What would you do if you found yourself crash-landing on a hostile, unexplored alien world? Would you panic, hide in the wreckage of your ship, and tirelessly attempt to call for a rescue? Would you venture out into parts unknown, carving a path through undiscovered wilderness and making new, incredible scientific discoveries as you live a rugged, adventurous life on a planet yours to conquer?
This is the question presented by Astrobotanica, a two-part title that is pretty self-explanatory, with Astro meaning “from space” and botanica referring to botany, the study and use of plant life. Only in this game, the thing from space is you, and the botanical discoveries are made on prehistoric Earth.
Yes, Astrobotanica tells a pretty unique story about an alien scientist finding themselves stranded on a new frontier, which is a fantastical depiction of ancient Earth. Strange flora and fauna, such as gas-producing bulbs, giant (and pretty delicious-looking) fruit, and the ever-famous dodo bird, walk the Earth alongside disease-ridden Neanderthals. Driven by curiosity and adventure despite the planet’s hostile atmosphere, our player-controlled protagonist sets out to explore, discover, and build a home among this mysterious new frontier.
Astrobotanica is, in essence, a pretty straightforward survival game, and a relaxed one at that. Threats are minimal, and the massive, thoughtfully designed map of the game is yours to explore without the fear of hardcore survival mechanics or punishing respawns.
Your main focus in Astrobotanica is keeping track of your oxygen, as you aren’t adapted to breathe the planet’s atmosphere. Oxygen can be replenished within the wreckage of your ship or by consuming various plants you discover on your travels, either raw or by mixing them into unique tonics that provide useful effects. Over time, you’ll build a home and a garden, and you will create a self-sustaining botanical empire to keep yourself alive, tame animals, and cure the local Neanderthals of diseases.
As the game exists now in Early Access, it’s a pretty solid, if basic, survival game with a casual difficulty curve. There’s very little to worry about, and progression is relaxed as you build your base, grow your garden, and unlock new skills as you see fit. That being said, the mechanics as they exist currently aren’t anything really all that special or reinventive when compared to other survival games; you’re essentially just doing basic gathering, growing, and crafting to manage a recontextualized hunger meter.
While the game is pretty basic in its current state, a lot of what I would want to see added to it is already listed in the roadmap as upcoming content. Fishing, interacting with tribes, seasonal changes, and other more complicated mechanics suited for the theme of the game, promised to make them more involved than just being a hunger-management sim with a unique coat of paint.
Of these upcoming features, I think the most promising and fitting one is the ability to create new plants through farming. If I interpreted this part of the roadmap correctly, this would mean that players should be able to create plants through crossbreeding, creating brand-new plant species in the process. I think this would be incredibly cool and fitting given the science-focused, botanical theme of the title, and I already see echoes of how this would work, given the unique effects of each plant and how they interact with each other when mixed into tonics.
Another big change I would like to see would be updates, or even an outright rework of the perk progression system of the game. This system rewards exploration and discovery with points that can be used to unlock new perks, which are passive upgrades that progressively get more powerful. However, all of these perks are simple number boosts, changing how long you can sprint, how many items you pick up when harvesting, and so on. I would personally like to see this changed to be a more unique, active upgrade system instead of just a series of passive buffs. Said knowledge is also used to unlock construction options, which I don’t think is entirely necessary, as gathering the right resources is already a fair amount of work on its own.
I will say, regarding the construction system, that while it’s pretty basic, I do enjoy how everything looks. The homes you’re able to build certainly look alien; I would like to see the building system expanded with more building blocks, and perhaps some more crafting or storage systems that require a home to put down.
There are also just a few small issues here or there that really show the Early Access state of the game. The lack of voice acting on our main character can be a bit awkward, as they certainly talk often enough to have a voice; it’s just not one that’s been recorded yet. The game map can be difficult to navigate, as it lacks a compass or an indicator of where you’re facing. I also noticed that the game seemed to have trouble loading in textures; I found that even on the highest quality settings, the grass and sand textures appeared to be really blurry. While this might be a stylistic choice, it feels more likely that the game is just having trouble rendering the entire map in the pre-access build I played.
While there are changes that need to be made, Astrobotanica is in a promising state for an Early Access title and shows a lot of potential. Many issues I have with the game are already being addressed by the devs, with a lot of promised content to come in the future. The title has a very interesting premise and a unique world to discover, and while there’s a long way to go to the 1.0 launch, I imagine it’s going to be a fun and interesting testing period until then. I definitely recommend giving the game a try, or waiting a few months if you’re still not sold on what it has to offer.
Pros:
- A unique, science-focused premise where you play as an alien shaping Earth’s prehistory
- A relaxed survival experience with a focus on botany and cultivation
Cons:
- Something of a lack of unique or in-depth mechanics, promised in future updates
- Small bugs and issues with progression, rendering, and general Early Access edges to be polished
TryHardGuides was provided a Steam code for this PC Early Access Review of Astrobotanica. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page!
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