Space sandbox game Astroneer drops planet-sized DLC and free update

Astroneer Glitchwalkers is finally on Steam, as the DLC brings a new planet and techno storms to the space exploration and crafting game.

While No Man’s Sky has the biggest universe and Starfield has the most charming characters, Astroneer is by far the best-looking space game around. Every planet you step foot on is filled with diverse fauna and boldly colored biomes, while the simple act of exploring brings a sense of joy unlike anything else. That land quickly becomes an automated haven, as you build your base and manage resources like in Factorio and Satisfactory, and now your opportunities have grown. The Astroneer Glitchwalkers DLC is here, and it expands the open-world survival crafter for new and old players alike.

If you’re new to Astroneer, I’m certain you will at least be familiar with its gameplay loop. You start out wandering the procedurally generated plains of an unknown world, gathering resources and building structures in a manner similar to Minecraft and Terraria. From here you terraform the environment with a terrain tool, build a base to call home, and attempt to survive in a universe of surprises that’ll put Outer Wilds to shame. Best of all, you can play this sandbox game both alone or in co-op.

So, what does Glitchwalkers add to Astroneer? After a year of updates, there’s now the new planet of Aeoluz, filled with fresh, vibrant biomes and plenty of challenges to tackle alone or with friends. The biggest feature is undoubtedly the Glitched Storms, which can appear anywhere across the solar system. You’ll need to carefully navigate these technological weather phenomena, and there are brand-new recipes, resources, and modules to help you get through unscathed.

Creative lead Joe Tirado adds that there’s a free update for all Astroneer players alongside Glitchwalkers, so if you’re a new player who can’t dive into the DLC just yet, there’s some extra content for you as well. Those new Glitched Storms can be accessed by everyone, both in and outside of the Glitchwalkers DLC. In the base game, these storms move around the planet and sometimes disappear, so you can choose to suit up and venture inside them if you’ve got what it takes. The storms are supposed to be difficult, so Tirado wants to make sure that you’ve always got the choice to enter them or not. 

Astroneer is already a beloved Steam gem, so it’s well worth diving in. The game has over 103,000 user reviews so far, coming in at a ‘very positive’ ranking and a 92% rating. There aren’t many games on Valve’s platform that can boast such an achievement, so it says a lot about the longstanding success of Astroneer.

As for what’s next, Tirado says the team is already considering what it could do with more expansions and free content. “It all really kind of rides on how this thing does,” Tirado explains. “If Glitchwalkers goes well and you all confirm to us that Astroneer is worth playing and we should continue developing for it, then we will.”

The new Astroneer Glitchwalkers DLC is out now on Steam, and will cost you $9.99 / £8.99. You can get involved here.

We’ve also put together all the best space games and co-op games available on PC today, if you want to try something else out alongside Astroneer. 

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