I first played Astronomer when it when into early access some years ago; and even back then I was kind of mixed on what I believed this game was / could be. The art style and concept was immaculate, but the gameplay and overarching goals of the game felt lacking. However, all things aside, I was optimistic over the development. I continued to follow such up till its full release, and put it on the backburner to play at some point, but eventually forgot about it. So fast forward to now, where I re-download the game, played for a bit, and felt yet again indecisive. Astroneer, still looks amazing, but gameplay simply did not substantially improve to make my perception of the game improve by any degree. Back in early access the quick to become boring, and lack of a constant increase in reasons and intrigue to continue the game was excusable in my opinion. But now? While yes, lots has been added, more things to see perhaps; the base content has continued to be surprisingly stale. Mine the same few resources, and slowly build the same few things. Eventually you unlock more and more to build, but that just leads to more and more mining, refining, and waiting. A loop that does work in other games, but Astroneer lacks one main attachment that others like Factorio, Subnatica, or even bloody No Mans Sky have. An overarching reason to do anything. I never felt as if anything I was doing here was substantially moving towards anything. I was just doing the same boring and time consuming tasks on repeat to gain more reasons and resources to commit more time to said tasks. Hints at something bigger, something more, but nothing like the above mentioned games. In fact I believe No Mans Sky is a very good comparison here. As just as in Astroneer, at least for the first little bit, No Mans Sky's gameplay loop constituted of going to planet, get new resource, waste more time, and do it all over again. But where No Mans Sky stretched out, was that they added SOO much content. Lots to build, mini-games; but most importantly, and the only real addition I believe would have made Astroneer feel like a game worth playing, stories, lore, and understanding.

I think it is evident that the creators of this game wanted to make something truly amazing. Glimpses of vision, and especially in the art are evidence of such. It is upsetting that they added microtransactions for skins? I understand this game has an admittedly very fun multiplayer component, but its not fricken Fortnite? At the very least they have been working on putting out more updates, and I can see that something might be in the works here. But currently, it peaks in the first few hours while stuff is new, and the gameplay has yet to become a slog; and when playing with friends for a bit. Yet I would still recommend it to an extent based on the inducive nature of the internet on the topic of Astroneers quality. For yes, where I personally see all of what I mentioned above, other see a very good game, and have been capable of having a significantly higher margin of enjoyment compared to what I experienced. It is as art is, subjective, I personally believed other games in the genre did a better job. So yes, play the game, its polished, fun in places, and made by a talented team, but its not for everyone.

I would like to end this with mention of my sympathies towards the death of Astroneers Paul Pepera. as the Co-Founder, and a lead artist on the project I am glad to see that his artistic and visual vision for the game was kept to a constant quality. The art here is the truly best aspect of this game, and it honors Paul perfectly. If you have the time look into his art. He was truly amazing.