Starbase (video game)

Last updated
Starbase
Starbase game cover.jpg
Developer(s) Frozenbyte
Publisher(s) Frozenbyte
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Release29 July 2021 (early access)
Genre(s) Space simulation, massively multiplayer online role-playing game, first-person shooter
Mode(s) Multiplayer

Starbase is an upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game for Microsoft Windows currently in development by Frozenbyte. It was revealed in May 2019 and released on Steam early access in July 2021. [1] [2] The game is voxel-based and set in space where players play as robots that can mine asteroids and design spaceships. [3] [4] [5]

Contents

Gameplay

The sees players controlling a humanoid robot within deep interstellar space, populated mostly by small asteroids and large scale space stations. The player starts out at a large space station in orbit of a gas giant planet where they can perform various jobs at the station and be paid in credits. [6] Credits are the universal currency in Starbase that allows players to buy various goods and services including starship components and various types of equipment for their robot such as firearms, backpacks and armour.

Development

Starbase was initially announced on Frozenbyte's official website on 28 May 2019 alongside an official trailer for the game. The game had been in the making for five years prior to the announcement and the game was initially described as a "massively multiplayer online game with gameplay focused on building, designing spaceships and stations, exploration, resource gathering, trading and combat."

On 16 December 2020, Starbase began to seek out more users to participate in a closed alpha test after failing to release in 2020 as originally anticipated. [7] Starbase was planned to be released as an early access title on 17 June 2021 but the release was delayed. [8] [9] The game was released on Steam early access on 29 July 2021. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Funcom</span> Norwegian video game developer

Funcom Oslo AS is a Norwegian video game developer that specializes in online games. It is best known for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) titles Conan Exiles, Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, The Secret World – and The Longest Journey series of adventure games. The company has offices in Oslo, Norway; North Carolina, US; Lisbon, Portugal; Bucharest, Romania; and Stockholm, Sweden. It also had offices in Beijing, Dublin, and Montreal previously. It is now owned by the Chinese media conglomerate Tencent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voxel</span> Element representing a value on a grid in three dimensional space

In 3D computer graphics, a voxel represents a value on a regular grid in three-dimensional space. As with pixels in a 2D bitmap, voxels themselves do not typically have their position explicitly encoded with their values. Instead, rendering systems infer the position of a voxel based upon its position relative to other voxels.

A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system, on different computing systems via a local area network, or via a wide area network, most commonly the Internet. Multiplayer games usually require players to share a single game system or use networking technology to play together over a greater distance; players may compete against one or more human contestants, work cooperatively with a human partner to achieve a common goal, or supervise other players' activity. Due to multiplayer games allowing players to interact with other individuals, they provide an element of social communication absent from single-player games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frozenbyte</span> Finnish video game developer

Frozenbyte Inc. is a Finnish video game developer founded in 2001 and based in Helsinki. As of December 2020 it had approximately 130 employees. Frozenbyte's first commercial game was Shadowgrounds for Microsoft Windows. Both Shadowgrounds and its follow-up Shadowgrounds: Survivor were released for Linux in 2009, ported by IGIOS and published by Linux Game Publishing.

<i>Moonbase Alpha</i> 2010 video game

Moonbase Alpha is a video game that provides a realistic simulation of life on a natural satellite, based on potential Moon base programs. It was made by the Army Game Studio, developers of America's Army, and Virtual Heroes, Inc. in conjunction with NASA Learning Technologies. The game was released on July 6, 2010, as a free download on Steam. At the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference in 2010, the game won the top honors in the government category of the Serious Game Showcase & Challenge.

<i>Miner Wars 2081</i> 2012 video game

Miner Wars 2081 is a six degrees of freedom action-survival space-shooter simulation game produced by Keen Software House. The gameplay offers a choice of single player, co-op, and deathmatch multi-player. The game is set in the year 2081, 11 years after the destruction of all planetary objects in the Solar System. The story introduces the player to many types of missions: rescue, exploration, revenge, base defense, theft, transportation, stealth, search and destroy, pure harvesting or racing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trion Worlds</span> American video game developer

Trion Worlds was an American video game developer. It focuses primarily on MMOs, particularly of the MMORPG and MMORTS genres. The company was founded in 2006 by Lars Buttler and Jon Van Caneghem, who had each previously worked for NCSoft and left in 2009 to join Electronic Arts.

<i>Starlite</i> (video game) 2014 video game

Starlite: Astronaut Academy is an abandoned multiplayer online game developed by Project Whitecard Studios, Virtual Heroes, and WisdomTools Enterprises. The game was first announced in 2011 with backing from NASA, described as a "3D avatar community around a fictional depiction of the year 2035," where players would learn about real-life NASA missions and play through single-player and multi-player missions.

<i>7 Days to Die</i> 2013 video game

7 Days to Die is an early access survival horror video game set in an open world developed by The Fun Pimps. It was released through Early Access on Steam for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X on December 13, 2013, and for Linux on November 22, 2014. Versions for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were released in 2016 through Telltale Publishing, but are no longer being developed. In late 2022, The Fun Pimps announced that the game will be re-released on consoles targeting Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. It is also available on Xbox One via Game Pass, but still unknown if it will return on PlayStation 4.

<i>StarMade</i> 2012 video game

StarMade is an effectively infinite open-universe space simulation sandbox game in development by Schine for Windows, macOS, and Linux. StarMade is currently in alpha and is free to play, during alpha.

Space Engineers is a voxel-based sandbox game, developed and published by Czech independent developer Keen Software House. In 2013, the initial developmental release of the game joined the Steam early access program. During the following years of active development, Space Engineers sold over one million units. In total as of 2019 the game has sold over 3.5 million copies In May 2015, for approximately a year and a half, the game's source code was officially available and maintained by KSH to assist the modding community. On December 15, 2016, the game entered Beta and was later officially released on February 28, 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Masthead Studios</span>

Masthead Studios is a Bulgarian video game developer, founded in 2005, specializing in massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Their latest PC game developed and published was Soul Grabber, released on Steam in 2019.

<i>Dual Universe</i> 2022 video game

Dual Universe is a first person based space simulation sandbox massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by the Paris-based game development studio, Novaquark.

<i>Star Conflict</i> 2012 video game

Star Conflict is a free-to-play dynamic massively multiplayer online space action game. The gaming platform Steam describes it as an "action-packed, massively multiplayer space simulation game". The core of the game is PvP spaceships battles, PvE (Co-Op) missions and an open world. The game uses a free-to-play business model.

<i>Foxhole</i> (video game) 2022 video game

Foxhole is a cooperative sandbox massively-multiplayer action-strategy video game developed and published by Canadian video game company Siege Camp, who are based in Toronto, Ontario. The game uses Unreal Engine 4, utilizing an axonometric projection perspective, much like that of a conventional real-time strategy video game with a top-down view. Foxhole's setting is "inspired by early 20th century warfare". The game allows the user to join one of two factions as a soldier, having the choice of contributing to a persistent war by gathering, manufacturing, and transporting resources and supplies, providing manpower and vehicles in combat, and building and managing fortifications, with the end goal of annihilating the opposing faction. The game was released on September 28, 2022, for Microsoft Windows.

<i>Torchlight III</i> 2020 video game

Torchlight III is an action role-playing game and the third game in the Torchlight series. It is developed by American studio Echtra Games and published by Perfect World Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in October 2020.

Hellion is an immersive space survival simulation game developed by Serbian studio Zero Gravity Games. It was released into the Steam Early Access program in February 2017. The game allows players to maneuver through environments and open space in the absence of gravity as well as move about the interiors of spaceships or stations with or without artificial gravity. As a first-person game, players must manage their resources in the interest of their survival, discover other resources and space station modules which can be salvaged and assembled into larger more complex stations.

<i>Temtem</i> 2022 video game

Temtem is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Spanish development studio Crema, and published by Humble Bundle. The game was released in early access through Steam on January 21, 2020, and PlayStation 5 on December 8, 2020 with the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game was released alongside the full release of the game on September 6, 2022. The game uses the Unity development engine, and is a creature-collection video game greatly inspired by Game Freak's Pokémon series. The game was partly funded through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, from May to June 2018.

Ashes of Creation is an upcoming sandbox massively multiplayer online role-playing game being developed and published by Intrepid Studios. It was announced in 2016 and gained notoriety by hosting a Kickstarter campaign, meeting in goal of $750,000 in under 12 hours, eventually raising over $3 million. It features a dynamic system of world building, where players actions directly contribute to the layout of the game world.

Agony of a Dying MMO is a 2021 video game released by independent developer Salem Hughes. Described as a "narrative horror game", the game takes place in the final hours of a massively multiplayer online game before the servers shut down. The game was first released on the 2021 Haunted PS1 Demo Disc, a horror game compilation curated and published by Irish video game developer Breogán Hackett on itch.io.

References

  1. @StarbaseGame (May 28, 2019). "Announcing Starbase, a hybrid voxel/vertex-based space MMO with a fully destructible and infinitely expanding universe, coming to Steam Early Access in 2019!" (Tweet) via Twitter.
  2. Shankar, Poorna (July 30, 2021). "Starbase is Now In Early Access". MMORPG.com. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  3. Santos, Marc (30 March 2021). "Space MMO 'Starbase' To Enter Early Access In May: What To Know". International Business Times . Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  4. 1 2 Pearson, Craig (29 July 2021). "Starbase's early access space race has begun". Rock Paper Shotgun . Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  5. Royce, Bree (29 July 2021). "Finnish sci-fi MMO Starbase has entered early access alpha on Steam". Massively Overpowered. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  6. Starbase - Getting Started. Frozenbyte. 8 April 2020.
  7. Chalk, Andy (16 December 2020). "Starbase, the EVE Online-meets-Minecraft game, is looking for more alpha testers". PC Gamer .
  8. De Meo, Francesco (29 April 2021). "Frozenbyte's Starbase MMO to Launch in Early Access This June". Wccftech.com.
  9. Saarenoja, Panu (10 June 2021). "Suomalainen suurverkkopeli Starbase myöhästyy". Pelaaja (in Finnish). Retrieved 31 August 2021.