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StarDrive

Some omissions and flaws, but balanced by excellent alien races and ship design. A welcome addition to the crew.
StarDrive Game Cover
47%Game Brain Score
gameplay, graphics
stability, story
43% User Score Based on 1,175 reviews
Critic Score 64%Based on 2 reviews

Platforms

PCWindows
StarDrive Game Cover

About

StarDrive is a single player real-time strategy game with a science fiction theme. It was developed by Zero Sum Games and was released on April 26, 2013. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and neutral reviews from players.

"StarDrive is a single-player Science Fiction Real Time Strategy game with high-quality graphics, offering a sandbox experience for players to build and design peticular spaceships for tactical combat and exploration. However, the game is criticized for its lack of optimization and numerous bugs, as well as the requirement of grinding. The game boasts a modular approach to ship design and a real-time gameplay with a seamless zoom feature."

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43%
Audience ScoreBased on 1,175 reviews
gameplay26 positive mentions
stability78 negative mentions

  • The ship customization system is deep and rewarding, allowing players to design unique ships that reflect their playstyle.
  • The game offers a fun real-time strategy experience, blending elements of 4X gameplay with engaging space battles.
  • The variety of alien races adds charm and personality to the game, making each playthrough feel distinct.
  • The game was abandoned by the developer before it was fully finished, leaving many promised features unimplemented.
  • There are significant bugs and performance issues, especially in late-game scenarios, which can lead to crashes and lag.
  • The AI is often predictable and lacks depth, making the gameplay feel repetitive and less challenging over time.
  • gameplay
    130 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players praising its ship customization and core mechanics while criticizing its numerous bugs, lack of polish, and unfinished feel. While some find the gameplay engaging and enjoyable, others highlight issues such as clunky controls, poorly explained mechanics, and a lack of depth, leading to a frustrating experience. Overall, the game shows potential but suffers from significant flaws that detract from the overall gameplay experience.

    • “The gameplay is fantastic! The ability to adjust your species for tactical, role-playing, or mixed gameplay allows you to play a species according to your own interpretation of how they are or what they could be.”
    • “The core gameplay is there, but a tech tree that's lacking much depth is probably the most glaring flaw I've experienced in my playthroughs.”
    • “The gameplay is great, controlling the ship layout for your personal play style, and the ability to modify your own race are just examples of how much control a player can have.”
    • “The game is buggy, crashes a lot, and there are several gameplay mechanics that just do not work.”
    • “Unfortunately, the game essentially released in alpha, with mechanics lacking both balance and depth.”
    • “Unfortunately, many game mechanics are broken and will never get fixed.”
  • stability
    80 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The stability of the game is widely criticized, with users reporting numerous bugs, crashes, and performance issues, particularly in late-game scenarios. Many reviewers note that the game feels unfinished and abandoned by the developers, leading to a frustrating experience despite some enjoyable elements. Overall, the consensus is that the game is plagued by instability, making it difficult to recommend in its current state.

    • “While the game isn't buggy or unpolished by any means, it feels stable overall, even if some design choices are questionable.”
    • “Never play the base game; like almost everything I've tried from Iceberg Interactive, it is an unfinished, buggy mess.”
    • “The game gets a lot of hate, justifiably so, because the developer over-promised and under-delivered, leaving the game in a buggy state.”
    • “After playing for some 80 hours and having some decent fun when it did not crash, the game seems to be really dead nowadays. The dev quit it for a flopped sequel, and every time I start the game, it just freezes, even after all the tips from the forums to make matters worse.”
  • graphics
    71 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The graphics of the game are generally praised for their colorful aesthetics and charming design, with many users noting the appealing art style and ship visuals. While some players appreciate the graphical improvements made through mods, others mention issues like bugs, lack of UI scaling, and performance problems on higher resolutions. Overall, the visuals are considered decent to good, contributing positively to the immersive experience, despite some technical shortcomings.

    • “Visually charming, with colorful faction aesthetics.”
    • “I love the graphic style, so much better than any other game like this.”
    • “The graphics are nice, the battles are nice, this is the only game where you have dynamic battles.”
    • “There's few graphics tweaking options and on a UHD display the text is impossible to read because the developer didn't bother with UI scaling, a vital feature for any modern game.”
    • “The end of the story wasn't put in, not all the races have titans, there are glitches, bugs, graphics lacking, it's about 75% of a finished game.”
    • “Although this game is not exactly Far Cry 3 graphics-wise, the constant battles and endless activity during an advanced game will cause freezing and periodic stuttering.”
  • story
    53 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's story aspect is widely criticized for its lack of a coherent narrative or structured campaign, with many players noting that it primarily offers a sandbox experience devoid of meaningful storytelling. While some appreciate the potential for emergent narratives, the overall consensus is that the game feels incomplete, with unfinished quests and minimal lore, leading to a sense of frustration among players seeking a more developed storyline. Many reviews highlight that the absence of a fleshed-out campaign and numerous bugs detract significantly from the overall experience.

    • “There is space battles, ground battles, artifacts, and a backstory that develops as you progress through the game.”
    • “A sandbox mode with an engaging storyline.”
    • “However, fair warning it will lag your computer a lot when you eventually get to having big battles and if you ever activate the in-game story (it's kind of a story) and you don't have cruiser class ships everywhere you will die horribly.”
    • “It’s also worth noting that the game lacks a strong narrative or campaign structure—there’s no story mode, no guided objectives, just sandbox matches.”
    • “The story arc was supposed to let you ultimately build some kind of ascension gate that would allow your race to become ultimate beings; however, this was completely omitted from the final release due to pure laziness.”
    • “So many halfway story threads, half-developed concepts, and unfinished features plague this game from back to front, not to mention unfixed bugs throughout.”
  • optimization
    29 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's optimization is widely criticized, particularly in the late game where performance issues become severe, leading to crashes and significant lag even on powerful systems. Many players report that the game feels unfinished and buggy, with a lack of essential features and poor reliability, making it frustrating to play. Overall, the consensus is that the game requires substantial optimization work, which appears to have been abandoned by the developers.

    • “Probably have 460 hours staring at the ship customization screen alone, dwelling on and adjusting just the right design or optimization to a new hull type.”
    • “A) Memory optimization: unlike other RTS games (which this game has flavors of), there is no unit cap other than your bank account (i.e. turn-by-turn income).”
    • “It allows you to arrange unlocked systems on a ship frame so you can create specialized designs (i.e. resupply, strike, scout, colonization, etc.) and allows you to control their performance levels.”
    • “At endgame, the optimization takes a dive, with large fleets of ships, even those offscreen, tanking performance and even crashing the game.”
    • “In addition, you will suffer a lot late game due to poor optimization that even a really powerful system can't power through.”
    • “The end-game optimization was also lacking, causing the game to choke horribly during battles.”
  • replayability
    21 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Overall, the game's replayability is mixed, with some players noting the potential for varied experiences through different alien factions and mods, while others criticize its limited customization and single-player focus. Many reviews highlight that, despite some enjoyable elements, the game lacks significant replay value, often feeling repetitive or unfinished without extensive modding. While a few players find it addictive and worth revisiting, the consensus leans towards a lack of substantial replayability.

    • “The game also lets you lead different alien factions, each with distinct advantages and styles, which adds some replay value.”
    • “Mods greatly increase replayability though.”
    • “Surprisingly addictive, never without replayability.”
    • “No replayability, but underrated and very worth buying.”
    • “Not much replay value to it and never seemed to have been finished.”
    • “Stardrive is a fun single player experience the first time you play through, but replayability is lacking.”
  • grinding
    19 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Reviews highlight that the grinding aspect of the game is often tedious and repetitive, particularly in ship building and colony management. Players express frustration with micromanagement tasks, such as managing freighters and planetary production, which can become overwhelming and detract from the overall enjoyment. While some appreciate the depth of ship design, many find the late-game experience to be bogged down by excessive grindiness and lack of automation.

    • “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
    • “It's tedious and not all that much fun; I'd recommend avoiding it unless on sale.”
    • “Managing your freighters is the most annoying and tedious thing to handle, and it never gets better.”
    • “You can't control planetary production or spies as a whole, in groups, auto-repeating, etc. It becomes very grindy just setting up production: click to add, next planet, click to add, next planet, etc. There's way too much of that.”
  • music
    12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in the game receives mixed reviews, with some players appreciating its moody and appropriate atmosphere, while others find it repetitive and lacking excitement. Although it contributes to the game's unique personality, many feel that the soundtrack is insufficient and can become annoying over time. Overall, the music is seen as a fundamental aspect that could benefit from improvement.

    • “Graphics and music are both moody and appropriate.”
    • “Graphically I cannot complain; the music and sounds are nice.”
    • “This may sound weird, but it is exactly what makes this game so lively, in addition to a nice soundtrack and a unique personality of each faction.”
    • “Even the tutorial videos aren't done very well as the music eventually overtakes the speaker!”
    • “Music loop is weird and makes it feel like it booted back to the main menu.”
    • “The music sucks; it's a bunch of dreary melodies with a few space-themed instrumentals, but all of them lack any sense of excitement.”
  • humor
    8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The humor in the game is generally well-received, with players appreciating the quirky personalities of the character races and the amusing design of aliens and ships. However, some critiques highlight a disconnect between the humor and the game's perceived lack of content, leading to mixed feelings about the overall experience. While many find the humor enjoyable, others see it as overshadowed by the game's unfinished aspects.

    • “The character races are fun too, and each of them has some personality, with a good bit of humor.”
    • “Artistically, this game is wonderful: the aliens are cute and funny, and the ship designer system is very satisfying.”
    • “I played this 100 hours in early access, another 40 now. A lot of haters for this game, but I love it; I love the style, the humor, the weapons. I can make old school slug throwers or a pseudo Enterprise with phasers.”
  • monetization
    5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The monetization strategy of the game has been heavily criticized, with users labeling it a "cash grab" due to the release of an incomplete product and the developers' apparent abandonment of the game in favor of a sequel. Many feel that the focus on profit over quality has hindered the game's potential, leading to disappointment among players.

    • “If they had spent their time on Stardrive 1 instead of going for a damn cash grab, maybe they would have made a really good game.”
    • “Sold an incomplete package marked as gold to support the next cash grab called Stardrive 2 by Iceberg and Zerosumgames.”
    • “Although it started out very promising, the game never progressed beyond beta stage, and it seems the developer abandoned it after a quick cash grab.”
  • emotional
    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The emotional aspect of the game is described as deeply impactful, evoking feelings of heartbreak due to its abandoned potential and unresolved plotlines. Players express frustration over the developer's decision to shift focus rather than address issues, leading to a sense of loss for what the game could have been.

    • “It's great... I mean, totally heartbreaking.”
    • “Lack of multiplayer limits the game's lifetime significantly, and things such as the half-finished remnants plotline just make me want to cry.”
  • atmosphere
    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The atmosphere is praised for its great animation and detailed shipbuilding, contributing to an engaging experience, while combat adds to the enjoyment. Overall, it receives a solid rating of 8/10, with some aspects being merely adequate.

    • “Great atmosphere and animation; the shipbuilding is detailed and the combat is fun.”
    • “Atmosphere 8/10”
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75h Median play time
202h Average play time
20-400h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 11 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

StarDrive is a real-time strategy game with science fiction theme.

StarDrive is available on PC and Windows.

On average players spend around 202 hours playing StarDrive.

StarDrive was released on April 26, 2013.

StarDrive was developed by Zero Sum Games.

StarDrive has received mostly positive reviews from players and mostly positive reviews from critics. Most players liked this game for its gameplay but disliked it for its stability.

StarDrive is a single player game.

Similar games include StarDrive 2, Galactic Civilizations III, Master of Orion, Sword of the Stars II Steam Key GLOBAL, Kinetic Void and others.