The Planet Crafter is an open world survival craft game that tasks players with terraforming distant alien worlds, gathering resources, and even seeding life across the galaxy. As part of a new Steam deal, The Planet Crafter is discounted by 45%, making it just $13.19.
Julian van der Merwe, Published
Gaming Deal Windows Software Linux / Unix
The Planet Crafter is a single-player or co-op survival craft game with a massively open world and support for up to 10 players in a party. The over-arching premise of The Planet Crafter is that players must make alien worlds inhabitable for humans in order to ensure the survival of the human species, and the game gives players plenty of tools to craft the perfect planet and expand the human empire.
The Planet Crafter gameplay and reviews
The Planet Crafter features all the staples of a survival craft game, including personal resource management — like oxygen, water, and health needs — base building, crafting, exploration, and resource harvesting and management for your colony. However, it also mixes in interesting twists, like automation, creature breeding and genetic engineering, atmosphere and biosphere creation and management, and procedurally generated shipwrecks with loot and lore to spice things up. It also features online co-op for up to 10 players, so you can share the fun, and a recent free update introduced the ability to terraform two new moons after conquering a planet, including resource sharing between the moons and the main planet.
Based on the Steam reviews — which currently sit at 96% Positive, or "Overwhelmingly Positive" — The Planet Crafter is widely praised for its relaxing and rewarding gameplay loop that still manages to feel fresh, even compared to the relatively saturated survival craft genre. Many also mention that the bright, colourful graphics are a strong point that give the game a charming, cosy feel.
Unlike many survival craft games, like Valheim, players in The Planet Crafter are peaceful terraformers, and there are no hostile enemies that you will need to fend off or defeat in order to colonise and terraform the planet. The only hostility players will face comes from the environment or their own lack of imagination. Additionally, The Planet Crafter has a range of difficulty settings, meaning the game can be a challenge that pushes you to ride the razor's edge, or it can be a relaxed, cathartic experience that you can enjoy with family and friends.
For the duration of the Steam sale, The Planet Crafter is discounted to $13.19 after a 45% discount. It also features a Gold Proton rating, making it an ideal game to play on the go on something like a Steam Deck OLED or a Lenovo Legion Go (curr. $699.99 at Lenovo US).
Disclaimer: Notebookcheck is not responsible for price changes carried out by retailers. The discounted price or deal mentioned in this item was available at the time of writing and may be subject to time restrictions and/or limited unit availability.
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Julian van der Merwe - Senior News Writer - 1140 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2022
A lifelong techie with a love for open-source and an irresistible urge for tinkering and cracking stuff open to see how it ticks. Julian covers anything tech-related but has a particular fascination with mechanical keyboards, gaming, and quirky camera gear. With background in industrial design, Julian is familiar with the ins and outs of ergonomics, manufacturing, and materials, and he firmly believes that any tech not designed for people shouldn't exist.
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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2025 05 > Open world co-op terraforming survival craft game with "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews hits record-low price in Steam deal
Julian van der Merwe,2025-05-21(Update:2025-05-21)
