Astrobotanica Early Access Review – Undercooked

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There are tons of survival crafting games out there, some super realistic and hardcore, others more relaxed. Space Goblin Studio’s Astrobotanica definitely leans towards the chill side – it’s all about exploring, doing science, and building stuff. When I first saw it, I was really excited because the idea – playing as an alien exploring prehistoric Earth – felt fresh. But now that it’s in Early Access, it feels like it needs a bit more development before it’s really ready. It just doesn’t quite feel polished yet.

Let me be clear: Astrobotanica is still in development as an Early Access game, so it’s expected to get better with updates, more content, and improvements. However, even if you enjoy this type of game, it’s hard to recommend in its current form.

The main problem with Astrobotanica is how difficult it is to control. The menus are okay, and it’s nice that you can drag and drop items in your inventory, but switching between health items while you’re exploring is frustrating. You can cycle through your crafted plants and tonics using the mouse wheel, but the game doesn’t clearly show you which one is currently selected when you’re not in the inventory. The inventory itself is also clunky because you can’t sort items, forcing you to organize everything manually. You also can’t split stacks of items – the only way to get a smaller amount is to drop the whole stack and pick up each item individually.

The game’s tools are frustrating to use because you can’t quickly switch between them with dedicated buttons. Instead, you have to cycle through options using the X and C keys. While you can customize the controls, the way the game manages items in your left and right hands feels inherently awkward, and remapping buttons wouldn’t fix the core problem. Using a controller is a bit better – the D-pad controls what’s in your left hand, and the up/down buttons manage your right, offering a slightly smoother experience.

The tools are frustrating to use because you can’t assign shortcuts to quickly select them, like a hammer or pickaxe. Instead, you have to cycle through them using the X and C keys.

The tutorial feels rushed and incomplete. It clearly explains the initial steps, like building a workbench, but stops suddenly after that. Crucially, it doesn’t explain how to use important tools, like filling your water gun for gardening, or how to unlock new crafting options. You’re given brief instructions on scanning, crafting tonics, and even helping a Neanderthal, but then left to figure things out on your own.

The game focuses on exploring the environment, collecting resources like plants and herbs, studying the local wildlife, building a base, and interacting with Neanderthals. Throughout your journey, you’ll need to keep an eye on two main things: your health and your CO2 levels. Maintaining your health is simple – just avoid taking damage. But your CO2 slowly decreases over time. You can replenish it quickly by returning to your crashed spaceship, or more conveniently, by consuming certain plants or tonics while you explore. Building near the crash site becomes a natural choice, as it provides a safe and fast way to restore your CO2.

Honestly, wandering around the world is actually pretty enjoyable, and I kept stumbling across cool stuff. The map is huge, with all these twisty paths that made it easy to get turned around – in a good way! I found tons of old ruins and detailed buildings to check out. Some had simple puzzles, like moving balls around, which unlocked more of the map for me. Others were full of rare plants and creatures that I could scan and add to my collection. Plus, each area felt really packed, with lots of smaller spots to explore.

“Unfortunately, the tutorial also feels quite haphazardly thrown-together.”

In Astrobotanica, you advance by scanning the plants and animals around you. This earns you science points, which you can use to unlock improvements in the P.R.I.M.A.L. skill tree. These improvements include helpful features like an easier-to-use compass, a larger inventory, and new crafting recipes. You can also gain science points by exploring the world and assisting the local Neanderthal people. While the Neanderthal system is still being developed, currently you can trade basic materials with them.

The base-building in Astrobotanica feels a bit underdeveloped. While the process of designing and constructing a base is straightforward, even small structures require a lot of resources. The game also doesn’t offer much variety in materials – you mainly collect wood, clay, and stone, which can each be refined into just one or two other types. Currently, there isn’t a strong reason to invest heavily in base-building; a crafting station, a few lights, some storage, and a garden are usually enough.

This game doesn’t have any fighting. The world does have some dangers, but they’re generally things you can easily avoid – like poisonous plants or creatures that might nudge you as you run by. Because of this, you don’t need to build a house to protect yourself from dangerous enemies, even though the sounds might suggest otherwise.

Luckily, discovering new things is enjoyable, and you’ll come across lots of unexpected surprises during your journey.

Many survival games make nighttime more dangerous, but in this game, the day/night cycle mostly just changes how things look. It gets darker and there are creepy sounds, but you’re not actually in much more danger – getting lost is the biggest risk. Houses don’t offer any protection from the night, and you can’t fast-forward through it. Aside from gathering plants, there’s not much to do at night, so I often ended up just waiting for morning.

The game says you can make friends with local animals by giving them their favorite plants or fruits. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get this to work, no matter how hard I tried. I ended up just throwing fruit at dodos, hoping to finally trigger a reaction!

You’ll likely run into limitations fairly quickly when playing Astrobotanica, mostly because there isn’t much content available yet. I only found a couple of different areas to explore – a beach and various types of forests. The upgrades don’t feel very impactful right now, beyond basic, always-on bonuses from the P.R.I.M.A.L. skill tree that I talked about before.

“It’s quite easy to hit your first wall in Astrobotanica, owing to the lack of content.”

One of the strongest parts of Astrobotanica is its visual design. The game’s unique and stylized depiction of prehistoric Earth is often beautiful, and all the creatures and plants look distinct while still fitting into the world. Performance was also good; on my PC (with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32GB of RAM, and a Radeon RX 7800 XT), I consistently got around 120 frames per second, though there were occasional hiccups when loading new areas. Hopefully, future updates will address these minor issues and further enhance the experience.

Right now, Astrobotanica feels like a promising start rather than a complete game. It has some cool concepts – exploring and using science to advance, and a focus on peaceful survival and crafting. However, gameplay is limited to mostly running around, solving simple puzzles, and looking at the environment. Even though there’s a reputation system and base building, they don’t add much value, making the base building feel pointless.

As an Early Access game, Astrobotanica is still being developed and will likely get better with time. While it has a few core problems, like an awkward user interface, the biggest issue right now is simply a lack of things to do. Luckily, that’s something the developers can add with updates. For now, if you’re looking for a robust survival game, you might want to check out other options—unless you’re excited to follow Astrobotanica‘s development and see how it evolves.

This game was reviewed on PC.

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2026-02-24 15:18