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StarDrive

Some omissions and flaws, but balanced by excellent alien races and ship design. A welcome addition to the crew.
47%Game Brain Score
gameplay, graphics
stability, story
43% User Score Based on 1,167 reviews
Critic Score 64%Based on 2 reviews

Platforms

PCPCWinWindows

About

"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."

StarDrive screenshot
StarDrive screenshot
StarDrive screenshot
StarDrive screenshot
StarDrive screenshot
StarDrive screenshot
StarDrive screenshot
StarDrive screenshot
StarDrive screenshot
StarDrive screenshot
StarDrive screenshot

43%
Audience ScoreBased on 1,169 reviews
gameplay26 positive mentions
stability79 negative mentions

  • The ship customization system is highly detailed and enjoyable, allowing players to create unique designs that impact gameplay.
  • The game offers a fun and immersive experience with real-time space battles and a variety of alien races to interact with.
  • Despite its flaws, many players find the game addictive and engaging, especially with the use of community mods that enhance gameplay.
  • The game was released in an unfinished state, with many promised features and content missing, leading to disappointment among players.
  • Performance issues arise in late-game scenarios, causing significant lag and crashes, making it difficult to complete longer playthroughs.
  • The AI is often criticized for being predictable and lacking depth, which can lead to repetitive gameplay and a lack of challenge.
  • gameplay
    130 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

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

    • “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.”
    • “This took me quite a while to get the hang of, but once I did, the gameplay is fantastic.”
    • “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 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
    81 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 players feel the game was released in an unfinished state and has been abandoned by the developers, leading to a lack of support and ongoing problems. While some mods can improve the experience, the overall consensus is that the game remains a buggy and unoptimized mess.

    • “While the game isn't buggy or unpolished by any means, it feels like a finished product, though it's not a great one.”
    • “The game is stable and does not suffer from significant bugs, providing a smooth experience overall.”
    • “Despite some design flaws, the game maintains a level of stability that allows for enjoyable gameplay.”
    • “The game gets a lot of hate, justifiably so because the developer over-promised and under-delivered, and left the game in a buggy state.”
    • “After playing for some 80ish 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; every time I start the game, it just freezes, even after all the tips from the forums to make matters worse. The price of this game is still some 27 euros, which is way too high for a game that is essentially unfinished, with no support and lots of bugs that don't even allow people to play the game.”
    • “This game is buggy and unfinished, incomplete, akin to an alpha version.”
  • graphics
    71 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The graphics of the game have received mixed reviews, with many players praising the aesthetic visuals, ship designs, and overall art style as appealing and immersive. However, some users noted issues such as graphical glitches, limited UI scaling, and a lack of polish due to the game's abandonment by its developers. Overall, while the graphics are generally considered decent to good, they are not without flaws, and the game may not meet the expectations of those seeking cutting-edge visuals.

    • “I love the graphic style; it's 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.”
    • “The art style is absolutely gorgeous, and the design of the races and the ships are very pleasing and enjoyable.”
    • “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.”
    • “They changed the best parts of Stardrive completely, turns no longer play in real-time, the shipyard is worse - however they did add the ability to add upgrades to modules which I liked, the research system meant that you couldn't unlock every tech in the game without a silly race attribute, the space combat is slow and boring, ground combat is simple and the graphical 'improvements' make the game look weirdly cheap.”
  • story
    51 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's story is largely criticized for being incomplete and lacking depth, with many players noting the absence of a coherent narrative or campaign mode. While there are elements of a story and some random events, they feel half-finished and poorly integrated, leading to a sense of frustration among players. Overall, the consensus is that the story aspect is minimal and underdeveloped, detracting 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.”
    • “I would have liked to see some multiplayer though or even some more fleshed out storyline (the game has a kind of story you can figure out as you play).”
    • “Very much a 'make up your own story as you crush the other races of the galaxy.'”
    • “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 high-end systems. Many players report that the game feels unfinished and buggy, with a lack of proper memory management and stability, making it frustrating to play during large battles or when managing extensive fleets. Overall, the consensus is that the game requires substantial optimization improvements to enhance the gameplay experience.

    • “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
    20 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Overall, the game's replayability is generally viewed as limited, with many reviewers noting a lack of customization and a quick completion time. While some players find enjoyment in the experience and appreciate the potential for increased replayability through mods, the consensus leans towards it being a one-time playthrough rather than a game that invites repeated sessions.

    • “Mods greatly increase replayability though.”
    • “+ lots of replay value due to random events.”
    • “With good humor and nice replayability, this game is easy to spend many hours playing.”
    • “Not much replay value to it and never seemed to have been finished.”
    • “Stardrive could be a really fun 4x game, but it is held back by a really clunky interface, lack of replayability, and a couple of bugs.”
    • “Stardrive is a fun single player experience the first time you play through, but replayability is lacking.”
  • grinding
    19 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The grinding aspect of the game is frequently criticized for its tediousness, particularly in ship building and colony management, where players often find themselves overwhelmed by micromanagement tasks. Many reviewers note that while the ship design can be engaging initially, it becomes a chore as the game progresses, leading to a repetitive and frustrating experience. Overall, the game's mechanics can feel overly grindy, detracting from the enjoyment of its otherwise immersive elements.

    • “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
    • “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 users 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!”
    • “The music sucks; it's a bunch of dreary melodies with a few space-feeling instrumentals, but all of them lack any sense of excitement.”
    • “Music gets annoying.”
  • 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 heartbreaking, with players expressing disappointment over its potential being squandered by the developers' greed and abandonment of the project. The unfinished plotlines and lack of multiplayer options contribute to a sense of loss and frustration, leaving players yearning for what 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, particularly during combat. Overall, it receives a solid rating of 8/10, with some elements being merely adequate.

    • “Great atmosphere and animation; the shipbuilding is detailed, and the combat is fun.”
    • “Atmosphere 8/10”

Buy StarDrive

75h Median play time
202h Average play time
20-400h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 11 analyzed playthroughs

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