Stars Reach - Year 2

Stars Reach - the new MMORPG project of Raph Koster - was first announced to the public on the 28th of June 2024. That Raph had founded a new company and was working on something, had already been known earlier - but this was the day that they revealed what they were working on.

I wrote a post about the fan community of the then still unnamed game prior to announcement - as well as a post looking at the first year post announcement.

The Year One Post Landed Exactly A Year Ago

Now it’s about time to be looking at everything that happened in the second year after the game was announced - the good, the bad and the ugly.

The First Year

The Countdown To The Game Announcement

Year one was quite densely packed. There was a lot of stuff happening:

• the count-down to the announcement
• the announcement itself
• the graphics controversy surrounding the first trailer
• the graphics updates, following that
• the repeat issues with the invite emails
• the confusion around how invites work
• start of player testing
• test additions like mining, surveying, harvesting, building, crafting, combat, space, skill trees, world events, boss fights, wild planets, etc.
• test length going from initially 2 hours to entire days
• the building of the first ever player city
• the first ever large-group maker hunts
• the invention of Spham - and the first mentions of Otter Space
• the Kickstarter campaign
• the reward anxiety right thereafter
• a bit of controversy around property passes

An Alien Looking Planet From A Playtest During First Year

Year two ended up being more calm than that - not quite as crazy. It still had it’s own set of ups and downs. The developers sure had their fair share of rollercoaster moments - but for the fan community, the highs weren’t quite as big and euphoric as the announcement or the conclusion of the Kickstarter - and things never got quite as stressful/heated as when people feared they got scammed out of their Kickstarter rewards.

Development Progress

The test-version of the game continued to get patches and updates - but not only did the frequency of such updates slow down, their gameplay impact grew smaller as well. There were a few highly visible non-gameplay changes like some more graphical improvements and such - but also a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on.

The List Of Updates On The Official Website

Here’s the list I previously made for year one (for comparison):

• August 24: Walking around. Jumping. Dancing.
• September 17: Terraformer, Mining.
• October 23: Surveying, Camps, creatures, first combat, first skill trees, Harvester, first few crafting recipes.
• November 3: Space Zone, more mining.
• November 16: Jungle and desert planets, more creatures, tougher combat, first character clothes (randomized).
• December 8: Instaformer, Fabricator, Homesteads, house building.
• January 12: Planet Pyromycis, longer tests (4h), crafting changes (rare materials, anti-gravium added), first botany: plant seeds/seedlings to replant them
• February 1: Refining and a lot more crafting changes and new recipes.
• February 19: Planet Escarion, Kickstarter rush.
• March 9: World events like meteor showers and bosses, survey points now must be searched
• March 23: Creatures with randomized abilities and attacks, elemental damage and status effects, first maker hunts
• April 13: Post KS cleanup, return of character progression, preparations for wipe-free patches/updates
• May 4: Big crafting changes, player trading window, new skill trees, physics and simulation improvements
• May 25: Lots of changes to growing and harvesting plants, bushes and thickets, soft grouping and xp sharing, loot sharing, preparations for 24/7 starting
• June 12: Wormholes and wild planets, new creatures with new combat behavior, new planets with every test, more 24/7 prep.

Title Picture Of A Recent Update

And here’s the new list for year two:

• July 10: under-the-hood changes
• July 24: hallway, TPL station, mission terminal
• Augut 16: PQRV for a few crafted items
• September 6: mostly bugfixes
• September 27: hallway again, ecology kiosk
• October 25: player vendors
• November 13: govbot
• December 4: hallway again again, new shaders + fog
• January 22: haven + “quest lines”
• March 11: hallway again again again, crucible, survey maps
• April 2: haven revamp, tpl challenges, galactopedia
• May 15: character stats, skill point limit, item decay
• May 27: new login-screen
• Jun 18: new clouds+fog rendering
• Jun 25: intro animatic

The Great Stuff

For most of the second year, test-servers were kept open for 5 days each week. That’s a significant upgrade over previous, shorter test-windows we saw during year 1. At the very end of year two - just recently - testing even switched to full 24/7 with only occasional downtimes for maintenance.

Screenshot Of The New Clouds

Wipes were still very common during the first year - but while we had a few still right at the start of year 2, we have now entered a phase of going many months without a full wipe. But - for testing reasons, planets were still getting wiped every three weeks, which did put a bit of damper on player build projects.

Screenshot Of The New Clouds

The visual graphic upgrades look pretty snazzy, and despite that bump in visuals, the game actually performs ever so slightly better now, as performance was improved as well. Depending on your machine, you still can run into CPU bottlenecks - or see temperatures rise on your GPU - but we’ve come a long way since the days of player-built space structures causing massive render-lag.

Animation Of The New Fog

A few months ago, the dev’s have announced that they are now switching their entire focus on adding the core gameplay loops. That means improving combat, more weapons and better enemy behavior, adding all the crafting recipes, getting the resource-loot chains working, getting initial versions of all the professions setup, and first attempts at starting up the economic loops in the game. And more! The devs are confident they can reach alpha and Early Access this summer.

Screenshot Of The New Clouds

The addition of player vendors was a big shift away from the survival-game-like feel, and towards a real MMO with interdependency and character specialization. More recent additions of Item Decay and Skill Limits do re-inforce that.

The Issues

The second year started with severe bug and server issues - and it also ends like that. It had a long stretch of much less issues in the middle - but at the start the game repeatedly ran into severe bug issues. We saw increased and repeated problems with server rollbacks, character corruptions, and new headline features of patch updates not working or not being accessible to players at all. Things were quite bad there for a while. We saw significant improvements there, and far less issues during the second half - but the problems are not entirely gone yet. Server rollbacks made a comeback just three patches ago, and we are now seeing increased numbers of login problems, character issues, server crashes and loading problems. Two patches now tried to fix these issues, and while they brought some improvement, the issues still mostly remain.

Login Failed

The Space Hallway, a tutorial section which was meant to help new players joining the game for the first time, was a bit of desaster. Even after being reworked 4 times in 6 months - it still proved impossible to complete for some players. People would just get soft-locked in there due to bugs, and were forced to create a new character, and just hope it didn’t happen again. It also was very linear and claustrophobic, and most testers did not like it at all. Given that it was the main “change” of several patch updates, none of which really fixed the problems with people getting stuck - tester’s opinions on the whole thing grew sour. Eventually the Space Hallway was removed entirely, replaced by a very little building on Haven, that only asks you to move, jump and crouch. Even some friends of mine, who are still mostly sitting on the fence and not really active in Stars Reach - unmpromptedly expressed relief and feelings of gladness, over the removal of the hallway.

The Hallway Players Got Stuck In

The first iteration of Haven was a completely on-rails, treadmill, “follow the marker” themepark. That did disappoint the sandbox enthusiasts among the testers, and caused a bit of criticism among some - but not all - of the testers (some actually loved it!). Many felt the design was going completely against the very values and ideas that the developers had been putting forward so far. Themepark fatigue is a real thing, and Stars Reach promotes itself as the antidote to that. I myself wrote a series of blog posts, trying (and seemingly repeatedly failing) to explain, why I think that going full themepark in the tutorial, only to suddenly switch to sandbox thereafter, might backfire. Why people might feel misled, bait-and-switched, and why such a tutorial would teach the wrong things and raise the wrong expectations. If you are interested in more detail, I recommend checking out my post a brief history to player onboarding in video games, which looks at the evolution of player onboarding methods in video games. As far as Stars Reach is concerned, the rework of Haven made things far more open, and far less on-rails, mostly removing that contstrained themepark feel.

Haven By Night

Between the bugs and problems, the planet wipes and a bit of a lack of both new stuff to do, as well as a certain lack of ongoing gameplay loops to keep players busy - we did see a bit of a decline in active tester numbers. We’ve seen fewer big, player-driven build projects as well. I returned for every patch to check out the new stuff, and write a blog post about it - but for several patches now I didn’t play at all that much the time inbetween. Only very recently have I become a little bit more active again. The developers have now shifted the focus in getting the core gameplay loops in - and they tell us that a big update is brewing, worringly big even. But so far, none of that has materialized in the playtest version of the game yet.

The Funding Situation & Lay Offs

The gaming industry as a whole is really not doing great right now. That’s something I already mentioned in the post on year one - and things have not improved since then. We see more cancellations, studio closures, lay-offs, and other clear signs of market contraction. Journalists, YouTubers and Developers are increasingly comparing the situation to the big video game crash from 1983.

The Layoff Situation Is Crazy

In a climate like that, both investment money as well as publisher contracts are near impossible to come by. And we are seeing that Playable Worlds is being negatively affected by that. They had no plans to to a Kickstarter - but eventually had to, as they ran out of other options. The KS was quite a success and lead to new investment opportunities opening up. But ultimately that only bought them more time. Being unable to secure more funding, they decided to lay-off some people as well - just to be able to stretch the funds they had, even further. This is a small team achieving huge things on a tight budget.

Early Access Notice Of A Different Game

It seems that even with all those measures, they are now going to have to enter Early Access and sell Founder Packs there, to be able to continue on. They know the game is not ready for that yet - but they believe they can get it to be ready, by end of this summer. If you are interested in a deeper dive into that topic - I am looking into that, in a chapter of What is Stars Reach?.

First Time I Heard Of Playable Worlds In 2019

When Playable Worlds was originally founded, nobody could have predicted the industry would face these kinds of hardships exactly when development of Stars Reach would enter the final stretch. For all I know, the developers would have preferred to do neither KS nor EA - and just run the classic gauntlet of closed beta, followed by open beta, followed by full release. But with the funding situation being what it is, that simply was not an option.

The Silver Lining

While the funding situation is not great, and the lay-offs were saddning, there are some positive side effects: Raph Koster has returned to a much more active role in the game’s development and the community too. The renewed focus on core gameplay loops has reportedly invigorated what remains of the team and continues to provide a good mood and high motivation. Progress seems to be speeding up.

Raph Just Hanging Out And Chatting On The Discord

I just hope that people are able to keep some resemblance of a work-life balance and aren’t burning themselves out for this Early Access release. I feel like announcing “this summer” while already knowing that it’s impossible to make anything but late summer at best, does needlessly increase the pressure… I can just hope they know what they are doing there.

The Roadmap

The roadmap was introduced on November 13, 2025. I believe the promise that we would get one, was made during the Kickstarter - but it then took a while for it to actually materialize. Since it’s first appearance it has quickly become one of the most valuable sources of information on progress on the game.

The Roadmap

If you just look at it, it might not seem that big of a deal at first glance - only after you follow it for a while and start taking note of how things change, items move from one column to the next, and get updated with better descriptions and often even screenshots - can you understand it’s full impact. It’s like getting a detailed progress report each and every week. And that only works because it is being updated regulary and kept up to date all the time.

Upcoming Building Upgrade

This is the gold standard for transparency that imho every Kickstarter project should strive to achieve. You take people’s money - you keep them informed and how their money is being used. It’s a simple deal, and still, many projects seem to struggle with that. Not this one though, I’d say the communication is top notch for the most part. There were a few moments of preventable confusion during year 1 - like with the test invites and also surrounding the post Kickstarter timeplans - and Early Access will probably be another challenge. But overall, this team has shown exceptional levels of openness and honesty. And the roadmap is definitely proof of that.

The Lore Drops & Roleplay Guides

During year one, we saw 8 lore stories getting published on the official website:

• Clere’s Story - Part 1, Dec 11, 2024
• Clere’s Story - Part 2, Dec 18, 2024
• Timurr Drawermol’s Combeack Novel, Jan 28, 2025
• Interdicted, Feb 3, 2025
• Staying Grounded - Part One, Mar 4, 2025
• Staying Grounded - Part Two, Mar 12, 2025
• Staying Grounded - Part Three, Apr 2, 2025
• Another Working Day - Part One, Jun 5, 2025

Picture From A Lore Story

Now, if you go to the website and filter by “lore” you will not find any more lore stories after this. It would appear like there wasn’t a single lore story in year two (only Roleplay Guides), and “Another Working Day” never got a part two - but that’s not true. If you go to “all news” and manually look through everything they posted, you will find a few more:

• Another Working Day - Part Two, Jun 26, 2025
• Another Working Day - Part Three, Jul 10, 2025
• Coda: After Working Hours, Jul 24, 2025

Really Old Concept Art

But except for that first month, we actually have not seen a new lore story for most of year two! Instead we saw a number of roleplay guides being posted:

• Roleplay Guide: Elioni, Feb 11, 2026
• Roleplay Guide: Gertan, Mar 6, 2026
• Roleplay Guide: Terrans, Mar 19, 2026
• Roleplay Guide: The Fae, Apr 1, 2026
• Roleplay Guide: Stokadi, Apr 28, 2026
• Roleplay Guide: Skwatchi, Jun 25, 2026

Early Access Announcement & Press Reaction

Early Access was announced through a trailer dropped on Youtube. The exciting part of it, was the announcement of Early Access for this summer. The trailer itself was short and talks about a player-built city and commerce hub on a planet called “Beacon”. I’ve never heard of it, and I’ve visited all player-built cities so far. Seems to be a fictional story that aims to be representative of what they expect to happen? No idea.

Early Access Trailer On Youtube

In the wake of the Early Access announcement, Raph spent a Weekend in L.A. to show off a demo of the game to the press. And the response to that has reportedly been highly positive. The game is blowing the minds of journalists - and we are already seeing the first resulting articles. They are writing about “the second coming of the sandbox MMO”, calling it “a hugely ambitious project, integrating all sorts of simulatory tech to give players a ridiculous level of control over their environments” and professing: “I only spent thirty minutes playing Stars Reach, but what I saw had me very excited for the future of the genre.” We see article titles like “Stars Reach Represents The Dream MMOs Have Promised For Decades, And I Can’t Contain My Excitement”. And more keep still rolling in!

The Gaming Press Writing About Stars Reach

Generally the press seems to be able to understand the potential the game has. The writers are veteran players of the genre, and can see both the stagnation and the need for innovation - and are able to see beyond the jank they know to be typical of an early alpha version. They see what Stars Reach is aiming for and are excited that someone is trying to bring a fresh wind to an otherwise increasingly stale genre. Even if it’s not for everyone - this might be just what the MMO genre needs to finally see a revival. And reading those various articles, and seeing professionally jaded games journalist get genuinely excited about Stars Reach - it’s great fun.

Charli The Space Otter

Testers are simultaneously somewhat anxious about - but also greatly looking forward to the Early Access launch. There will be a complete wipe as well - and the hope is, that between the new folk rushing in, and the returning testers who took a break - the game will see enough of a boost in active player numbers, to get the economy off the ground, which is needed to make the different mechanics of the game come together. The shared is economy what connects it all. There is going to be another wipe before the EA launch (with it’s own wipe) happens - because the new focus on gameplay loops will result in a huge patch that simply requires a clean slate. And maybe that’s the moment we see the economy get it’s first real start. I think some people will be surprised at how much of a difference that is going to make - how much more the game will come together, once that economy gets off the ground.

The EA launch is gonna be a big moment for the game, and while not without risk (bad Steam ratings can be very hard to recover from) - this is the moment where the game should come truly alive for the first time. Fingers crossed.

Conclusion

Year two was nowhere near as big and densely packed as the first one - in some regards even comparatively slow-going. We’ve seen a lot of under-the-hood improvements, graphical improvements, performance improvements and stuff like that - but the gameplay didn’t progress anywhere near as much as it did in the first year. The devevelopers have now put their focus on getting all the core gameplay loops in - but while a big (wipe-requiring) patch is brewing, none of that has landed yet.

The Kickstarter From Year One

Community activity has somewhat calmed down - which after the first year’s huge excitement over the game announcement, the start of testing and invites being sent, and the Kickstarter - isn’t a big surprise. The biggest thing this year saw, was the announcement of Early Access - and that didn’t cause anywhere as big of a stir. Everyone knew EA was coming - just the timing wasn’t known yet.

The Upcoming Character Creation As Shown On The Roadmap

Year three is promising to start big though - with that huge gameplay patch just around the corner, and EA being planned to start later this summer. The latter might be the single biggest event this community has gone through yet. The press response to a series of hands-on demos held in L.A. during Summer Game Fest has been overwhelmingly positive - partially enthusiastic even. Public response might end up more muted though - as unlike journalists, new players on Steam might not be able to look past the jank - as they are often not aware of what “alpha” means, how early testing works, and might come in with expectations of Early Access being more of a late beta, or even just a marketing demo - rather than actually being “early”. But for those people who do get it, who do have themepark fatigue, and who do hunger for something new and different - this might just be exactly what they’ve been dreaming of.

And Old Teaser Image Showing The New Shaders

Exciting times are ahead! I for one can’t wait to see that ingame economy take off.