Starbound releases first stable update in almost a year

Starbound has a new stable update—the first since March, 2014. It rolls together the various changes from the last year of experimental branch updates to create a massive and wide-ranging overhaul.

New to this "v. Upbeat Giraffe" is... well, lots. Combat has been overhauled, new weapon and armour systems implemented, a new playable race introduced, new world types added, survival has been tweaked, barren planets introduced for large-scale building, new ship upgrades and ship AI inserted, and... well, maybe you should just watch the highlights trailer that Chucklefish released last month.

"Because of all these changes, we recommend that everyone start a new character," writes Chucklefish's 'mollygos'. "The game has changed so drastically that you’d miss out on most of the new content if you simply used an old character. As a result, the launcher will automatically rename your old data. We may be releasing external tools in the next few weeks to import and convert these files to approximately equivalent characters, but unless and until then they will be unusable."

The update is out now, and you can see the full list of changes over at the Starbound blog.

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.