The recent wave of games that allow players to venture among the stars has been a dream come true for players in the sci-fi genre. Each new game seems to do something new and finds a way to keep the player coming back for more. The Planet Crafter is the latest in the sci-fi survival genre, and while it may be early in development, it’s more than it seems.
The scenario sees the player as a prisoner in the year 3058, tasked with terraforming an entire planet to have their sentence commuted. As that unfortunate prisoner, it’s up to you to make the environment sustainable for the people that come after you. However, you can’t leave the planet and are only allowed to use the resources directly in front of you.
What’s positive about The Planet Crafter?
To start, the two French devs leading this project have embarked on an ambitious journey with this game. Amelie and Brice have created something that has a natural draw to it that only an indie game can. After two years of development, they recently released their sci-fi survival game. As players travel across this strange new planet, they can feel the love of a small team.
The game is still in early access, which means that anyone who buys the game now can expect further improvement and content updates for months or years. You wouldn’t be able to tell this is an early access game in many ways. It feels like there is a fully fleshed-out equipment evolution system that rewards the player for completing the main objective.
There’s something about terraforming a relaxing planet. Once you know your objective, you can go about your tasks in an absent-minded way. Whether you need to collect resources or explore just a little further, it sometimes feels like this game is effortless. It gives you all the necessary resources to survive; you have to know how to use them.
Running out of oxygen is genuinely scary in this game, for some reason. The screen slowly gets dark as you drift out of consciousness, which is incredibly daunting. However, even when the player is blacking out, they still have a few moments to find oxygen, rewarding when successful.
The idea that you can completely change your planet from a barren red landscape into a new ecosystem is impressive. The journey of seeing it transform and your little civilization growing is a rewarding journey that players of this genre should explore.
What’s negative about The Planet Crafter?
The planet you first load in leaves much desired in terms of quality. While the idea is to give players a blank canvas to start with, the current ore placement just on top of a flat texture needs visual improvement. The ground is a flat texture, and while it looks okay in darker areas, it’s pronounced when you notice the edges of hills.
The choice to not allow items to stack is bold, as not many games have done that in the past. One ore in each slot makes inventory management much more critical, but it can also greatly hinder the player. Many chests are strewn about the planet, and it often becomes impossible to gather all the contents in one trip. This may have been an intended consequence of the developers.
Another thing is that there are currently no noticeable consequences to losing oxygen or running out of water. So instead, the player will respawn back in one of their living pods with intact all their inventory. This makes for a more accessible game but doesn’t provide much consequence for not following the game’s rules. Players could even abuse the system as a way to teleport back to their homes.
Speaking of abusing systems, the way the game measures the planet’s terraforming is by the different machines you have. It’s a passive system that works while you explore the world further and work on other projects. The player could exploit this system by building a handful of drills, heaters, and plant tubes, then letting your computer run for a couple of hours.
Conclusion
The Planet Crafter is a lot of fun when you get into it, but that means building a fair amount of resource gathering devices. While the world can be a little daunting at first, players will quickly become familiar with the basic crafting and terraforming systems that the game runs on. After that, it quickly becomes about how far you can and will explore.
The Final Word
You’ll likely enjoy this game if you’re into the sci-fi survival genre. The Planet Crafter is similar to games like Astroneer and No Man’s Sky, but the devs also have some work to do to reach the same esteem. However, it certainly is an impressive feat for a development team of two that will continue to improve in the near future.
Our Planet Crafter review was written based on the PC version of the game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website!
If you play at a difficulty higher than relaxing you will drop inventory items on death.