StarRupture is an open-world, survival crafting game set in space from indie studio Creepy Jar. This is the studio’s second survival game, having produced Green Hell. Taking more of an automation route with their space title, you’ll explore a strange world within the Ruptura system. Your mission: gather resources and ship products to various companies. The only catch is you’re a prisoner and you’re on this planet to pay off your debt.
StarRupture Preview | Space Based Survival
For the playtest, you only have one prisoner option: the Scientist. The details of your crime are marked confidential. How much you owe isn’t listed anywhere, so you don’t actually know what you need to earn to be free. You don’t even learn much about the program you’re in, which makes a free future possible.
What you do know is that dying increases your debt. This is due to each death triggering a new sleeve, a fresh body, to be fabricated. While the body is also referred to as a shell in some conversations, sleeve is the primary way to refer to it. This reminds me directly of Altered Carbon, which could be an inspiration for StarRupture.
Completing shipments is how you unlock new crafting benches, upgrades, and weapons. To finish any of the available shipment lines for a company, you’ll have to construct multiple crafting buildings, including smelters, fabricators, furnaces, and more. The assembly lines, known as rails, may cross much of the area by the end of your experience. This makes it similar to games like Satisfactory that combine survival with crafting automation.
When it comes to the region you can explore, there are multiple environments you can interact with, giving you a taste of the different biomes you may experience throughout the full title. There are ponds, a radiation zone, a meadow area that drains your movement and health, as well as the rocky crags where you’ll often find large ore veins. There are strange rock pillars you’ll discover, holes that are currently covered by vines but have something glowing within, and two different ruins you can pillage.
This is where the mystery comes in. In the remaining buildings, you’ll find notes about body enhancements gone awry, other prisoners that’ve worked on the planet, and a potential murder. None of the questions brought up are answered. It’s assumed these will be explored when you have free rein in Early Access.
Playtest Woes | StarRupture Preview
Overall, the playtest had few bugs, the largest one focusing on the enemies, the Vermin. At times and typically affecting only the easiest variety of the creature, you’ll see them flickering, as if a broken light was illuminating their bodies. This makes it hard on the eyes and harder to aim shots at them. The only other issue I ran into was that, upon respawn, I would get momentarily stuck in the regeneration pod and have to jump out of it instead of just walking.
There are more than just the basic vermin. You can encounter up to four additional types. The blue exploding ones emit infection, green ones spit venom, others have viscous claws, and the final type combines venom with burning for a rapid death. The basic variety is the sole one affected by the flickering.
These are the only enemies you’ll run into while playing. They often attack in swarms and can be difficult to deal with initially. Once you get a pistol and grenades, they are easily negated. With little in the way of a challenge, the playtest can feel less like a survival title and primarily a crafting automation.
Along with the flickering bug and lack of challenge, the dialogue may use AI-generated voices at some points. This is the most obvious when listening to an audio recording concerning a female prisoner. The voice of Harvey Summers is flat, with no emotion and an odd cadence, all pointing to AI. On the Steam page for the game, there is no note of AI usage in the title, nor is there anything listed on the website. Whether this is a simple placeholder oversight or lackluster voice acting is unknown.
Another issue with the audio is when a Rupture is about to hit. There are dueling lines playing at the same time. It’s disrupting to the gameplay and can make it hard to actually understand what’s happening during the first instance. It doesn’t impact the overall playtest, however, as you can read what’s being said to know how to react.
While StarRupture has a mystery, all it presents in the playtest are small tidbits to reel you in. What’s known of the story is well written. The gameplay is straightforward survival mechanics utilizing automation to achieve objectives. There’s just not enough to differentiate it from other titles on the market at this time. I am intrigued to see how the story and world expand when it finally releases into Early Access.
StarRupture was previewed on PC over the span of 9.5 hours with a code provided by Creepy Jar. All screenshots were taken during the course of the preview.
