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Solarpunk

An environmentally friendly survival crafting game... with floating islands.
Solarpunk Game Cover
79%Game Brain Score
Most mentioned positive aspects:gameplay, graphics
Most mentioned negative aspects:grinding, story
81% User Score Based on 2,217 reviews
Critic Score 74%Based on 4 reviews

Platforms

Nintendo SwitchXbox Series X|SPCXbox Game PassPlaystation 5CloudXbox Cloud GamingXboxWindowsPlayStationNintendo Switch 2
Solarpunk Game Cover

About Solarpunk

Solarpunk is a single player and multiplayer open world simulation game with a kids theme. It was developed by Cyberwave and was released on June 8, 2026. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and positive reviews from players.

Solarpunk is a survival game set in a technically advanced world of floating islands! Alone or together with your friends, construct buildings, grow food, create gadgets and guide your airship to new islands hidden in the sky!

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Games Like Solarpunk

Looking for games like Solarpunk? Here are top open world simulation recommendations with a kids focus, selected from player-similarity data — start with Aloft, Outbound or ASTRONEER.

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Reviews

81%Audience ScoreBased on 2,217 reviews
gameplay99 positive mentions
grinding307 negative mentions

  • Cozy and relaxing atmosphere with calm, peaceful gameplay ideal for unwinding.
  • Extensive and satisfying building system with a variety of decorations and customization options.
  • Engaging resource gathering, farming, and renewable energy systems that balance crafting and automation.
  • Game is relatively short with limited content and progression, lacking story or meaningful goals.
  • Multiplayer features are limited and buggy, including inability to share airships and achievement sync issues.
  • Flying mechanics and controls for the airship are clunky and frustrating for many players.
  • gameplay

    394 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    25% positive mentions, 69% neutral mentions, 6% negative mentions

    Gameplay in this game offers a relaxing, cozy, and addictive loop centered around farming, building, crafting, and automation, with solid core mechanics and a charming atmosphere. However, many players find progression slow and limited after initial unlocks, flight and building controls clunky or frustrating, and survival mechanics underdeveloped or unnecessary, leading to a sense of repetitiveness and emptiness for those seeking deeper mechanical engagement. Bugs, lack of polish, minimal multiplayer cooperation, and a scarcity of meaningful content beyond about 15-20 hours are common critiques, though ongoing updates and the potential for future expansions are hoped to enhance the experience.

    • “The gameplay loop and progression stages all felt very satisfying, with each unlock building to the next and having to pop back and forth from island to island in the beginning, later replaced largely by automation was super fun.”
    • “The gameplay is genuinely fun, striking a great balance between relaxing sandbox play and thoughtful resource management.”
    • “The gameplay loop is simple but incredibly addictive.”
    • “Progression feels stunted, there are many bugs and the overall gameplay loop is very bland.”
    • “The airship mechanic is half baked between the steering being fussy and the game straight up bugging out and having you fall through the world.”
    • “This game is slow, clunky, has needlessly grindy mechanics and that's already in the first minutes.”
  • grinding

    311 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    1% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 99% negative mentions

    Grinding in this game is a mixed experience; while some players find the farming, resource gathering, and progression loop relaxing and satisfying, many describe it as slow, tedious, and overly grindy—especially when securing materials and waiting for crops. The game balances cozy and chill farming/building mechanics with repetitive tasks that can feel like artificial padding, with progression often gated behind extended grinding that may frustrate those seeking a more streamlined experience. Automation and quality-of-life improvements help alleviate some monotony, but overall, the grind is significant and may deter players not fond of resource-heavy gameplay.

    • “No grinding for materials or farming mobs.”
    • “Chill vibes, not too grindy, fun mechanics.”
    • “It's not really grindy, I've managed to do all the content and get all the achievements in about 21 hours, so that's pretty short but hey, I had fun.”
    • “A lot of jank and repeat grinding for next to zero progression.”
    • “The game is slow, clunky, has needlessly grindy mechanics and that's already in the first minutes.”
    • “The gameplay isn't even that fun for people who enjoy builders/management games because everything's locked behind tedious "quests" you have to do to unlock literally anything.”
  • graphics

    236 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    50% positive mentions, 48% neutral mentions, 2% negative mentions

    The game's graphics are widely praised for their charming, cozy, and vibrant art style that creates a relaxing "solarpunk" atmosphere and visually appealing environments. While the visuals are simple and not highly detailed, they effectively support the game's peaceful and eco-friendly vibe, with colorful, cute elements and satisfying building aesthetics. Some users note minor graphical issues and lack of polish, but overall, the graphics are considered a major strength and key selling point of the game.

    • “The graphics are colorful, fun, and wonderfully cozy, the machinery mechanics are satisfying to set up, farming is genuinely enjoyable, and the animals are honestly just the cutest.”
    • “The graphics are gorgeous and the whole vibe is so peaceful and relaxing.”
    • “The visuals are gorgeous, with a clean, vibrant style that makes exploring and building a joy.”
    • “The idea is good but the graphics are absolutely terrible, I've never refunded a game that fast. Damn 20£ for that graphic, no, they need to fix the game before I'll reconsider buying the game!”
    • “Poor graphics, poorly optimized gameplay and literally no NPC or story.”
    • “The graphics are 3D but everything is very simplistic without any refinement.”
  • story

    184 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    10% positive mentions, 62% neutral mentions, 28% negative mentions

    The game notably lacks a traditional story, narrative depth, or meaningful world-building, with many players finding progression arbitrary and repetitive. While some appreciate the freedom of a no-story sandbox experience focused on crafting and building, most reviewers desire a light story, lore, or objectives to provide motivation and enrich exploration. Overall, the absence of a structured storyline is seen as a significant drawback that limits engagement and replay value.

    • “Its like Outbound but better and the gameplay, story, graphics and visuals are amazing!”
    • “The world, the story, the heart put into every corner of it, it all shines through.”
    • “Very fun world exploratory game with great mechanics and a very fun guided story”
    • “There is no story, no "friends", no socializing, no lore, nothing.”
    • “The game lacks a story entirely to my knowledge, there is no reason to progress aside from 'it is the next thing I must do to progress further', NPCs, stories written on notes, other lost or missing 'punks', to drive interest extrinsically do not exist and should exist.”
    • “Progression is very linear, there's no backstory at all, exploration is underwhelming, there's little sense of wonder or excitement, and basically no replay value.”
  • atmosphere

    72 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    71% positive mentions, 29% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The atmosphere is widely praised for its cozy, relaxing, and peaceful vibe, enhanced by beautiful, bright art and immersive sound design. Players appreciate the calm pace, charming visuals, and a serene environment that encourages creativity and exploration without pressure. Overall, the game offers a distinctive, laid-back atmosphere that sets it apart within the survival and crafting genre.

    • “If you love the freedom and creativity of base-building games like Tekkit or modded Minecraft, but want something with a gorgeous, laid-back atmosphere, this is it.”
    • “The game offers a beautiful atmosphere, relaxing gameplay, and a charming art style that makes it incredibly easy to lose track of time.”
    • “The atmospheric changes depending on the weather and the time of day are very well done; they're gorgeous and really make me want to slow down and just watch the world move and enjoy all the little details.”
  • music

    64 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    53% positive mentions, 42% neutral mentions, 5% negative mentions

    The music in the game is widely praised for its calming, relaxing, and atmospheric qualities, perfectly complementing the cozy, solarpunk aesthetic and laid-back gameplay. Many reviewers highlight the beautiful soundtrack and ambient sounds that enhance immersion, making it an ideal experience for relaxation and stress relief. While some desire more dynamic soundscapes, overall the music is considered a standout feature that enriches the game's peaceful vibe.

    • “The music is fabulous, especially impressive given the tiny dev team who made this game; the building system is logical and flexible, and it all just works really nicely.”
    • “The ambient sounds and light music are so calming and easy to zone out to, helping you get away from the world.”
    • “The cute animals, art style, and beautiful atmospheric music let me forget the world around me while I'm farming or building.”
    • “The only big let down is the placeables: put a sofa down and you can't sit on it, musical instruments don't make a sound.”
    • “It's like listening to a thunderstorms/wind storm soundtrack plus a game attached.”
    • “It is infuriating instead of relaxing, it doesn't even have any music. It really, truly deeply sucks and I want a refund. I am so angry.”
  • stability

    58 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    7% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 93% negative mentions

    The game suffers from numerous bugs and glitches, especially in multiplayer, with problematic airship controls, frequent crashes, and issues like soft-locks and animation bugs. While some players find it fun and charming, the overall stability is poor, making it feel unfinished and frustrating at times. Developers appear responsive but significant improvements are needed to address the persistent instability.

    • “The game runs great, looks beautiful, sounds amazing, and was just the type of cozy, dreamy, exploration outlet I needed.”
    • “Runs great and is relaxing fun.”
    • “I've encountered no bugs, and it runs great.”
    • “I really wanted to like this game, but like other reviewers have mentioned, it is so buggy it's like slogging through an early access alpha version with the full release price.”
    • “This was after spending 10 hours on my friend's world– where the entire thing was a buggy mess full of phantom rocks and trees, airships I couldn't use without exiting and being reinvited to the world, and lightning clipping through roofs to kill me inside my own house.”
    • “It's super buggy. I played a lot of similar games to this one and I have never encountered as many bugs and glitches as this one, especially for the price £20+ full release.”
  • optimization

    45 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    33% positive mentions, 56% neutral mentions, 11% negative mentions

    The game generally runs smoothly with stable performance and good optimization, even on lower-end PCs, and features minimal lag or FPS drops. However, some users noted performance drops with extensive device use, suboptimal co-op optimization, and poorly optimized weather and airship controls. Overall, optimization is solid without requiring excessive tweaking, though certain areas could benefit from further improvement.

    • “The game runs very smoothly and is well optimized!”
    • “Great optimization and ability to turn the tutorial off for those used to survival-type games.”
    • “Performance-wise, it has worked well on my PC specs, which is always a relief with a newer game.”
    • “The thing that I hope to see fixed more than anything else is the optimization.”
    • “The weather is the most badly optimized problem of programming I've ever seen.”
    • “It is fortunate I waited to buy another copy for my husband as I won't want to play something so poorly optimized on my laptop.”
  • replayability

    13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    23% positive mentions, 54% neutral mentions, 23% negative mentions

    Replayability in the game is currently limited due to linear progression, lack of backstory, and minimal exploration variety, with players finishing it quickly and finding little incentive to replay. Many users hope for future updates like randomly generated islands, additional content, and mod support to enhance replay value. While some find it cozy and enjoyable for a short-term experience, the overall replay potential is considered low in its current state.

    • “☑️ Infinitely replayable.”
    • “Played for a few hours now, it's great. I expect future expansions to take a while, as the game took a long time to be released, but I am not worried. It's a great cozy game and very replayable.”
    • “Something like BG3 was like $0.25 an hour after my first playthrough, and has dropped significantly because of how replayable it is.”
    • “Progression is very linear, there's no backstory at all, exploration is underwhelming, there's little sense of wonder or excitement, and basically no replay value.”
    • “It has limited replayability value, automation is restricted to just mining (not even smelting), and there isn't a clear story or 'goal'.”
    • “But my only issue is beating it in as little as 7 hours with no replayability systems such as island generation or what not.”
  • humor

    10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The game's humor is widely appreciated, with players enjoying quirky elements like multiplying female animals, amusing prop interactions, and playful glitches such as a ship zooming across the sky. The lighthearted tone extends to casual gameplay moments and community reactions, adding charm despite limited content. Overall, humor enhances the experience by offering fun, memorable, and sometimes silly moments.

    • “The game also has a great sense of humor.”
    • “There are various crops and farm animals to collect and cultivate on your islands; somehow the animals multiply, despite being all female (except maybe the pigs), which is hilarious.”
    • “It's happened to me 3 times and honestly I found it to be more funny than annoying because I play with my buddy and it's just fricking hilarious seeing a ship zoom across the sky like he just left the stove on at home or something.”
  • emotional

    9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    Players find the game emotionally engaging and wholesome, appreciating its cozy, heartwarming atmosphere and relaxing vibe. However, some frustration arises from tedious mechanics and imprecise building controls, which can detract from the overall emotional comfort the game aims to provide.

    • “W heartwarming survival basebuilder”
    • “The aesthetic and overall theme of the game is really cool and wholesome.”
    • “This is a pretty wholesome game.”
  • monetization

    4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    Users criticize the game's monetization, feeling it resembles an unfinished early access cash grab with excessive ads. They express disappointment in the advertising, suggesting clearer upfront warnings about the game's nature before purchase.

    • “Should've released as early access; it clearly needs a lot of polish and feels like a Unity cash grab.”
    • “Devs should put a disclaimer 'this game is not for you' as the first part of the advertising video on the Steam page (read carefully before you buy!).”
    • “Disappointed in the advertisement of this game.”
  • character development

    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions

    Character development in the game is seen as lacking depth, with generic and repetitive character customization options and underdeveloped animal designs, particularly the pigs. Players express disappointment over the limited variety and distinctiveness in characters, which diminishes overall engagement.

    • “The character design could deserve some more depth, same as the animals, especially the pigs (and their creepy eyes).”
    • “Horrible character design; every customization looks the same. Lowkey bummed.”
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Play Times

21h Median play time
21h Average play time
15-30h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 59 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

Solarpunk is a open world simulation game with kids theme. Common tags for Solarpunk include first-person, indie, exploration, gaming, cozy and others.

Solarpunk is available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5 and others.

On average players spend around 21 hours playing Solarpunk.

Solarpunk was released on June 8, 2026.

Solarpunk was developed by Cyberwave.

Solarpunk has received mostly positive reviews from players and mostly positive reviews from critics. Most players liked Solarpunk for its gameplay but disliked it for its grinding.

Solarpunk is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.

Similar games include Aloft, Outbound, ASTRONEER, Len's Island, Arctico and others.