SpaceCraft – Preview
Shiro Games, the studio behind games like Wartales and Dune: Spice Wars, has been on quite the roll over the last few years, so when they announced that they were tackling a massive, persistent MMO space simulator, we immediately sat up and took notice. Said game, SpaceCraft, recently warped into Steam Early Access, and we’ve been dipping our toes into its massive galaxy. We’re not going to pretend it’s a smooth ride just yet, but if you bear with us, we’ll try to show you the undeniable charm that is hidden underneath SpaceCraft’s rough, industrial exterior.
When you boot up SpaceCraft for the first time, you’re immediately thrown into the deep end. You take on the role of the pilot of a beaten-up starship (or should that be ‘starter ship’?), the appropriately named “Scrappy”. The game forces you through a formal tutorial phase that sees you mine ore, sit through long flights, and solve test chamber puzzles. That initial onboarding phase is a bit of a mixed bag, mind you: it feels tedious, but it is absolutely necessary to prepare you for what is to come. Once you complete your first hyperjump, the training wheels are completely ripped away: SpaceCraft suddenly drops all explicit guidance, leaving you to independently untangle what is beyond the basics. Complex economic networks, a restrictive inventory (at least initially), and a somewhat clunky user interface that doesn’t clearly explain that you need to be actively docked at a space station just to modify your ship all indicate that you’re on your own now.
Once you’re past that initial information dump, the true loop of SpaceCraft finally reveals itself. How well said loop will land with you definitely depends on what you want out of your MMO space-sim. If you come into this expecting a cinematic space opera or intense dogfights, you’re going to be disappointed. At this stage, there is virtually no story to speak of, and combat is entirely non-existent; there are no space pirates or defensive systems to worry about, leaving the galaxy feeling incredibly passive. Instead, the game plays out much more like a relaxing logistical sandbox in the vein of Factorio or Microtopia.
You’ll spend your time scanning celestial bodies, establishing planetary bases, managing power grids, and setting up multi-step crafting chains to slowly unlock a massive technology tree. Progression is heavily gated by these marketplace trade mechanics and corporate contract systems, with ship customization and base building serving as your primary long-term material sinks. While the early game beautifully captures that relaxing, automated Factorio-like flow, the late game currently transitions into a slow, excessive grind. The progression curve flattens significantly here, demanding steep currency and raw resource amounts just to unlock high-tier blueprints and permits.
Visually, the game does a fantastic job of establishing a convincing sci-fi vibe. There is a wonderful artistic contrast between the cold, heavily industrialized orbital space stations and the wide-open celestial expanses, all backed by a moody, synth-driven ambient soundtrack that perfectly fits the isolated atmosphere. We were genuinely impressed by the seamless transitions when flying from a planet’s surface straight out into the blackness of space. That said, those planetary surfaces themselves are currently a bit of a letdown: they are mostly barren, repetitive procedural landscapes that lack any real environmental variety.
Being an Early Access title, technical rough edges are, of course, hard to miss. We ran into quite a few performance drops, UI glitches, and a (pre-patch) game-breaking crash during a hyperjump, which completely halted our progress. Furthermore, the late-game economy curve feels incredibly unpolished right now, devolving into a severe grind for raw materials like steel and titanium just to afford high-tier blueprints. The good news is that the developers seem incredibly responsive to community feedback. To answer the massive wave of launch players frustrated by competing for resource nodes in the shared online galaxy, they’ve already rolled out immediate hotfixes to lower crafting costs and even introduced a dedicated Solo Offline Mode.
In this regard, SpaceCraft is in a bit of an odd position, especially as an Early Access title. The massive tech tree already provides dozens of hours’ worth of objective tracking for anyone seeking to optimize their production process. However, SpaceCraft’s mechanical variety remains narrow, focusing solely on a “numbers go up” financial cycle. It’s all fine if you’re a fan of hardcore optimization and setting up manufacturing pipelines, but it does get repetitive really fast. According to SpaceCraft’s roadmap, future updates will eventually bring advanced building modules as well as much-needed narrative expansions and actual combat elements. Whether or not these have a significant impact remains to be seen, although the shift from a production sim to a game with intergalactic dogfights will undoubtedly make for a game that feels very different from what’s on the table right now.
Conclusion
As it stands, SpaceCraft is a technically impressive but structurally barebones skeleton. If you are a niche fan who loves pure industrial crafting pipelines and trusts Shiro Games’ track record, there’s a solid foundation here to enjoy right now. For everyone else, we’d recommend keeping an eye on this one and waiting for a few more content updates before booking your ticket to the stars.
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