The sci-fi sandbox adventure Starbound will be out later this month

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It's just two weeks away!

It's been a little over three years since the side-scrolling “extraterrestrial sandbox adventure game” Starbound first went up for preorder. The game has come a long way since, through multiple major updates, mod support, and, a couple of months ago, news that it's finally (almost) ready to leave Early Access. Today came the next big step: The announcement of an official launch date of July 22. 

“After ~5 years, the game we set out to make finally exists, and to say that it all feels a bit surreal would be a massive understatement!” developer Chucklefish wrote. “While Starbound will be finished in two weeks, this isn’t the end. We will continue to update and support Starbound for as long as we can. We’ve got loads of cool ideas we couldn’t fit into 1.0 but hope to put into future updates.” 

Starbound begins with players lost in space on a damaged ship, which leaves them forced to travel to the alien planet below in search of the supplies needed to fix it. Get that done, and the procedurally-generated universe is yours to explore. It offers seven playable races, drop-in/drop-out online co-op play, randomly generated dungeons and monsters, crafting, PvP, and all kinds of other stuff that makes the elongated development cycle a little easier to understand. It also has pleasingly light system requirements: 

Minimum:

OS: Windows XP or later
Processor: Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 256 MB graphics memory and directx 9.0c compatible gpu
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 3 GB available space

Recommended:

OS: Windows XP or later
Processor: Core i3
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Discrete GPU capable of directx 9.0c
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 4 GB available space   

You can find out more about the game at playstarbound.com.    

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.