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40 Great Games Like Starbound

Our experts have spent time searching for great games similar to Starbound and have found the following:

Starbound is an action-adventure game from the developer of Terraria about the exploration of space. It's a world viewed from side-on, with simple visuals that enable it to offer complex systems and hundreds of items for players to discover their own adventures. You play in a procedurally generated space universe where you can explore and discover new weapons, armour, and items. You can also visit towns and villages inhabited by various intelligent lifeforms.

Unfortunately, Starbound is not available on Android, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S or iOS. However, we recommend the following games that offer a similar experience or theme:

Starbound

Game Details

Release Date: 20/03/2018

Price: 60% off

Platforms: Mac and PC

Content Rating: PEGI 12

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Players: 1 (8 online)

Genres: Adventure, Strategy (Action, Fighting, Platform, Shooting and Simulation)

Components: 2D Side-On, Day and Night, Open World and Pixels

Developer: Chucklefish Ltd (@ChucklefishLtd)

Costs: Purchase cost

6 Similar Games Short List

Here are our hand-picked short list of similar games; the perfect thing to play next if you enjoyed Starbound. We don't use automatic matching, instead, we hand-pick games that are good to play if you have enjoyed Starbound.

Terraria

Release Date: 25/11/2013, updated in 2019

Platforms: 3DS and 2DS, Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Stadia, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Day and Night, Pixels and Weather

Terraria looks like a 2D, lesser, version of Minecraft. However, this is a game every bit as complex and creative as the better-known block building game. To the world-crafting and survival it adds hundreds of items to collect, characters to defeat and...

Astroneer

Release Date: 16/12/2016, updated in 2019

Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night and Open World

Astroneer is an open-world space adventure where you colonize planets by creating habitable structures, farming and mining resources. There is no specific story, although the challenges of each planet give rise to struggles of achievement to placate the...

No Man's Sky

Release Date: 10/08/2016, updated in 2022

Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Day and Night and Open World

No Man's Sky is a space simulation about exploring endless planets and galaxies. It invites you to take your spaceship to explore and colonise a universe rich with diverse planets, creatures and fauna. Facing so vast a space is daunting at first, but a...

Surviving Mars

Release Date: 15/03/2018

Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4 and Xbox One

Components: 2D Overhead and Day and Night

Surviving Mars is a colony simulation game based on the real geography of Mars. You build and maintain a liveable habitat while balancing resources and researching new ways to adapt to the hostile environment. You receive occasional rockets from Earth...

Farworld Pioneers

Release Date: Coming soon

Platforms: PC

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Open World and Pixels

Farworld Pioneers is a colony-building strategy game where you must adapt to extreme elements, grow self-sufficient communities and deal with aliens. It's a game with simple visuals but surprisingly open play, as you collect resources, develop...

FTL: Faster Than Light

Release Date: 14/09/2012, updated in 2014

Platforms: Mac, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

FTL: Faster Than Light is a strategic simulation game where you combat enemy spaceships and survive the dangers of the galaxy. Unusually, you have complete control of every function of your ship and must manage systems, crew and scenarios. It's a hard...

21 Similar Games Long List

Here are our hand-picked long list of similar games; the perfect thing to play next if you enjoyed Starbound. We don't use automatic matching, instead, we hand-pick games that are good to play if you have enjoyed Starbound.

Among Us

Release Date: 16/11/2018, updated in 2020

Platforms: Android, PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Hand-Made

Among Us is a strategy game where crew-mates prepare their spaceship for launch by completing tasks. However, one of the players is an impostor intent on sabotaging the ship and killing the crew. As the game progresses in real-time the impostor...

Subnautica

Subnautica (Series)

Release Date: 11/04/2016, updated in 2018

Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Day and Night and Open World

Subnautica is an open-world adventure where you explore the ocean on an alien planet after crashlanding. You collect resources and fight creatures to survive. This enables you to establish an underwater base, gain new craft and equipment and explore...

Stardew Valley

Release Date: 26/02/2016, updated in 2018

Platforms: Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Grid, Open World and Pixels

Stardew Valley looks like a farming simulator. That’s partly what it is, but you must also develop relationships with the other townsfolk and delve deep into the mines. Its quirky labyrinthine attention to detail is inviting for young players to try...

The Long Dark

Release Date: 22/09/2014

Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Cartoon, Day and Night and Open World

The Long Dark is a thoughtful exploration-survival game where you have crash-landed in the icy Canadian wilderness after a global disaster and must find a way to survive. Through exploring, crafting and fighting you must look after your body...

Don't Starve

Release Date: 23/04/2013, updated in 2017

Platforms: Android, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Switch, Wii U, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Blocks, Day and Night, Hand-Made and Open World

Don't Starve is an open-world survival game. Here it’s the environment and enemies, rather than other players, that you work with. You need to find and develop food, weapons and shelter to survive. It’s enjoyable because it’s hard, so repeat-plays...

Minecraft

Release Date: 23/11/2017, updated in 2019

Platforms: 3DS and 2DS, Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Blocks, Day and Night and Open World

Although Minecraft – where players place blocks to build structures, sculpt the landscape and create adventures – is the best-selling game of all time, some of the best aspects of it are little known. Along with the exploration, building and...

Subnautica Below Zero

Subnautica Below Zero (Series)

Release Date: 30/01/2019, updated in 2021

Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Day and Night and Open World

Subnautica: Below Zero is an open-world adventure game that follows the original game, Subnautica. You play a scientist on an alien planet searching for clues about the research team that vanished there. What develops is a light...

Rust

Release Date: 08/02/2018

Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4 and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 14+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Day and Night and Open World

Rust (also, Rust: Console Edition) is an online survival game set in the wilderness. You explore, gather and craft materials to manage hunger, thirst, health and protection. The preparation is to ward off the threat of bears, wolves and (more commonly)...

Out of Space

Release Date: 25/11/2020

Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Out of Space is a co-operative game about living together on a space ship. You and your cohabitants have to build a sustainable spaceship, as well as making it a cosy home. All is not plain sailing though, as you come across deadly alien infestations, a...

Distrust

Release Date: 23/11/2017, updated in 2019

Platforms: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Distrust is a survival game where you try to survive after a helicopter crash at an arctic base. Inspired by The Thing film, this is a horror game that initially seems to be about surviving the wild, but soon descends into something darker and...

Rim World

Release Date: 17/10/2018

Platforms: PC

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Grid, Open World and Pixels

RimWorld is a sci-fi strategy game about survival, trading, exploring and developing your colony. You start the game with three survivors of a shipwreck on a distant planet and begin to craft structures, weapons and clothes. The objective of the game is...

Llama Villa

Llama Villa (Sokpop)

Release Date: 01/08/2018

Platforms: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Grid and Open World

Llama Villa is a simulation game about managing a llama farm. You buy a llama, sell the wool and build him a mansion to live in with lots of llama friends. It's a super simple point-and-place building game where you can make the villa of your Dreams but...

Black Skylands

Release Date: 09/06/2021

Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Open World and Pixels

Black Skylands is an adventure game where you pilot an airship through a sprawling open world of floating islands. You play Eva, who's ship has been destroyed and father killed. Your task is to rebuild your home from the deck up, arm and prepare for...

Project Zomboid

Release Date: 08/11/2013

Platforms: Mac and PC

Skill Rating: 14+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Blocks, Day and Night, Open World and Weather

Project Zomboid is a zombie-infested open-world strategy game. It's a survival game that's designed to be really hard. In fact, the game's tagline is "no help is coming, how will you die?" You of course do your best not to die by looting houses,...

Heat Signature

Release Date: 21/09/2017

Platforms: PC

Components: 2D Overhead

Heat Signature is a tactical shooting game where you break into spaceships on missions to hijack them, steal important technology, assassinate crew members and rescue captives. With simple visuals, viewed from above, you can approach this in many ways...

Space Crew

Release Date: 15/10/2020, updated in 2021

Platforms: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Space Crew is a strategy game where you use a team of characters to control a spaceship and explore the galaxy. Unlike other space flight games, you don't directly control your craft but get your crew to look after different aspects of the mission. It's...

Spaceland

Release Date: 30/10/2019

Platforms: Apple TV, Mac, PC, Switch and iOS

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Spaceland is a quick turn-based strategy game where you command sci-fi troopers to shoot, kick, blow up and destroy the enemy. It's a little like a game of chess as you equip and plan your missions, before carefully moving and attacking on your turn.

Zelter

Release Date: 22/10/2020

Platforms: PC

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Hand-Made and Open World

Zelter is a zombie survival game. But you aren't only defending yourself from the oncoming hordes of zombies but developing a safe haven for a new life like Stardew Valley.

Zero Escape

Zero Escape (Series)

Release Date: 10/12/2009, updated in 2016

Platforms: 3DS and 2DS, DS, PC, PS Vita, PS4, Xbox One and iOS

Components: 2D Side-On

Zero Escape, is a series of adventure games that follows a group of nine individuals, who are kidnapped and held captive by a person who goes by the name "Zero", and are forced to play a game of life and death in order to escape.

Cyber Trigger

Cyber Trigger (Dreams)

Release Date: 14/12/2020, updated in 2021

Platforms: PS4 and PS5

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Pixels

Cyber Trigger is a retro running, jumping and shooting game. You play a space adventurer answering a distress call from a planet overrun with alien robots. It's a love letter to classic pixelated platform games with a mix of cave adventure, combat, and...

This Means Warp

Release Date: 17/03/2022

Platforms: PC

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

This Means Warp is a strategy combat game where four players work together to run a spaceship as you travel the solar system. Together you have to manage the ship, repair damage and take charge of shooting enemies. It's frantic battling and a lot of fun...

13 Younger Content Rating than Starbound

If Starbound is not age appropriate for your child, here are similar games ordered by age rating so you can find an age-appropriate alternative that’s also a game they will love.

2 Easier Skill Rating than Starbound

If you like the sound of Starbound but find it too complex or challenging, the games in this section offer a similar experience but with a lower Skill Rating.

Minecraft

Llama Villa

16 Video Games Like Starbound Based on Genre

These are games of a similar genre mix to Starbound. This includes games from the Simulation, Fighting, Action, Adventure, Shooting, Platform and Strategy genres. We pick out games of a similar PEGI rating to further hone these generated suggestions.

Subnautica Below Zero

V Rising

The Eternal Cylinder

The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War

Horizon Forbidden West

Horizon Zero Dawn

Starbound is in These Lists

In addition to the similar games listed above, which have been linked to this game specifically in the database, you may find games with a similar theme to Starbound in the following lists:

Play And Connect

LIST

The Great British Video Game

LIST

LEGO-Like Play

LIST

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How long to play:
User-generated content:	No
Accessibility features:	Yes

Controls
Gamepad:
Mouse And Keyboard:
Touchscreen:
Motion:	Motion Aiming Motion Pointing Motion Tilting Motion Gesture Motion Camera
Remap Controls:
Button Combinations:	Holding Down Buttons Optional Rapid Repeated Pressing Optional No Simultaneous Buttons
Controller Vibration:
Sensitivity:

Getting Started
Onboarding Before Play:
Assistance Getting Starting:	Tutorials Practice Area View Control Mapping Assistance With Controls Reaction-Time Not Critical Low Pressure Adjust Speed No Jump Scares
Assistance For Progressing:	Guaranteed Progress With God Mode Bank Progress With Frequent Checkpoints Assisted Progress With Boosts Assisted Progress With Hints Assisted Recall for Characters Assisted Recall for Narrative and Dialogue Save Progress Anytime

Reading
Reading Level:
Text Visibility:	Large Clear Text High Contrast Text
Subtitles:
Captions:
Voice Acted:

Navigation
Clarity:
Head-Up Display:
Menu Navigation:

Visual
Contrast:
Interactive Elements:
Visual Distractions:
Audio Cues for Visual Events:
Narration for Visual Elements:
	Motion Sickness Friendly
Colour Options:
Play Without Sight:
Violence:

Audio
	Balance Audio Levels
Audio Events:
	Play Without Hearing

Communication
Player-to-Player Online Communication:
Online Communication Assistance:

Difficulty
Difficulty Options:	Simple and Full Version No Memorisation Advantage No Hidden Information No Deceit Advantage No Colour Advantage No Mathematics Advantage No Weighing Decisions

Getting Started
Assistance Getting Started:	Clear Manual Electronic Version of Manual Electronic Version of Manual for Screen Readers Getting Started Video Digital Version Reference Aid
Assistance Progressing:	Play Order Tokens (Or play order doesn’t change) Reaction-Time Not Critical Low Pressure Low Impact Catch Up Rule

Reading
Reading Level:
Necessary Text Visibility:	Large Clear Text on Board (Or no text required) Large Clear Text on Cards (Or no text required) High Contrast Text (Or no text required) QR Code For Text (Or no text required) Primary and Secondary Text Distinguishable (Or no text required) Information Orientation Clear Icons

Physical
Pieces:	Components are Distinguishable by Touch Components are Replaceable No Non-Standard Dice (Or No Dice) No Tiny Pieces No Paper Money No Sprawl
Cards:	Large Card Size Standard Card Shape Limited Hand Management No Excessive Card Shuffling No Right-Handed Advantage
Placement:	No Unbound Placement Player Components Not Shared No Fiddly Placement Easily Verbalised Actions

Visual
Printed Visibility:	Colour Blind Friendly Design Double-Coding Colour High Contrast Colours
Component Identifiability:	Outline Key Elements No Busy Backgrounds Easily Verbalised Game State No Close Inspection Disadvantage Playable Without Sight

Audio
Communication:	Audio Cues Mirrored Visually (Or no critical audio signals) No Pressured Reveals No Pressured Communication Playable Without Hearing

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40 Great Games Like Starbound

Game Details

6 Similar Games Short List

21 Similar Games Long List

13 Younger Content Rating than Starbound

2 Easier Skill Rating than Starbound

16 Video Games Like Starbound Based on Genre

Starbound is in These Lists

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