StarsOne

I checked the concurrent player numbers before writing a single word here, and the answer is essentially one person online at any given time. That fact shapes everything that follows, because StarsOne is a game that tags itself as Massively Multiplayer and ships with PvP and co-op modes - but the multiplayer infrastructure never grew to support those ambitions. There are no official dedicated servers. Getting a friend into your session requires old-school port forwarding, the kind of setup that filtered people out even back in 2016. What the game actually is, stripped of the MMO label, is a survival sandbox with a sci-fi skin. You crash-land on a procedurally generated alien planet, collect resources, grow food, construct a base, research technologies, and build vehicles ranging from ground cars to airships. The loop is familiar - mine, craft, build, defend - but the setting is competent enough and the vehicle construction gives you something tangible to work toward. The combat involves fending off alien threats including zombies, and there is a loose narrative hook about a failed colonization mission in 2125 that gives you short-term objectives while you figure out the systems. For a sub-5 dollar price point, the breadth of what IllusoryWorldEntertainment crammed in is genuinely surprising. The problems are real though. Average playtime data sits around four hours, and that number is honest. The game launched into Early Access in April 2016 and the development cadence was never aggressive enough to build a committed audience. No tutorial to speak of, movement speed that early players immediately flagged as too slow, and a UI that assumes you will figure things out through trial and error. For players who grew up on Minecraft or Terraria, the core loop will feel readable. For anyone coming in cold expecting a polished experience, the rough edges will surface fast. From a shooter standpoint, the combat is functional rather than satisfying. Time-to-kill against the alien enemies feels inconsistent, weapon feedback is thin, and there is nothing here that scratches the itch if you came looking for tight PvP or any kind of ranked or competitive mode. The PvP flag exists in the feature list but with a concurrent player count of one, it is theoretical. If you want survival-sandbox conflict with other humans, you will need to organize your own group and get everyone through the port-forwarding setup, which in 2025 is a significant ask. StarsOne is not a broken game. It runs on PC, Mac, and Linux, it has a functional singleplayer loop, and for the price bracket it offers more systems than most. But it launched with ambitions it never had the player base to fulfill, and the multiplayer skeleton is effectively empty now. Go in as a solo survival-crafting player with low expectations and you will find a few hours of decent content. Go in expecting populated servers, active PvP, or any real-time co-op with strangers and you will be disappointed within the first login.

Fred · Scout Team

Shooters

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