The general concept of a factory automation game shouldn’t be appealing to anyone. It’s essentially work and no one wants to play a game that’s like work, right? Well, Factorio proved that belief wrong nearly a decade ago and since then, we’ve gotten some fantastic factory automation games, including Satisfactory, which took the idea of Factorio and put it into a first-person perspective. For developer Creepy Jar, it decided to follow up its excellent Green Hell with StarRupture, a first-person open-world base building game with a focus on combat and exploration. It’s like taking Satisfactory’s formula, refining some of the tedious parts, and adding great gunplay and a huge map to explore, with blueprint hunting serving as an objective.
StarRupture takes place on the planet of Arcadia-7, which is filled with mysteries, abandoned bases, and bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. And no, not the “my game isn’t working” type of bugs, the creepy crawly type of bugs. If you’ve played Satisfactory before, you’ll understand the main goals of the game, which are to automate the production of items, then send them to a building so they can be shipped off for progression. As you accomplish these goals, you get access to new buildings and new resources, so you can continue growing your factory to satisfy all the needs of these different corporations. StarRupture puts a bit of a spin on the premise, though, as each player is a convict who has been dropped off on the planet to serve their sentence. As it stands, there isn’t a compelling story to the game, and each of the characters you can choose is mechanically identical. They do have different personalities and voice lines, and it’s best to find the one you can tolerate most (read: least annoying).
Base Instincts
While the main foundation of the game is clearly inspired by Satisfactory, StarRupture builds on that base layer with a much greater emphasis on combat and exploration. In order to unlock certain recipes, you’ll have to adventure around the massive planet of Arcadia-7 to find abandoned bases for blueprints. In other words, StarRupture puts a bigger focus on the crafting survival part of the game, rather than just being a factory automation game. You’ll have hunger and thirst to manage, and trust me, you’ll want to keep tons of ammo in your inventory. What really jumped out to us, though, is how well the gunplay feels. It’s not quite to the same level as a Bungie game, but it’s probably the best combat we’ve experienced in a crafting survival game.
Currently, there are four weapons available in the arsenal: pistol, rifle, shotgun, and machine gun. There are also grenades to throw, and the resource harvester can also be used as a weapon, but as you can imagine, it’s terribly inefficient. Each weapon has a wide range of accessories and modifications available to it, ranging from magazine increases to different barrels and sights. Most of these upgrades are tradeoffs, meaning you’ll have to make a decision based on your personal playstyle. Our biggest complaint with the game right now is that there isn’t enough depth to the combat equipment. Combat, as I mentioned before, is surprisingly enjoyable, and it would be even better if we had access to more weapons.
Fire Drill
One of the biggest features that makes StarRupture feel unique compared to other crafting survival and factory automation games is the waves that happen seemingly every 50 minutes or so in the form of a lethal fiery wave across the planet. While at first these waves feel like an inconvenience, where you have to run to a habitat or place one down (otherwise you’re dead), there’s actually a gameplay mechanic tied to them. Shortly after the wave, the planet almost feels cleansed. Enemies are dormant, infection clouds are gone, and players can access underground caves. There’s also a rare resource that only appears shortly after waves, which means you get into a cycle of exploring as soon as you can safely go outside and picking up useful resources while you can. There are also certain structures that can only be built shortly after a wave.
For the most part, finding shelter for these waves is a non-issue. So long as you have a meteorite heart, which is easily harvested from meteors found throughout the map, you’re able to place a base station to establish another base. Another clever thing StarRupture streamlined is that every building mostly requires just one material to build. For the first few tiers, you just need basic building materials. Eventually you’ll get access to a higher tier that’s required for other buildings, but you’ll never find yourself carrying a ton of different building mats just to establish a new base. This is important too, because you’ll be setting up multiple factories across the map in order to be efficient.
Corporate Detour
Now, if you’re new to the genre and have never spent time with Satisfactory, StarRupture can be a bit confusing. I honestly got the feeling that the game assumes you’ve played Satisfactory, and as a result, doesn’t hold your hands as much as it probably should. It’s Early Access, though, so I imagine the team will improve the first-time user experience to make it a ton more friendly to beginners. It’s probably a safe bet that anyone looking to pick up StarRupture has played a game like Satisfactory, but I actually believe there are enough innovative features and solid gameplay here to make StarRupture a gateway to the genre.
So, if you don’t quite understand what it is you’re supposed to do, StarRupture starts off by having you find locations for resources, placing buildings that can harvest those resources, which can then be used in other buildings to become either components or finished products. The goal of the game is to satisfy the needs of various corporations by sending them the items they request. In order to do that efficiently, you’ll want to automate production and delivery of those items so you can access more technology and continue the process anew, just with new demands.
Spaghetti Western
If it sounds a bit repetitive, well, it is. That’s also the point of these games and where the saying “The factory must grow” comes from. Recipes get more and more complicated as you progress, which means connecting all sorts of different production lines together. Where StarRupture differs from Satisfactory, though, is that it doesn’t rely on traditional conveyor belts to transport items. Instead, it uses a drone rail system that’s fundamentally the same as putting items on a conveyor belt, but they’re suspended in the air. This really changes your perspective on things, and gets you thinking on how to map everything out. The result, though, is that try as you might, your base won’t be pretty or symmetrical. These drone rails will inevitably end up crisscrossing all over the map.
Eventually, you’ll get access to technology that helps further streamline later-game production, but one of the biggest issues we ran into with StarRupture’s Early Access is the lack of new “toys” to play with in the end-game. We felt this way with Satisfactory as well, where the later unlocks were simply components used to satisfy the next goal. It feels like you get access to something just for the sole purpose of shipping it off to a company so you can get the next thing. StarRupture can benefit from more tools, weapons, or even shields and grenades to keep the player excited with each complete turn-in. Getting access to an entirely new building only to find out it doesn’t come with new weapons or something fun to play with is a bit disappointing.
Blueprint Blues
We did enjoy the system of having to find blueprints for certain recipes, as it forces you to explore all around the map and engage in combat. I do have a feeling, though, that playing this game solo might feel a bit daunting. But basically, the core gameplay loop is this: automate as much production as you can to satisfy the needs of the various companies, and while you’re waiting for those items to craft and ship, you’re running around the map looking for blueprints for more tech. The game heavily revolves around a Recipe Station that constantly needs donations, so it’s not just about shipping products off-world. You’ll also need to donate many of your finished goods to unlock recipes. It’s an addictive loop that had us going for well over 80 hours in Early Access, but much of that time was us going a little extreme with factory building. It’s something we enjoy doing and StarRupture does it very well.
There are plenty of issues to talk about, though. Most of them are quality-of-life problems that make organization harder than it needs to be once you have multiple factories going. For starters, we really need a compendium or reference for the materials that are needed. Maybe we missed it, but it was a little frustrating having to place a building just to check the recipe for a particular component. We also couldn’t find a way to add markers on the map, which a game like this desperately needs. You’ll eventually end up with multiple base stations and factories throughout Arcadia-7, so much of my time was spent trying to figure out where a certain item was being crafted. The game does help with this by cleverly incorporating images of what item is being stored in a container, along with audio warnings when a building isn’t receiving the materials it needs to produce. But, markers would go a long way so players don’t have to spend hours trying to figure out where Ceramics are being stored. Don’t ask me how I know.
Cooling Off
We spent most of our time playing StarRupture cooperatively as a duo. At times, there were some strange multiplayer issues where the non-host wasn’t able to see the modified text on storage containers. They also had issues seeing power output for each core, leading to a guessing game on whether or not they were overheated if I wasn’t near their factory setup. Speaking of overheating cores, it’s another mechanic in the game to keep you on the path of expansion rather than trying to stuff everything into one mega base. Each building requires a certain amount of upkeep, and if the core can’t maintain that upkeep, it’ll take way longer to cool off after a wave event. This effect slows down production, sometimes significantly, if you’re not around to manually cool off a structure. There are ways to upgrade the base cores, but that also invites periodic enemy waves that attack your base, which is different than the fiery waves set on a timer.
The base defense side of StarRupture is still very basic, but you can place defensive turrets with ammo, and they’ll help slaughter the bugs. We definitely think there could be more depth to these enemy waves, from enemy variety to rewards for fighting them off. After seeing the attack waves a few times, it definitely feels repetitive. As for other random issues we ran into, I found myself having to set background audio to on every time I entered the game, even though it was already toggled. Seems like background audio doesn’t “stick” permanently. Also, there’s no indicator for the progress of picking up a downed player. You actually have to communicate with them to find out how much longer it’s going to take to resurrect them. What was probably my biggest annoyance was not being able to open the map while placing a building. For example, if I’m trying to run a really long drone rail route back to a particular structure, I can’t open the map to see which direction I need to go without canceling the building placement. This was annoying because sometimes I’d have to run all the way back to connect and restart the drone rail. We’d also love to see an easier way to stack similar items in personal storage, since double-clicking is used to transfer instead of something like Shift+left-click. Also, why do personal storage containers lack a sort button?
Assembly Required
As for player customization, the game currently uses LEMs, which are slottable upgrades spread across three categories: movement, combat, and survival. As you engage with any of those three, you’ll eventually level them up, which opens up slots for the LEMs. The problem is, many of the bonuses from the LEMs are pretty uninspiring. We’re talking stuff like increased max health, increased aim speed, increased reload speed, increased max stamina, and so on. Things you’d typically associate with a food or drink buff in other crafting survival games are simply permanent upgrades you can equip. There is some decision-making to be done since you have limited slots, but with most of them, it’s pretty obvious which ones you’re going to use. I do hope to see a greater variety of LEMs and the ability to upgrade them on your own instead of having to hunt them down.
All in all, StarRupture is off to a very solid start, and that shouldn’t be a huge surprise if you’ve played Green Hell. The team at Creepy Jar knows what it’s doing, and not only does StarRupture feature one of the best ranged combat systems we’ve experienced in a crafting survival game, it’s one of the best-looking ones, too. For a long time, crafting survival games were known for their “jankiness” with combat, and this is one of the rare times where it feels solid to shoot up hordes of bugs. Personally, I’d like to see more differentiation between the characters and more toys to play with, including improvements to LEMs. Most importantly, StarRupture needs additional methods of transportation. Satisfactory did this in a number of ways, including custom speedy tunnel routes and vehicles. StarRupture lacks a lot of that at the moment, and it gets pretty exhausting having to hoof it from factory to factory or to a distant edge of the map for a blueprint.
StarRupture still has a ways to go before it’s in the same tier as Satisfactory, but we have little doubt that it’ll eventually get there. What’s already present is fun and addictive, but it starts to feel like a chore 40 to 50 hours in. A lot of that comes down to travel time and the endgame not giving you enough new tools, weapons, or traversal options to keep the loop feeling fresh. If StarRupture can smooth that out and give players new things to look forward to that change up the combat and exploration, it’ll be cooking up something special.
StarRupture officially enters Early Access on January 6, 2026, for PC. These first impressions are based on a retail copy of the game on PC (Intel i9-14900K, 96GB DDR5-6800 RAM, MSI RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC) provided by Creepy Jar. While FullCleared does have affiliate partnerships, they do not influence our editorial content. We may earn a commission for purchases made through links on this page.
