The creators of Northgard and Wartales are venturing into the cosmos with their most ambitious project yet. SpaceCraft, developed by Shiro Games, is an online space exploration and building game that seamlessly blends the factory automation of Satisfactory with the expansive universe of EVE Online, all wrapped in an accessible package that promises to redefine the space sim genre. Set to launch in Early Access for PC via Steam in 2025, SpaceCraft invites players to explore vast galaxies, design modular spaceships, automate entire planetary economies, and build trading empires across the stars.
A Living, Breathing Galaxy
SpaceCraft takes place in a persistent universe where humanity has abandoned Earth after a devastating attack, seeking refuge in a distant star system accessible through a mysterious wormhole. In this new frontier, players must rebuild civilization by exploring and exploiting resources found on countless planets using advanced automation systems. The game features seamless travel from space to planetary surfaces, including underwater sections, creating a truly connected experience without loading screens.
What sets SpaceCraft apart is its living economy where every AI ship and economic transaction is tracked by a sophisticated background simulation. Everything that happens in the universe actually matters—your actions can affect the economy and balance of power between factions through combat or trade. You can pilot any ship in the game, build factories for any product, and establish your own faction complete with fleets of trading or military vessels.
While Shiro Games avoids calling SpaceCraft an MMO, the game's servers can house thousands of players simultaneously, with designated gathering spaces for social interaction and cooperation. The developers emphasize that while the game shines with other players, it's fully playable solo in this persistent universe where your factories continue producing while you're offline and market prices fluctuate in real-time.
Modular Ship Design and Customization
At the heart of SpaceCraft lies an incredibly deep ship-building system. Players construct and customize vessels using modular components and design philosophies aimed at creating blueprints that can be sold or traded with other players. Anyone who picks up these blueprints must then collect the necessary resources to construct those spaceships for themselves, creating a thriving player-driven economy.
Ship customization operates on multiple levels. At the simpler end, you can modify existing ships by swapping out modules and fitting external components like weapons and mining gear to hardpoints. For those who want deeper control, the assembly system lets you physically reshape your vessel—adding new engines, wings, or blocks while tweaking performance to suit your playstyle. Every modification impacts your ship's handling profile and speed, requiring careful consideration of each addition.
As you progress, you unlock the ability to build entirely new ships from scratch, with every part affecting how your ship handles, how fast it travels, and what capabilities it possesses. The elegantly simple flight controls let you chart trajectories and set propulsion levels to navigate open space effortlessly. This accessibility combined with deep customization creates a system that welcomes newcomers while rewarding veteran players who optimize every component.
Resource Gathering Across Multiple Dimensions
Resource acquisition in SpaceCraft isn't a one-size-fits-all affair. Different materials demand different extraction methods, creating varied gameplay experiences. Some resources can be mined directly in space using your ship's equipment, while others require specialized harvesters. Volatile resources add tension—they can explode if they get too hot, necessitating cooling systems to handle them safely.
Certain materials force you to land on planets and venture out on foot, adding variety and risk to the gathering process. You'll need to traverse planetary surfaces while avoiding environmental hazards to secure these resources. This mix of space-based mining, planetary harvesting, and specialized extraction keeps the resource loop engaging throughout your journey.
The game addresses one common concern from players: you'll be limited by how many personal ships you have, so constantly swapping out modules for different resources could become tedious. However, this limitation encourages progression toward automation, where you'll eventually delegate these tasks to drone fleets and cargo vessels.
Automation That Scales to Infinity
Where SpaceCraft truly spreads its wings is in the automation systems. Early in the game, you'll manually mine resources and craft components, likely at space stations that serve as tutorial zones and community hubs. But as you progress, the game's progression curve actively encourages establishing automated production chains.
You'll build bases on different planets, each becoming a node in your interstellar industrial network. Deploy networks of resource extractors, cargo ships, and drones that work tirelessly to develop full interplanetary enterprises. Establish production and delivery lines, create housing for workers, and transform simple planetary outposts into fully automated resource hubs.
The opportunities for optimization are genuinely endless. Team up with other players to form corporations and set up shipping routes connecting each production node. As one excited preview noted, "The idea of bringing the community together to build a large facility automating parts to be sold to a living economy really does excite me". This Satisfactory-meets-space philosophy lets you watch your industrial empire expand across multiple star systems, all humming along efficiently even when you're offline.
Space Stations: Your Hub in the Stars
Space stations like Babylon 7 serve as crucial social and functional hubs throughout your journey. These stations feature distinct zones accessible via elevators, each serving different purposes. Some areas, like the shipyard, are private spaces perfect for refining resources, crafting advanced components, or working on your ship without distractions.
Others, like the docks, are instanced by ship traffic, creating dynamic spaces where players come and go. Shared areas like marketplaces let you trade with both the company and other players, fostering economic interaction. Certain stations will feature unique zones tied to quests or introduce entirely new mechanics, ensuring that returning to these hubs never feels repetitive.
The tutorial experience is set around a space station in a singleplayer environment where you'll receive contracts, build your first ships, and refine your initial resources. These stations evolve into community gathering points where players collaborate, trade, and socialize.
Cooperation Over Competition
Shiro Games has made clear design decisions regarding PvP and player interaction. The game focuses primarily on PvE and cooperative gameplay, though economic PvP is available. The developers prefer player cooperation over direct combat, creating an environment where working together yields better results than constant conflict.
That said, indirect economic competition plays a significant role. You'll compete in marketplaces, vie for valuable resources in contested zones, and potentially engage in restricted PvP areas similar to how Starbase handled combat near player hubs versus unrestricted space. The game's vast scale means encounters with other players remain meaningful events rather than constant nuisances.
Some players might focus on PvP activities like venturing into dangerous restricted areas for abundant resources, while PvE-focused players handle logistics and automation. This division of roles within corporations creates interesting dynamics where different playstyles complement each other. You can pilot any ship in the game and even build fleets of trading or military vessels to become your own faction, affecting the balance of power through strategic choices rather than pure combat.
A Persistent Universe That Never Sleeps
One of SpaceCraft's most compelling features is its persistent nature. Your factories continue producing resources while you're offline, and market prices shift based on supply and demand across the entire player base. This creates a living economy where logging back in presents new opportunities and challenges based on what transpired during your absence.
This persistence extends to the background simulation tracking every ship and transaction. The universe evolves whether you're present or not, making your return feel like stepping back into a world that continued spinning without you. This design encourages strategic thinking about long-term automated production chains that generate wealth even when you're not actively playing.
Development and Release Timeline
SpaceCraft was first revealed in December 2024 with the announcement that it would launch in Early Access for PC via Steam sometime in 2025. At Summer Game Fest 2025 in June, Shiro Games presented an extensive overview trailer showcasing the game's systems in detail. The developers have planned a private alpha for the first half of 2025, with updates throughout the year influenced by player feedback.
While no specific release date has been confirmed, the extensive gameplay footage and developer blogs suggest the game is progressing well toward its Early Access launch. Shiro Games has committed to multiple updates per year shaped by community input, though they've avoided promising weekly or monthly patches. This measured approach suggests a focus on substantial, meaningful updates rather than rushed content drops.
Why SpaceCraft Could Define Space Sims
SpaceCraft occupies a fascinating gap in the gaming market, sitting between Starfield's exploration, Satisfactory's automation, and EVE Online's player-driven economy. It combines the best elements of factory builders, space sims, and MMO economies while maintaining accessibility that these genres often lack.
The seamless integration of ship building, resource gathering, automation, trading, and exploration creates a holistic experience where every system feeds into the others. You're not just building ships for the sake of it—you're creating tools to expand your industrial empire. You're not just automating production arbitrarily—you're feeding a living economy that responds to player actions.
For players who love optimizing production chains in games like Factorio or Satisfactory, SpaceCraft offers those same satisfying loops at an interstellar scale. For those who dream of exploring vast galaxies and building trading empires like in X4 or EVE Online, the game provides that scope with more approachable systems. And for cooperative players seeking shared experiences, the corporation system and collaborative building create genuine reasons to team up beyond simple combat.
Final Thoughts
SpaceCraft represents Shiro Games' boldest venture yet—a game that promises the depth of traditional space sims with the accessibility and polish the studio demonstrated in Northgard and Wartales. The combination of modular ship design, planetary automation, persistent economics, and cooperative multiplayer creates something genuinely fresh in the space sim genre.
When SpaceCraft launches in Early Access in 2025, it could very well become the space automation game that players have been waiting for. Whether you want to become an industrial tycoon automating entire planets, a master shipwright selling blueprints to the galaxy, an explorer charting unknown systems, or a trader manipulating interstellar markets, SpaceCraft promises to let you live that fantasy.
The universe is yours—what empire will you build among the stars ?
