The Long-Awaited Starmancer Game Available in Early Access

The gaming community has been watching Starmancer evolve from just a concept to a playable title since 2015. In 2021, it will happen. Starmancer, a space-themed sci-fi AI strategy, enters the Early Access phase. And so far, it does not disappoint.

The setting is nontrivial, to say the least. To escape a global catastrophe, mankind goes as far as digitizing millions of human minds and sending them away on a large starship named Starmancer. You play as the AI that controls Starmancer. The game begins as you start building a station in a strange solar system, an artificial home to humans you recover. Then you start providing them with everything necessary to live.

The unusual setting combines elements of strategy, sandbox, and choice-based story. The consequences of your actions may be severe. Remember, you’re conducting experiments on humans. On the other hand, it gives you a perfect chance to fulfill your wildest and most violent dreams. What about making humans starve? Or pushing them so close that they start hating each other? Or creating other intolerable circumstances? If it sounds nice to you, Starmancer is the game. But it is, even if you want to play it straight and really create a new home for humanity. This ethical ambiguity makes the game even more fun. 

Like many indie games, Starmancer does not sweat your hardware. Despite decent visuals, it’s running well on a machine with Windows 10, 8 GB RAM, and 2.0+ GHZ QuadCore CPU. That is, on most computers produced in the 2010s or later.

So far, the game is in Early Access, which means no one grants you a bug-free experience. On the other hand, you can see the game evolve up to the release version, and if you share your thoughts and ideas, some of them can make it to the game if the developers listen. This can be the case with Starmancer.