Solarpunk™
Solarpunk™
Game
Game2015
Planetbase
Developer Madruga Works
Planetbase is a space simulation and strategy video game developed by Madruga Works which was released on October 16, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, and January 8, 2016 for OS X. The game involves establishing a human colony on a distant planet and building an outpost to survive on the planet. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
245 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Oct 25, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
71
Fresh
138 positive · 57 negative
95% range 64–77%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 138 | 57 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 5 | 0 | 24 |
| Lemmy * | 6 | 0 | 8 |
| Mastodon * | 1 | 1 | 5 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
4,837 of 6,268 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
72% recommend · 143 yes, 56 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 199 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mostly Positive (8,367 of 10,483 positive).
Some reviewers criticize the game for poor AI and frustrating mechanics that can lead to colony death. [1][2][3] Several players express anticipation for the upcoming sequel, Planetbase 2. [4][5][6]
Liked
Representative posts
- [1]
I want to like this game. I really tried, but I kept getting frustrated with all of the random and uncontrollable outcomes. Oh, you're doing really well? Let's just drop a ship with 8 armed intruders into your base to kill as many of your colonists. You think your armed guards will come to the rescue? Nope, they're too busy watching the slaughter unfold on the security cameras. Are your food reserves running low? …
- [7]
⭐ 9/10 – I Built a Colony and Everyone Immediately Forgot How Doors Work ⭐ Planetbase is a calm, thoughtful colony builder that slowly lulls you into a false sense of security… right before your entire population suffocates because one guy couldn’t be bothered walking to the oxygen generator. You land on a hostile planet with nothing, build a thriving space colony, and then spend the rest of the game micromanaging …
- [8]
Planetbase is one of those games that quietly earns your respect over time. At first glance, it looks simple: land on a planet, build a base, keep people alive. But once you get past the tutorial phase, you realize the game is really about systems interacting with systems. Power, oxygen, water, food, worker roles, solar conditions, terrain placement — everything is connected, and the game does very little …
- [5]
Fun little colony builder. Also, it's dirt cheap, so great value. I think I sank like 130 hours into it, so I definitely got my money's worth. It's been a while since I played, but I'm pretty sure I did all the planets and got most of the achievements. Looking forward to Planetbase 2. Gameplay is a little simplistic, but I like that. It forces you to do higher-level planning instead of digging through and …
- [4]
Planetbase is one of my favorite games. The core gameplay loop is perfectly optimized and there are no bugs. Don't let the negative reviews fool you...any logistics issues people have encountered occur because of their poorly optimized colonies. There are a bunch of challenges to complete after you've figured out how to get all of the planetary achievements. Really looking forward to Planetbase 2.
Summarised from 34 of the 250 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Planetbase sits at 71% positive across 195 opinionated reactions from 4 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Critics, per Wikipedia
The game scored a 70 out of 100 based on reviews from four critics on Metacritic.
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 245 · most liked firstThe Rover is in-game! #Planetbase 2
neutral · AI labelView post →The Largest Dome in #Planetbase 2 will be the Terra Dome, this is an end game structure where, you will be able to plant trees and build homes, to give your colonists a taste of Earth. store.steampowered.com/app/3509420/...
neutral · AI labelView post →We now have the Geothermal Plant in game in #Planetbase 2. - Scan for underground heat using manpower or drones. - Use Scan Mode to locate the right area. - Build Plant - Connect to base
neutral · AI labelView post →Planetbase 2 - Dev Update 03 [Overview of new buildings and updated mechanics for older buildings]. I have 200+ hours in the original Planetbase and 100% achievements, so I am pretty biased, but I love the relative simplicity (by the standard of most city-builders) combined with the sci-fi themes and survival mechanics (albeit starting from the mid-game, the survival mechanics are not that important) of the original game. I always wished there were more compelling late game expansions…
positive · AI labelView post →After several years working on this, it's great to finally see #Planetbase 2 emerge as a game. One could say this is the Dawn of Planetbase 2. We can't wait to share this with everyone! store.steampowered.com/app/3509420/...
neutral · AI labelView post →The Pressurized Truck is in the game. #Planetbase 2
neutral · AI labelView post →We've now reached 300 population in the game for the 1st time in our tests! This is our first full playthrough, we will be doing a lot more of these from now on to balance everything. #Planetbase #Planetbase2 store.steampowered.com/app/3509420/...
neutral · AI labelView post →In #Planetbase 2 you will be able to choose from 1x to 8x game speed. This is what 8x looks like. store.steampowered.com/app/3509420/...
neutral · AI labelView post →All the in-game fully functional vehicles so far in #Planetbase 2: - Rover: Basic unpressurized vehicle. - Truck: Large pressurized vehicle. - Harvester: Mining vehicle. More soon!
neutral · AI labelView post →Another #Planetbase 2 structure in-game: the Monomer Refinery. It extracts CO2 from the martian atmosphere, and combines it with H2O, to produce Monomers. Take these to the Polymerization Reactor to make Plastic. Monitored from the Industrial Console in the Control Center.
neutral · AI labelView post →Planetbase 2 - Dev Update 03 [Overview of new buildings and updated mechanics for older buildings]. I have 200+ hours in the original Planetbase and 100% achievements, so I am pretty biased, but I love the relative simplicity (by the standard of most city-builders) combined with the sci-fi themes and survival mechanics (albeit starting from the mid-game, the survival mechanics are not that important) of the original game. I always wished there were more compelling late game expansions…
positive · AI labelView post →They took the PAUSE feature away and it sucks enough to not play it anymore.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Planetbase 2 - Dev Update 03 [Overview of new buildings and updated mechanics for older buildings]. I have 200+ hours in the original Planetbase and 100% achievements, so I am pretty biased, but I love the relative simplicity (by the standard of most city-builders) combined with the sci-fi themes and survival mechanics (albeit starting from the mid-game, the survival mechanics are not that important) of the original game. I always wished there were more compelling late game expansions…
positive · AI labelView post →I want to like this game. I really tried, but I kept getting frustrated with all of the random and uncontrollable outcomes. Oh, you're doing really well? Let's just drop a ship with 8 armed intruders into your base to kill as many of your colonists. You think your armed guards will come to the rescue? Nope, they're too busy watching the slaughter unfold on the security cameras. Are your food reserves running low? Maybe your biologists will make sure the farms are tended. Nope! They will wander…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Buggy as hell and has really bad support for large bases even though it has an achievement for a population of 300. I have built and achieved a base of 300 for one of the planets however when I attempted it on a different planet It is almost impossible wating game. The settlers pathfinding is awful they consistently kill themselves by walking outside till they asphyxiate. They also will not refill the food makers resulting in them starving even when there is ample meat and veg and empty food…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →And some non-GOG gems, to continue this trend: Elite: Dangeous - best space-sim out there, no other comes close. Also one of the few live-service games with a great community around it. Anno 2205 - Seem by many as the black sheep in the anno series, it's still a great game with a fantastic future vibe. Craft the world ( hey, it's also on gog ) - dwarf fortress like game Civilization: Beyond Earth - Firaxis' attempt at a contemporary Alpha Centauri, based on the Civ 5 engine. Great game in…
neutral · AI labelView post →Planetbase, one of the OG space colony builder games, releases Version 1.4.0, nine years after the initial release in 2015.
neutral · AI labelView post →⭐ 9/10 – I Built a Colony and Everyone Immediately Forgot How Doors Work ⭐ Planetbase is a calm, thoughtful colony builder that slowly lulls you into a false sense of security… right before your entire population suffocates because one guy couldn’t be bothered walking to the oxygen generator. You land on a hostile planet with nothing, build a thriving space colony, and then spend the rest of the game micromanaging airlocks, power cables, and the emotional wellbeing of people who absolutely…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game has an interesting premise but is poorly designed. Pioneers and even robots can become so fully preoccupied with things that even high-priority constructions are ignored for a period of multiple days and will not be advanced, even when the lack of the structure causes conditions to deteriorate. I wouldn't recommend this game to my worst enemy, based on my current gameplay experience.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Planetbase 2, releases a teaser trailer. Target release date is 2027 Q1.. [Steam store page](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3509420/Planetbase_2/)
neutral · AI labelView post →Compared to Dawn of Man, the game has issues regarding how the AI works. The astronauts will refuse to grow food if they are sad and they'll starve to death. I find that mechanic bad because it's unrealistic, and I feel it adds unnecessary difficulty, given that in special-themed situations, astronauts are supposedly supposed to be more resistant to a minimum amount of stress. While the game has an interesting level of difficulty, I wouldn't recommend it because it feels old compared to Dawn of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →**WARNING: THIS GAME TAKES SOME GETTING USED TO.** There was a period about halfway through my playtime where I thought to myself, "Am I playing this all wrong? Why are things not working as I intend them to?" I was just coming off of "Dawn of Man," saw many similarities between the two, and figured the same general rules applied here. I had successfully established large colonies on the first three planets, the whole time fighting with the efficiency of said colonies. I don't have enough ores…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →No ability to control colonists is my biggest complaint. They will just stand in one spot and die of starvation, low oxygen or water rather than pick up a box of food or build an O2 generator or a freaking water extractor. I mean, where did they pick up these colonist - the Forrest Gump Institute of Idiots!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game that has poor resource balance. You end up just sitting there not able to do anything because mining/resource processing takes to long compared to durability loss on structures. Dev should play their game and realize it's not fun to sit and wait 20 minutes, unable to advance at all.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Tutorial was fine. Trying to get a base to actually work, not fine. NPCs sat around doing nothing while base was needing to be built, died of asphyxiation for not building a basic airlock. Restarted twice, same thing. No mods just basic game. Unsat.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to like it but man is the AI a case study of what no selfpreservation on a species wide level would look like, job prioritizing is a joke at best, "safe" passages are a suggestion as it appears your "braindead" colonists rather would run outside and asfixiate than take the route through buildings, Bots break down constantly regardless of maintance centers. Foood evaporates into thin air the moment sombody forgets to stock up the processors, which CANT BE PRIORITIZED... Oh yeah,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →No windowed mode. Frustrating to play on a multiple screen set up. Refunded.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nah. ♥♥♥♥♥♥ dev that keeps misusing the news function on all their other games, for spamming news about their new games. Don't support devs like this.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Planetbase is one of those games that quietly earns your respect over time. At first glance, it looks simple: land on a planet, build a base, keep people alive. But once you get past the tutorial phase, you realize the game is really about systems interacting with systems. Power, oxygen, water, food, worker roles, solar conditions, terrain placement — everything is connected, and the game does very little hand-holding once you’re on your own. With over 105 hours played, most of my time…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hey, we indend to add a lot more end game content in this one. The first Planetbase was quite a small game.
neutral · AI labelView post →MPCs are so stupid, and it’s ruining 85% of the gameplay. They are just too lazy to take care of food and vegetables, then in next 10 minutes they’re all hungry, but still lazy to start making food. And in next 10 mins they are all dying. And rest 15% is ruined, cause it’s too hard to build a good base from beginning, and as result on 60d — your base is mess, and there is no good way to fix it, and cause of it your people are also dying
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Me: Lands on a new world. Quickly sets up a base before night falls. All my colonists almost die from lack of oxygen from power running out. Daytime arrives and I barely survive. Base grows exponentially overtime and have almost beat the game. Within 1 hour, 3 meteors destroy my power supply, a solar flare kills my other colonists stuck outside, and the cherry on top with pirates surrounding the base and stopping any chance of repairs. My whole colony is destroyed. Repeat the cycle because its…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Slow burning game that requires patience and witt.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Planetbase is one of my favorite games. The core gameplay loop is perfectly optimized and there are no bugs. Don't let the negative reviews fool you...any logistics issues people have encountered occur because of their poorly optimized colonies. There are a bunch of challenges to complete after you've figured out how to get all of the planetary achievements. Really looking forward to Planetbase 2.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The AI sucks i had food they just never took the time to eat and starved
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Physics? Never heard of her. I spent two hours trying to jump over a wall that wasn't there and accidentally clipped into the emotional void of my own soul. I found a glitch that turned me into a god for four seconds. Then I died to a bush. Best experience of my life.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bit addictive. I like being able to build bases and build them up. I'm going to look into Planet base 2 to see if there have been improvements.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The core design of the game is good, however the execution is where it fall short. Frequently you will have the AI colonists not doing required tasks, and this is despite designating those task high priority. They are working on a sequel so hopefully they fix this issue for that.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am a bit sad that I have to downvote this game. It starts exciting, but a couple of hours later I felt limited and the whole thing became repetitive. Building types, constructions, resources, colonist types, mechanics, etc. You can build more and bigger, but that's all. I had high hopes after Dawn of Man, and it was good for completing one scenario, but wouldn't start another. Waiting for planetbase 2.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →#Planetbase 1.4.0 updates the game to make it more compatible with modern systems and provides overhauled visuals. store.steampowered.com/news/app/403...
neutral · AI labelView post →IT'S TIME I'm finally well enough to stream regularly again! Here's my updated schedule!!! Gonna play some Warframe, Planetbase, CK3, and start up a new adventure game! For Warframe I'll be running some vaulted relics at the beginning, come join for some slightly rarer stuff! twitch.wyx.gay
neutral · AI labelView post →Still has a few bugs, but far better quality then the last decade of trash studio releases and AI slop and tripple AAA titles for several hundred each.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I sank about 40 hours into Planetbase before it finally broke me, and honestly the first colony was magic: watching little dots scurry between glass domes, hauling steel around, actually surviving a sandstorm felt great. The problem is the colonists. I had food rotting in the dispensers while my biologists starved to death because apparently finishing a mine shaft was more urgent than lunch, and I once watched a medic step over a bleeding patient to go get a drink. Add in the removed pause…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →my favorite time killer. overall great game, but I'd like to make some suggestions especially since I just noticed planet2's incomming first is lack of personal information for more detailed management on many things: specific building statues(how many people using it, need more of what, and too much of what), why ppl are unhappy overall, like, more humanized requests such as i want more variety of meal, want better beds or sth like that. not just one single happiness bar being super red…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For a planet rated for WIND POWER GENERATION it sure does not have wind....
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Only reason I don't recommend this game is the main item needed to keep your colonists alive will refuse to use the rights ingredients and will kill your base with sheer stupidity....
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not a bad game, but it feels like the events are scripted in a way that requires you to play a specific way. For example, when you are at the last objective with 300 colonists, you get a bunch of outsider attacks that push your population below 200 until you have over 25 security. When you get the objectives, it's not clear whether you can build more or try another planet. Did I win?. Also, after a few hours, there are fewer different buildings and things you need to build, and you have to wait…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It was an enjoyable game for the most part. But still buggy, notably medics choosing to be idle over making medical supplies. Just wait for PlanetBase 2 at this point, dont buy this one.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Planetbase 2 (in development) - Rocket Fuel Dev Update - Landing infrastructure and Rocket Fuel production..
neutral · AI labelView post →This game really really reminds me of Planetbase, another good simulation type game
neutral · AI labelView post →I really enjoyed Planetbase. Even 10 years later they still have about [~300 CCUs](https://steamdb.info/app/403190/charts/#3y) on steam.
positive · AI labelView post →Classic #Planetbase let's play youtu.be/dMsXyBA4vz0?si
neutral · AI labelView post →I have 200 hours and all achievements in Planetbase. 😀 Mods and DLC would be awesome.
positive · AI labelView post →I am surprised they never released a DLC. SteamDB has Planetbase at around [~250 CCUs](https://steamdb.info/app/403190/charts/#1y); not too bad for an indie game almost decade after release. It's a relatively simple formula, but there is enough to build and develop and a big map selection to make each run somewhat unique.
neutral · AI labelView post →my favorite colony game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Classic Game i have put 264 hours into. i should be qualified to be in charge of the first base on mars. LOL can't wait for Planet base 2. in 2027 Looks nice.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have 252 hours in Planetbase, so obviously found something in it to like, but I am so disgusted with it now that I am seriously considering deleting the game from my computer. I got over the disappointment of having all of my colonists die from lack of oxygen while I figured out how site the base and give them at least a chance of survival. Eventually I routinely built colonies of as many as 85 members, but a any level of population above 50 to 60, the majority of the biologists would…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Genuinely, this is the stupidest and most frustrating game I have ever had the displeasure of playing. Literally nothing makes sense, your workers will stand around staring at the wall while they starve to death even though there's a full meal maker two feet away. Meanwhile the slightest change to your base's layout and your entire colony collapses overnight. You can't rely on help from traders either, since anything you sell them is worth absolutely nothing, while they charge triple the value…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Saw this game a couple years ago... Probably ten years ago. Then forgot about it. Suddenly remembered about it and spent almost 33 hours playing it. It feels nice to play something that almost feels like it takes me back in time. The game itself is really nice, although just 4 planets doesn't feel enough.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →provides a good amount of challenge. looking forward to version 2.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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