Blue eyes, sand, and big bitey worms. If you're a fan of beloved, janky '80s movies or beloved, confusing '60s sci-fi epics, then you'll recognise these as the elements of Frank Herbert's Dune. But oh, what's this? This isn't Dune — this is Starsand, a Switch game that looks like Dune and sounds like Dune, but is not Dune. And that's not a bad thing.
Starsand plops its azure-eyed protagonist down onto a desert planet (not Arrakis) and instructs him to survive. It will then throw sandstorms at you, have your camp invaded by horrible sand-centipedes, threaten you with searing heat, biting cold, thirst, and hunger — and you'll have to figure out how to survive it all.
There's a point behind it all, too. Starsand's crumbled desert ruins are home to long-forgotten scriptures, new weapons, and hints of the mystery that lies behind it all. Maybe you're the sand worm. Wait, no, that's Dune again.
Starsand is out today on the Nintendo Switch eShop for $19.99/£17.99, as well as on PS4/5, Xbox Series S|X, Xbox One, and PC.
Comments 12
Definitely looks janky...
This looks fantastic. Smooth animations, fun premise, can't go wrong with that price. I would be willing to pay more, in fact. Looks really polished, hope it's fun! Gonna try it on Good ol' Games, actually.
If the goal of NintendoLife is to inform their readers - I think this article should include some Switch footage of this game.
Just gave it a go on PC, it's beautiful and unnerving. I normally don't like crafting games but this one feels pretty reasonable so far. Plays really well, actually! Challenging, too.
If I hadn't just gotten back into Ark I probably woulda jumped on this but between Sunbreak and Ark I've got no space lol
Desert environments are one of those things. Like, yeah, harsh conditions. Even the plants want to stab you. No water, insane heat, etc. Just like snow biomes, there's some stuff to gameify there. Annnnnd I'm completely uninterested. I don't like being miserable.
Don't you mean sandepedes?
@SonOfDracula I’m convinced you’re one of the devs or a friend/relative of the devs.
@Ballzilla Do you hate every game you play?
@SonOfDracula I don’t know man, your comments sounds too suspicious. That’s all.
@Ballzilla Fine by me, I've got nothing to prove, here ¯(ツ)/¯
I can't recommend this game in it's current state. Camel taming is broken. Idk about other platforms, but I can't get one tamed on Switch. Name popup appears, but keyboard won't. Usually gets stuck on screen and have to restart the game.
It's very sprint-heavy and you have to hold down the left thumb stick.
I really like what I've played of the game so far (despite bad menu navigation and weird button controls). If they would just fix the camel taming...
It's a waste of money as-is.
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