Astroneer’s Switch port: great for exploration, not for base-building

Astroneer could also be a survival sport, nevertheless it has all the time had extra of a sandbox really feel, due to the decrease strain of its “survival” parts. In journey mode, you die whenever you run out of oxygen — a gauge in your backpack exhibits the remaining provide — however oxygen is well accessible by way of buildings, autos, or crafting tethers that join gamers to an oxygen line.

This has made Astroneer best for gamers who get pleasure from crafting and base administration, however would relatively pursue these targets in a low-pressure setting. The sport plops an astronaut onto a procedurally generated planet the place gamers harvest sources, construct their base, and discover the huge nooks and crannies of area. The brand new port to Change, which is out on Jan. 13, presents largely the identical enjoyable expertise however in a transportable setting, giving the sport an edge for informal, inventive play classes. However should you’re searching for extra intense base-building, Astroneer remains to be a greater title on Home windows PC, which advantages from extra exact controls and higher processing energy.

In most respects, I used to be pleasantly shocked by how a lot I loved Astroneer on Change. The colourful, low-poly artwork type interprets fantastically to the console. That is key, as most of my time in Astroneer entails roaming all over the world’s lovely, huge map utilizing a particular ray gun to switch the atmosphere and gather sources.

With these instruments, the potential for exploration in Astroneer feels almost infinite. You may spelunk deep into caverns for mineral sources. You may terraform bizarre cliffs and launch your self off of them. You may fairly actually burrow into the planet’s core and maintain going till you emerge on the opposite facet. Not like Valheim, one other sport that eliminated the survival grind from exploration and base-building, there aren’t any bosses that soft-gate areas.

The Change controls are decently intuitive: The proper set off is both a cursor or the participant digital camera, relying on whether or not the ray gun is toggled. When it’s a cursor, gamers can choose up objects like seeds, sources, or base objects, in addition to plug in energy cords and transfer the location of a tether. When the ray gun is toggled, the suitable set off highlights the realm the gun will terraform. Flipping between these modes is a breeze. It’s additionally intensely satisfying to hit the suitable set off to make the ray gun go brrbrr, sucking within the atmosphere round you in a whirlwind.

Regardless of the kinetic satisfaction of exploring and terraforming, I earnestly struggled with base-building. It’s a lot tougher to maneuver a joystick exactly over an object’s pickup window, which is annoying whenever you’re attempting to seize tiny supplies out of your pack, and stick them on varied printers for crafting functions. (I can think about Pleasure-Con drift would make this much more irritating.) It’s disappointing as a result of this is a base-building sport. I’ve all the time been a administration sim participant totally on PC — I’m a sicko who loves a dense menu, numerous stock administration, and high-stress conditions, and I usually play these video games with a mouse.

Picture: System Period Softworks

I initially performed Astroneer on PC in 2019. I targeted extra on aims like constructing a shuttle and launching myself into area. I wasn’t actually terraforming or exploring purely for ambient enjoyable — I used terraforming instruments to make lengthy slopes that my astronaut may “snowboard” down, and streamlined paths to treasured sources. I finally obtained lazy and simply began sticking filth containers into the soil centrifuge, which extracted fundamental sources for me. Although I didn’t expertise it personally, I do know body charge suffered on Xbox throughout the sport’s preliminary launch, particularly for gamers who constructed a extra substantial base. I haven’t constructed a big sufficient base in my Change playthrough to note the identical points, however given the console’s lesser processing energy, I may see it being the case down the street.

Taking part in on Change didn’t diminish the enjoyment of pure exploration within the sport. If something, it pushed me to discover extra — there’s one thing about utilizing a controller for traversal that can all the time really feel extra pure to me, as an individual who grew up taking part in Nintendo video games. Greater than that, Change portability means I attain for the sport extra regularly for chill play classes in creativity mode, the place I can actually lean into the sandbox nature of the sport, and use terraforming much less for useful resource gathering and extra for straight-up shenanigans. In my present save file, I’ve constructed little or no — however I’ve hollowed out the core of a mountain.

As a devoted fan of simulation and base-building video games, I’m delighted to have two locations to play Astroneer, every of which provides me a unique focus — PC for base-building, and Change for working round and doing dumb issues. Whereas I want the Change had been a sharper platform for the precise base administration, the transportable choice provides me extra alternatives to mess around within the sport’s world. With Astroneer’s expansive and extremely mutable map, that’s nonetheless a humiliation of riches.

Astroneer might be launched on Jan. 13 on Nintendo Change. Additionally it is accessible on PlayStation 4, Home windows PC, and Xbox One. These impressions are based mostly on a remaining “retail” Change obtain code offered by System Period Softworks. You’ll find extra details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.