The Planet Crafter

All the fun of Subnatica without the horrors of the deep jump scaring you.

Surprising at every turn. That's the best way to describe it, really. I got into this game without knowing much about it, it was just there - languishing in the early access section of my wishlist, and when it hit 1.0, a friend of mine suggested playing it together. So play it we did.
To keep it spoiler-free: it starts out feeling like Subnautica, except on dry land. But then - it unfolds. Yes, it's that kind of game, and I'm pleased to tell you it unfolds really nicely - and keeps things balanced and fun until the end. I've played on the Intense difficulty with a friend, for reference - it makes survival needs drop faster and the terraforming grind somewhat longer, but I still felt it was pleasant.
Step 1: Survive
When it comes to survival, this is a pretty standard fare. Oxygen, thirst, and health/hunger; there is no combat in the game, so it's fitting - but you can take damage from other sources such as falling. Carry emergency rations in case of a fall! How else are you going to mend that broken leg?
What is interesting is that the way you take care of these needs keep changing. Once your initial rations are out, what are you going to do, hunt for rocks? Fish? In what water? Grow stuff? In sand? With what technology? Oh, your benevolent corporate overlords will probably provide for you... if you live long enough to make yourself useful, at the very least.
As for water... you melt the naturally ocurring ice, of course. But what if the ice runs out, for one reason of another? Other sources of the precious liquid will have to be found. What will they be? I don't know about you, but I found such questions very exciting. And whenever you discover a new way to deal with the limitations of your flesh, it's always such a joyful moment.
Step 2: Build
Since this planet is just a barren rock, you'll need shelter to even breathe. I had lots of fun building a cool and useful base, but let's be honest, the main things you'll be building are the devices to terraform the planet. Heaters. Drills to generate pressure. Some special tubes, where hardy plants can grow to provide some oxygen. And more, later on; just keep in mind - the process of getting what you want is slow and gradual.
It's actually a little bit like an idle game. Build stuff to generate stuff, and then more stuff happens. Build more stuff. But make no mistake - if you won't take an active role in constantly expanding your facilities, you won't get anywhere. You're to terraform an entire planet; so better get to work.
That said, there will be moments where your production is satisfactory and you need some rare materials anyway. And that's where the other fun part of the game comes in.
Step 3: Explore
I can't write too much here because this part is the easiest one to spoil... so let's just say that the map is large. There's a lot to see. And you will need to explore to find the resources to expand your facilities, considering that better buildings require more rare materials.
There are different "biomes" (no biosphere here, so calling them that feels weird), and they all have their unique feel, and some contain resources not found elsewhere. And, perhaps, ways to build more advanced gear and/or buildings can be found, too.
Step 4: ...Story?
Yes, the game has a plot, of sorts. You're here for a reason. And this barren rock has been chosen for terraforming for a reason as well. And you didn't choose to be here; you're a convict, and this is a way for you to carry out your sentence. Put the two and two together.
While the writing is pretty shoddy, it still managed to make me care - although I felt like some parts didn't make sense, or didn't have a good story progression. Still, you don't exactly play this kind of game for the story, so I'm not going to complain too much.
Conclusion
Roughly 57 hours to complete on Intense with a friend. The final few hours were a bit of a drag, but that's because we were a little tired and didn't want to expand our production one final time. Once we did, things got moving and we got to the ending. We'll likely play the DLC as well - we did like the game, after all.
If you do decide to play this, for the love of f*ck, don't look up anything on the wiki. The game tells you everything you need to know. The wiki is full of stuff I personally would consider spoilers, so for the best experience just stay away. With that out of the way, I just have one last thing to say:
IKHLAS LIVES
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Gave me the 'Minecraft for the first time' feeling, something I never thought I'd feel again. It's a world to get lost in. Stuff to explore, cool bases to build, danger to avoid (asphyxiation, dehydration, starvation), and a lot of gear and blueprints to unlock that helps with all three.
It's not a perfect game. The terrain get a little weird (sudden rock formation pop-in, collision mesh not quite matching the model), but this is mostly a problem in the late game outer areas.
Make sure to have an alarm ready, You WILL lose track of time playing this.

A game that scratches the Subnautica itch. Terraform a planet from barren to bountiful, from uninhabitable to habitable. This game has strong depth in crafting and was addictive at times. I did feel the middle portion of the terraformation levels was somewhat boring, and I found myself without a lot of tasks to do and just waiting as my terraforming metrics went up steadily. Maybe that balancing will be fixed in the 1.0 release.

Overall would recommend this game. I had a lot of fun.

Alright. The Planet Crafter is done and dusted. I saw two of the three endings. Not exactly certain what triggers the third, but I was ready to be finished after sixty hours anyway, so I'll probably just watch the third on YT. I spent $16.79 on this during the recent Steam Open World Survival Crafting Fest, and that was a stellar price for this amount of content. I did play this solo, and it's definitely perfectly suited to solo play. However, I would imagine having a crew playing this together would expedite things, especially in the later terraforming stages where the game can drag on a bit.
So, you play as a person convicted of a crime that isn't specified, but the implication is that Sentinel Corp, the human corporate government, is not averse to inflating minor crimes into death sentences and then convincing the convicts to accept the almost certain death sentence of terraforming a lifeless planet in exchange for commuting the sentences afterwards. And that is the position you find yourself in. You are dropped onto a lifeless planet with only your trusty multitool gun thingy (the name of which escapes me lol) and a will to survive. Initially, survival will be very difficult since you will have to find food, water, and oxygen wherever you can, and it can be a desperate struggle. As you progress, and especially once you reach certain stages of terraforming, these things stop being a factor.
After exploring a bit and starting to create livable circumstances for yourself, you will really focus on both terraforming and long range exploration, becoming more familiar with the planet even as the planet becomes more livable. This can be pretty exciting at times. The actual act of mining and finding supplies, building your base, and so on, isn't much to write home about, but exploring your first wrecks, finding logs left by other people who had the misfortune of crashing here (or being sent here as a criminal just like you), watching the actual stages of terraforming coming to fruition....those are all pretty inspiring moments that carry a sense of pride and satisfaction. Finding evidence of previous intelligent life on the planet is about as cool as it gets and sets the foundation for the second main plot line, which was kind of awesome. The first being your endeavor to terraform this planet and GTFO of course. One of the things you find talks about how humans evolve in similar fashion under similar conditions regardless of how far apart they are, and the only significant difference at that point is how they think and process information. Which is something I have long considered to be true.
Eventually, you will unlock teleporters, and that basically changes everything. You can easily set up mining operations in key areas, set up teleporters in other areas you deem important, and it really keeps you from having to continue with the super long treks that are part and parcel with this game.
Graphically, what begins as a drab and mostly featureless experience morphs into something completely different as the world starts to change and become more alive. The use of contrast and a full color palette to differentiate between biomes and the circumstances within said biomes was nicely done. There was one area I called "The Moon" in my playthrough that was so visually striking that I just sat there taking it in for minute. The plant life was all really imaginative and the designs really enhanced the world. Additionally, there are some secret areas in the game that are flat out stunning and super cool looking. The planet provides an interesting dichotomy between what begins as basically lifeless desert and transforms into lakes, forests and jungles, and even an ocean.
The audio is all activity driven with a musical score in the background that was pretty much ripped straight from Mass Effect. It's nice and all, but not particularly noteworthy outside of some suspect borrowing of the Mass Effect series trademark soundtrack, with some minor tweaks. It's not one for one, but anyone who has played both will find the inspiration undeniable.
What I did not particularly enjoy was exploring the higher difficulty ships. Difficulty in this instance directly correlates to how mazelike a ship is. However, if you've seen one ship, you've seen them all, the rewards aren't super compelling despite finding necessary crafting stuff, flares are kind of costly to craft and use as markers, and I just didn't really enjoy this much at all after like the third or fourth ship. Even when you unlock portals that allow you to find new ships and select which ships you'd like to try to find knowing their difficulty ahead of time, this didn't alter anything other than enhancing the value of the things you can find exploring said ships.
And there are definitely some bugs in this game. Most noteworthy is how you can and will end up inside of mountains and such because the game couldn't render the assets faster than you could arrive at them. Once, this resulted in my finding a secret area but also being trapped in it since I had entered through what looked like more mountain but after it rendered in, was actually a gap in the floor/ceiling (depending on which way you look at it from), rather than from unlocking a door as intended. Rendering speed seems to be the culprit for pretty much all the bugs I personally encountered with two exceptions. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine and then suddenly it's not. Another issue I encountered was some stuttering and moments where the game would just flat out freeze. And finally, every so often, some crafting material would get stuck in the ground or a wall and would be impervious to my efforts to claim it.
I tried this with both the Steam Deck and an Xbox X controller and didn't really like how the game played using either. I switched to k/m and it became a pretty seamless experience from a gameplay perspective from that point on.
I think the game was a lot of fun and I enjoyed my stay for the most part. It did perhaps run about five hours longer than I would have liked, and I found myself idling through a lot of the final stage, just checking in to feed and water my character periodically. I'd had my fill of exploration and builder tasks by then. But the sense of awe when finding alien ruins and secret areas, and the feeling of satisfaction and of just flat-out pride when you see the effects of your efforts throughout the world really override any issues I had with the game. It's capable of bringing out all your favorite emotions, and for that, I am thankful to have had the opportunity to play this game. The price is certainly more than fair for the amount of content, and I think if you play this with friends, it could only enhance that experience further. Give it a look for sure.
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An excellent, slow-paced survival-crafter game.
Pros:
* Lots and lots of secrets to discover.
* Great tech tree to unlock.
* A surprising number of biomes.
* Freaking beautiful, and great (low-annoyance) soundtracks.
Cons:
* Some of the late-game mechanics aren't explained very well. (genetics, mostly, tho that may've been because I unlocked mammals way later than I should've)
* One biome (rainbow caves) is key to mid-to-late game progress - if you haven't found it yet, you're almost crippled by a lack of quartz varieties. A hint towards it would have been nice.
Meh:
* Most of the late-game "special" foods' perks were... useless, to me? I certainly never bothered, anyhow.
TL;DR: If you like exploring/crafting games, 9/10; else, avoid.

A great solo survival experience for those that don't play with friends. You'll experience the highs of terraforming a planet a planet in real time while you work through a progression of better equipment to help you explore and survive .
I've only played up to unlocking the first rockets but I enjoyed every moment I played and only put it down to play my favourite MMO for a while.
Finally, a game worth its overwhelming positive reviews. Not only did the developers speed through early access they listened to feedback and made a more than viable 1.0 update. Look forward to the future here.