Stars Reach is an extremely ambitious science-fiction MMORPG in development by Playable Worlds, a new game studio from Raphael “Raph” Koster, the visionary game developer who helped craft some of the most influential sandbox MMOs ever. As the lead designer on Ultima Online, regarded as one of the grandfathers of the entire genre, and creative director for Star Wars Galaxies, he certainly knows a thing or two about creating livable and emergent game worlds.
Clearly, there was a lot of interest from other MMO fans as well. During Star Reach’s Kickstarter campaign, it managed to raise over $762,000 with over 5,400 backers supporting the project. And if you’re intrigued enough, late pledges are available to still back the game and receive available rewards.
The Living Galaxy of Stars Reach
Staying true to its star-gazing conception, Stars Reach bills itself as an endlessly explorable, living, breathing, galaxy full of never-ending possibilities. Everything you do has a ripple effect of consequences. Dirt turns to mud in the rain and forests grow back after devastating fires—which all sounds incredible, so I’m curious to see what the end product turns out like.
With Stars Reach, the idea is to truly create a simulated galaxy worth exploring. Everything from ecosystems that include plants and animals go through life cycles and react realistically to the weather and impact of people around them. In fact, the developers claim “no two worlds are ever the same” due to the level of variation.
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It seems to be more than just a sandbox though, as you develop your playstyle and skills through gameplay. This means if you want to be a ranger or miner, then you need to master the skills and gameplay of those archetypes in whatever way is most fun and effective for you. This freeform progression system was also the foundation of Koster’s previous games like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies.
In fact, just like in those previous games, you don’t even have to specialize in a combat profession if you don’t want to. Players can choose to play Stars Reach as a cartographer who wants to map the galaxy, as a miner who wants to extract resources and sell them for profit, as a merchant who wants to build supply chains and manage economies, and so much more.
But if you do decide to specialize in combat, it looks like the team is focused on making that an engaging path since it will likely be the most common type of player. The Kickstarter page boasts that enemies will not just be “random NPCs” but instead “part of the ecosystem” so I’m very eager to see what that means exactly.
There’s a lot more to Stars Reach, it’s honestly difficult to summarize the vision succinctly so it’s commendable they were able to craft a cohesive pitch that got this much attention from players. You can watch the video above to see more information on things like the player-driven economy, player-built settlements, space travel, and more.