StarRupture lands in Steam Early Access on January 6, 2025, and after spending a considerable chunk of my holiday break crash-landing on a hostile alien world, I can confidently say this sci-fi survival base-builder from Creepy Jar has its hooks in me. The studio that brought us the brutal jungle survival ofGreen Hell has pivoted to something mechanically different but equally compelling: a game that asks you to build elaborate factory systems while waves of alien creatures try to tear them apart. At roughly $25, it’s asking a fair price for what’s already here, and the ambitious 12-18 month Early Access journey ahead promises significant evolution.
Crash Landing Into Chaos
Your introduction to StarRupture is appropriately violent. You’re dumped onto a procedurally generated alien world with barely enough equipment to survive the next few minutes, let alone establish a functioning outpost. The game’s tutorial system does a respectable job of walking you through the basics of how to extract resources, set up your first structures, and start exploring your immediate surroundings. It’s not hand-holding exactly, but it gives you enough direction that you’re not completely lost in the alien wilderness.
Those first peaceful moments don’t last long. The bug-like creatures that inhabit this world make themselves known fairly quickly, and suddenly that leisurely resource-gathering expedition turns into a frantic scramble back to whatever meager defenses you’ve managed to erect.
What stood out the most to me about these opening hours was how naturally the game escalates tension. You start thinking about efficiency and optimization, then suddenly you’re thinking about sight lines and chokepoints. The transition from “peaceful builder” to “desperate defender” happens organically, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.
This Factorio Brain Poison (Affectionate)
If you’ve ever lost an entire weekend to Factorio or Satisfactory like I have many times, you know exactly what I mean by “brain poison.” That compulsive need to optimize one more production line, to eliminate one more inefficiency, to watch resources flow through your systems with mechanical precision. StarRupture has this in spades. What starts as simple resource extraction—you know, the standard mine the ores, smelt it, build stuff—spirals into surprisingly complex logistics chains within just a few hours of play.
Like conveyor belts, StarRupture uses a rail-style conveyor system that feels intuitive to set up but demands real thought to optimize properly. You’re not just connecting point A to point B; you’re managing refineries, power grids, storage buffers, and defensive turret ammunition supplies. Each system feeds into the next, and the satisfaction of watching a well-designed factory hum along is addictive.
The twist that keeps StarRupture from being just another factory game is that you can’t optimize in peace. Those alien creatures don’t care about your beautiful spaghetti. They want to tear it all down and watch you suffer. Balancing expansion with defense, knowing when to prioritize turret production over quality-of-life improvements, creates a tension that pure automation games lack. It’s easy to set up systems that work; it’s much harder to set up systems that work while you’re also fending off aggressive bugs.
Four Friends, One Crumbling Perimeter
StarRupture supports up to four players in online co-op, and this is where the game really comes alive. Playing solo is perfectly viable, but bringing friends transforms the experience into something more dynamic and, frankly, more chaotic.
I was pleasantly surprised by how solid the netcode performed during our Early Access sessions. Lag was minimal, and we didn’t experience any desync issues even during hectic combat sequences. For an Early Access title, this level of network stability is noteworthy as many games struggle with the multiplayer performance well past their 1.0 releases. Creepy Jar seems to have prioritized getting the co-op foundation right, which bodes well for the StarRupture’s long-term future as it delves into Early Access.
When the Bugs Aren’t Just Aliens
As always, we have to be honoest about what “Early Access” means here. StarRupture has rough edges, and pretending otherwise would be doing you a disservice. The UI at times needs a bit modernized—inventory management in particular feels more cumbersome than it should be, with item sorting and storage systems that don’t always behave intuitively.
Building placement also has some quirks that can disrupt your flow. Occasionally structures won’t snap where you expect them to, or terrain collision gets finicky in ways that force awkward workarounds. None of these issues are game-breaking, but they add friction to what should be smooth interactions. These are exactly the kinds of things that Early Access development typically address, and I’d expect polish improvements over the projected 12-18 month development timeline.
The good news is that performance optimization is already in solid shape. Late-game sprawling factory builds with extensive production chains can start to chug a bit, but this is common for the genre and not egregious by any means. StarRupture running this well at launch suggests the team has its priorities in order.
Not Quite Riftbreaker, Not Quite Deep Rock
Positioning StarRupture within its competitive landscape reveals what makes it interesting. It’s not trying to be The Riftbreaker, though the tower defense elements invite comparison. It’s certainly not Deep Rock Galactic, despite sharing that “co-op bug-hunting” energy. Instead, it occupies a middle ground that might appeal to players who found Satisfactory too peaceful or Starship Troopers: Extermination too shallow in its building mechanics.
The 12-18 month Early Access roadmap suggests Creepy Jar has ambitious plans for expanding what’s already here. If the studio’s track record with Green Hell is any indication, we can expect substantial content additions and mechanical refinements throughout the development period. The foundation they’ve established is strong enough to support significant growth, and the game already offers enough content to justify its asking price for players who enjoy this particular genre blend.
StarRupture enters a recently crowded market but brings enough of its own identity to stand apart. For those of us who’ve been waiting for something that scratches both the factory-builder itch and the cooperative survival itch simultaneously, this Early Access launch is worth your attention. The core loop is already dangerously addictive, and I’m genuinely excited to see where the next year of development takes it.
