Just a quick write up on my time with the beta version of Spacebase Startopia. A game that has intrigued me, since coming across it on Twitter. I was lucky enough to try it on both Steam and Xbox Game Preview on the Series S.
Spacebase Startopia comes from Kalypso Media of Tropico fame, developed by Realmforge Studios who made the Dungeons series. You can see influences from both the mentioned games in here too.
What you have with Spacebase Startopia is a base-building economical RTS mixture set in space within a Spacebase. As if you couldn’t guess from the title!
I have two schools of thought with the game. Firstly it took me an age to get to grips with it. The onboarding for a newcomer was slightly the wrong side of the imaginary line between being insulting and being a bit too confusing. I think I replayed tutorials a couple of times to really get a grip.
The thing that confused me initially was the camera controls, they don’t quite match with what I expected coming from Cities Skylines, Per Aspera and the likes. Yes, I know this is different, but it did throw me.
That being said, when I got over my initial confusion the game started to take shape well and I enjoyed balancing my economy, expanding my base and then taking on some of the RTS skirmishes. There is a decent balance overall here.
That being said, the UI could still use some work and could some of the more fiddly controls. It was easier to play on the PC than it was using the controller on the Xbox Series S, but I honestly think that is to be expected.
Spacebase Startopia generally has a nice look and feel, and it did suck me in, despite telling myself that I only wanted to test the waters during the beta/preview phase of development.
With the game being due out in Spring 2021, there is plenty of time for the developers to iron out the minor issues with controls and UI elements, with the biggest problem being the early onboarding. With all that being said, if you have any interest in base-building, RTS, economy sims, etc, then it is certainly worth jumping on the Game Preview via Xbox Series X|S.
We’ll continue to cover Spacebase Startopia as it reaches full release later in 2021.
