they have the audacity to release a vinyl record to celebrate it's 10 year anniversary.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Abandoned, repetitive game with dumb quests. At first it had a promising story which as it progresses becomes sloppy and boring repetitive chore... At first it had so much potential, now I just feel like I was scammed.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Play it with mods. While this might be my favorite game of all time(with mods), I just can't support Chuckle Fish right now. I want more people to experience Starbound, I want Starbound to not be abandonware, but sadly thats kind of where it is. I'll change this review when the game is updated. Negative review because I want chucklefish to actually do something for this game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →New Game Pass Games: Jan 21: -Lonely Mountain: Snow Riders Jan 22: -Gigantic: Rampage Edition -Starbound Jan 28: -Eternal Strands -Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap Jan 29: -Shady Part of Me Jan 30: -Sniper Elite: Resistance Jan 31: - Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector Feb 4: - Far Cry New Dawn 1/2
unlabelledView post →I recently got a Steam bundle but already have two games. So, I decided to host a giveaway!! Celeste and Starbound To enter: > Reply which game you want > Like & Repost > Must be following me Once a few days have passed I'll randomly draw a winner for each game.
unlabelledView post →Developers released a very lackluster 1.0, leaving the game unfinished, and now they come out with a 10th anniversary vinyl to milk the abandoned community for whatever money they can get. They also didn't pay there employees, let chucklefish run dry, do not give them another dollar.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →*Boots up Starbound primarily to check out a new vore/kink mod* *......Ends up just playing Starbound* This is such a comfort game to me, I really can't describe it, the second I get -into- it I just zen out and get lulled into a serene state. The vibe, the OST, the chill gameplay. Cozy~
unlabelledView post →Man I love Starbound('s mods)! I love playing it with my friends (and mods) I could imagine not playing this game (without mods) It's such a good game (if you mod it) Long story short, this is one of those games you mod as soon as you download it..
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Starbound is often summarized as Terraria in space, but I think that's a pretty shallow analogy. There are mining and crafting in Starbound, but they're not as pivotal to the game. The beauty of Starbound is how you can flit from planet to planet - you're never stuck in one location. If you love the idea of Star Trek style exploration then this might be for you. What you'll want to know: Buggy mess. There are mods that claim to fix it but won't unless it's a specific situation The game is 100x…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →But... But the psychic damage for my friends ;w; /j (honestly Starbound have a grasp so hard on my game hours than my OOMFs must be thinking "Yep, that's Henry alright" the day another game appears it's gonna be enough psychic damage)
unlabelledView post →Found myself playing Starbound again >w>
unlabelledView post →Who boy, where to begin? I haven't played this game since 2015, Christmas of that year. I was 13 at that time. I honestly really wanted to love this game, I loved the idea of it. Even as someone who never really got into Terraria I kinda liked the game's concept. It was basically designed to be the ultimate, open-world sci-fi RPG and It seemed promising. I loved the game's 2D Pixel Art artsyle. I really loved all the different races and the lore behind them, I thought they were all super…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A game that didn't live up to its potential. Its last update was in 2024 and its last content update was before the Pandemic. Don't expect Terraria-level replayability: Starbound is shallow, and the developer scaled back many of their original lofty goals to shove the game out the door, after which they pivoted to their next title. If you want a 2D/side scroller, go play Terraria -- that developer is still releasing updates! If you want space-themed games, consider Space Engineers 1 (or 2,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Do not trust nor support Chucklefish, they're quite possibly one of the worst companies out there. Cartoon villain-level evildoings. However, this game is absolutely worth a try. It is way more than simply "Terraria in space". Do look up some QOL mods first, tho. Tons of things here are too annoying without them. Don't be afraid to download tons of them, they're never too much.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Playing Starbound is about half engaging the game itself and half wanting to hear the music. I adore the original OST so much that I've never gotten tired of it no matter how often I've heard the songs.
unlabelledView post →It's a really good game, one of my favorites even, but I wish it got the same TLC terraria gets, i think if it had kept getting updates, it could've rivalled Terraria to this day.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It would have been kind of a waste keeping my Starbound character buried because the game wound up being the way it was. So, I brought Nersha back as a macaque!
unlabelledView post →Not the developers trying to come back with a single piece of 10th anniversary merchandise after radio silence for several years, lmfao. They legit left this game unfinished with their tails between their legs. And not just because they ran out of funds, mind you, but because they had their unpaid labor exposed. The real kicker is if they DO decide to update the game for its 10th anniversary, that's actually a detriment to us. Why? Because the game was left abandoned for so long that the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played this game for YEARS and I can safely say its only remotely fun if modded. The quests are extremely tedious and fetchy, the same formula over and over again. None of the major npcs are very memorable except maybe Nuru and that old woman I cant remember the name of. Every single mechanic and aspect of this game feels half-baked and unfinished which actually makes sense if you know the history behind this game. (look it up)
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this is a game with a lot of missed potential to be great - it has been abandoned by its developers and the story is poorly done, the main thing this game has going for it is its wonderful modding community
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it is so painful for Starbound of all games to be the one to make me a furry. why was this the game i became obsessed with?!
unlabelledView post →My playtime is carried by mods alone. That said, I can't really find any alternatives to Starbound's very sandboxy space vibes. People will say Terraria but its just not the same game. It's more like Minecraft in that sense where technically I can just do anything with it + mod it to my liking. Despite the history surrounding this game and its current abandonware state, I still find myself playing it every now and then. Would I recommend it to anyone? If they are the same person as I do then…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →relogic and mojang have unfortunately spoiled their playerbase into thinking every game developer should indefinitely work on their games til the end of time, ignore the recent review bombing
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Disclaimer for the curious: Exploration is the point. If you try to build planet bases early you will be frustrated. Your ship is your base. Missions and 'endgame' are filler for the endless 2016-2020 complainers demanding direction. Exploration and discovery are the main points of this game. You might even say that base-building on planets IS part of the endgame due to what it requires. Starbound is incredible and worth every penny! I've played to near end-game several times through…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →When I saw there was a community note on the game I almost fooled myself into thinking it was an actual update, however it turned out it was just a vynil. Game had a lot of potential as space based terraria, however the exploitative requests done by chucklefish on a group of unpayed teens made them fall off hard, being completely honest, I wouldn't for the life of me but another cucklefish game, it is a shame the that the kids didn't hold any sort of rights for the game as the Stardew valley…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nuh, even if it's on sale at a 70% discount. If you must, play with mods only but like - you shouldn't have to, you want to experience the game as is. Problem is it's just so.. tepid. Completely forgettable game. Game purchased in 2013 for £11.99, only now doing a review because according to a news post they made, it's 10 years since 1.0. Again, completely unremarkable.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
Posts are quoted from public profiles with links to the original. Want yours removed? Contact us.