Dig, shape, and build with the Terrain Tool
ASTRONEER is a third-person open world game about exploring an unknown solar system of seven celestial bodies. The main tool is the Terrain Tool, which digs, collects, shapes, builds, and colors terrain. You use it to carve tunnels, pile up hills, and clear space for whatever you need next. Each of the seven worlds can be explored entirely, from the rounded surface down into the core, and every one has its own geography and biomes to work around. Along the way you find strange structures, artifacts, and confusing messages from unknown sources, and you can dig into what they mean.
Your base grows from a modular set of pieces that snap into place, so you can assemble something that fits how you play rather than following a fixed layout. Crafting stations, power plants, resource harvesters, automation systems, and railway facilities are built from the ground up and customized to suit the situation. Managing resources and getting production lines running smoothly is a large part of the game once the first shelters are up.
Playing together in online co-op
The game works for one person and for groups of 2-4 players in online co-op. Everyone works in the same world, which suits splitting up the chores: one person digging, another hauling resources, another laying down rails or power. Since the Terrain Tool reshapes the actual ground, the world ends up as a shared record of where the group has been and what they decided to build.
If you start alone, other Astroneers can drop into your world and leave again whenever they like, so a session can start as a solo run and pick up extra hands partway through. Building and survival stay the same either way; it just goes faster with more people on the Terrain Tool.
Before you start
Expect a loop of exploring a planet, gathering what you need, bringing it back, and using it to push further out into the system. The seven bodies are meant to be fully explored, surface to core, and the geography and biomes on each one will affect how you plan routes and where you set up a base.
The environment stays malleable the whole time, so there is no fixed map to learn — you reshape it as you go. Curiosity about the anomalies and the messages from unknown sources drives the longer-term goal, while day-to-day play is base work, resource handling, and keeping production and power running. Progress and saves are supported through Steam Cloud, and the game works with full controller support, including DualShock controllers.