Games like Starbound
If Starbound is your kind of game, the closest matches are Terraria, No Man's Sky and Necesse — picked from the ranked list below. Reviewers single out its endless crafting and customization, atmospheric and cozy. Each pick is ranked by what players of this game also play, shared genres and tags, and review-mined similarity — not a generic popularity list.
Get personalized picks →Starbound is a 2016 action-adventure RPG developed by Chucklefish, set in a procedurally generated universe where players build bases, craft equipment, and explore diverse planetary environments. The game features faction exploration, branching quests, and extensive mod support alongside its core sandbox mechanics. Players describe the experience as atmospheric, cozy, and nostalgic, with reviewers highlighting the pixel-art charm and the unique alien races that each come with their own distinct questlines. The crafting and customization options provide substantial depth, and the active modding community has sustained ongoing content development. Priced at $14.99 USD, Starbound holds an 81 Metacritic score and a 89% positive rating from over 51,000 Steam reviews, with the game rated as Playable on Steam Deck.
About Starbound: You’ve fled your home, only to find yourself lost in space with a damaged ship. Your only option is to beam down to the planet below, repair your ship and set off to explore the universe...
Players who liked Starbound also play
Steam players who put hours into Starbound also tend to own these titles — a signal called collaborative filtering. imho.run cross-references millions of library ownership patterns to surface games whose real audiences overlap, regardless of whether their genre tags match.
Terraria
WHY THIS
Shares mod support and procedural generation with Starbound.
Top pick for Starbound fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Dig, fight, explore, build! Nothing is impossible in this action-packed adventure game. Four Pack also available!
No Man's Sky
WHY THIS
Shares base building, procedural generation and an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Second-strongest match for Starbound fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Adventure with Starbound.
No Man's Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated universe.
Necesse
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Third-strongest match for Starbound fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Build, quest, and conquer across an infinite procedurally generated world. Play alone or with friends as you establish a settlement and explore deep dungeons, fight monsters and bosses, mine rare ores, craft magical equipment, recruit specialists for your colony, and more!
Rust
WHY THIS
Shares base building with Starbound.
Ranked #4 for Starbound fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
The only aim in Rust is to survive. Everything wants you to die - the island’s wildlife, other inhabitants, the environment, and other survivors. Do whatever it takes to last another night.
Boundless
WHY THIS
Shares procedural generation and a whimsical mood with Starbound.
Ranked #5 for Starbound fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Shape your citizen, forge your destiny and sculpt your world in this epic voxel sandbox MMO built on endless possibility.
Don't Starve Together
WHY THIS
Shares mod support and base building with Starbound.
Ranked #6 for Starbound fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Fight, Farm, Build and Explore Together in the standalone multiplayer expansion to the uncompromising wilderness survival game, Don't Starve.
Project Zomboid
WHY THIS
Shares mod support and crafting with Starbound.
Ranked #7 for Starbound fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Indie and RPG with Starbound.
Project Zomboid is the ultimate in zombie survival. Alone or in MP: you loot, build, craft, fight, farm and fish in a struggle to survive. A hardcore RPG skillset, a vast map, massively customisable sandbox and a cute tutorial raccoon await the unwary. So how will you die? All it takes is a bite..
Crea
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Ranked #8 for Starbound fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Progress with every slain monster, learn over 80 skills through talents, craft hundreds of items, and explore vast procedurally-generated worlds in this ever-expanding sandbox RPG!
Reviewers mention these as similar to Starbound
Surfaced from review text: when other players write 'if you liked X, try Y', we catch the name and resolve it back to a Steam game.
Terraria
WHY THIS
Shares mod support and procedural generation with Starbound.
Reviewers of Starbound cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Dig, fight, explore, build! Nothing is impossible in this action-packed adventure game. Four Pack also available!
Valheim
WHY THIS
Shares base building, crafting and an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Reviewers of Starbound cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
A brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players, set in a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by viking culture. Battle, build, and conquer your way to a saga worthy of Odin’s patronage!
No Man's Sky
WHY THIS
Shares base building, procedural generation and an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Reviewers of Starbound cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Adventure with Starbound.
No Man's Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated universe.
Satisfactory
WHY THIS
Shares base building with Starbound.
Reviewers of Starbound cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Indie and Adventure with Starbound.
Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Play alone or with friends, explore an alien planet, create multi-story factories, and enter conveyor belt heaven!
RimWorld
WHY THIS
Shares mod support and procedural generation with Starbound.
Reviewers of Starbound cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Indie with Starbound.
A sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Generates stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more.
Empyrion - Galactic Survival
WHY THIS
Shares procedural generation and an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Reviewers of Starbound cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Indie and Adventure with Starbound.
Build and explore in a true space sandbox survival adventure. Construct mighty capital vessels, sprawling planetary settlements, and vast space stations in your galactic journey to discover the mysteries of Empyrion!
Core Keeper
WHY THIS
Shares base building, crafting and an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Reviewers of Starbound cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Explore a vast cavern of creatures, relics and resources in a mining sandbox adventure for 1-8 players. Mine, build, fight, craft and farm to unravel the mystery of the ancient Core.
ASTRONEER
WHY THIS
Shares base building, procedural generation and an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Reviewers of Starbound cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Indie and Adventure with Starbound.
Interact with strange new worlds in a unique and tactile way, molding the environment itself as if it were clay in your hands. Build your base, master resource management, automate your production lines, and more as you unravel the mysteries of the universe, alone or with friends.
Cheaper alternatives
Games in the same vein priced at least 40% below Starbound at current Steam store prices.
Garry's Mod
WHY THIS
Priced ~67% under Starbound on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Casual with Starbound.
Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play.
Vampire Survivors
WHY THIS
Priced ~67% under Starbound on Steam right now. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Mow down thousands of night creatures and survive until dawn! Vampire Survivors is a gothic horror casual game with rogue-lite elements, where your choices can allow you to quickly snowball against the hundreds of monsters that get thrown at you. Be the bullet hell!
R.E.P.O.
WHY THIS
Priced ~53% under Starbound on Steam right now. Shares Action with Starbound.
An online co-op horror game with up to 6 players. Locate valuable, fully physics-based objects and handle them with care as you retrieve and extract to satisfy your creator's desires.
PEAK
WHY THIS
Priced ~47% under Starbound on Steam right now. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
PEAK is a co-op climbing game where the slightest mistake can spell your doom. Either solo or as a group of lost nature scouts, your only hope of rescue from a mysterious island is to scale the mountain at its center. Do you have what it takes to reach the PEAK?
Titanfall® 2
WHY THIS
Priced ~70% under Starbound on Steam right now. Shares Action with Starbound.
Respawn Entertainment gives you the most advanced titan technology in its new, single player campaign & multiplayer experience. Combine & conquer with new titans & pilots, deadlier weapons, & customization and progression systems that help you and your titan flow as one unstoppable killing force.
Slay the Spire
WHY THIS
Priced ~58% under Starbound on Steam right now. Shares Indie with Starbound.
We fused card games and roguelikes together to make the best single player deckbuilder we could. Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and Slay the Spire!
Inscryption
WHY THIS
Priced ~47% under Starbound on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Adventure with Starbound.
Inscryption is an inky black card-based odyssey that blends the deckbuilding roguelike, escape-room style puzzles, and psychological horror into a blood-laced smoothie. Darker still are the secrets inscrybed upon the cards...
Cookie Clicker
WHY THIS
Priced ~67% under Starbound on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Casual with Starbound.
An idle game about making cookies! Originally released in 2013 on the web, and actively developed since then. This is the official version for Steam.
Free alternatives
Free-to-play games that recommended players of this title also tend to enjoy.
Life is Strange - Episode 1
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Adventure with Starbound.
Episode 1 now FREE! Life is Strange is an award-winning and critically acclaimed episodic adventure game that allows the player to rewind time and affect the past, present and future.
Ultimate Custom Night
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Welcome to the ultimate FNAF mashup, featuring 50 selectable characters and custom difficulties!
Bongo Cat
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie with Starbound.
Bongo cat needs your help. Bongo cat needz more hatz!!! Every time you press a key, Bongo cat will punch your taskbar. Type, click, play, work to collect more points. Which hats will you find?
Indigo Park: Chapter 1
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Explore the abandoned childhood wonder of Indigo Park! Guided by Rambley the Raccoon, help restore power to the destroyed amusement park while you run from the reason it shut down.
The Looker
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie with Starbound.
You wake up, alone, on a strangely familiar island full of puzzles that will frustrate and annoy you.
Grimm's Hollow
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie and Adventure with Starbound.
A spooky, freeware RPG where you search the afterlife for your brother. Reap ghosts with your scythe, explore haunted caves, and eat ghostly treats on your journey through death.
The Expendabros
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
The Expendabros have assembled and set their sights on the forces of ruthless arms dealer Conrad Stonebanks in the forests of Eastern Europe.
Narrow it down
Head-to-head comparisons
More from Chucklefish
Other recommendable Steam games by Chucklefish, ranked by review count so the studio's hits land first.
Wargroove
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Another title from Chucklefish, the studio behind Starbound. Shares Indie with Starbound.
Take to the battlefield with Wargroove, a strategy game for up to 4 players! Choose your Commander and wage turn-based war on battling factions. Design and share maps, cut-scenes and campaigns with easy-to-use editors and in-depth customization tools!
Wargroove 2
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Another title from Chucklefish, the studio behind Starbound.
Trouble stirs on the shores of Aurania. An ambitious new faction has unearthed forbidden relics capable of catastrophic consequences. But how far will they go to achieve glory? Take to the battlefield, sea, and sky with a cast of new Commanders, using your wits to wage turn-based war!
Witchbrook
WHY THIS
Another title from Chucklefish, the studio behind Starbound. Shares Indie and RPG with Starbound.
Discover magic and mystery in Witchbrook, a spellbinding witch life-sim for up to 4-players! Start your life as the newest resident witch in the bustling seaside city of Mossport. Make friends, find love, and discover a world filled with wonder and charm on the road to graduation and beyond...
Plays great on Steam Deck
Valve-Verified or Playable picks from the similar pool — ready to go on Deck out of the box.
Terraria
WHY THIS
Shares mod support and procedural generation with Starbound.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Dig, fight, explore, build! Nothing is impossible in this action-packed adventure game. Four Pack also available!
No Man's Sky
WHY THIS
Shares base building, procedural generation and an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Adventure with Starbound.
No Man's Sky is a game about exploration and survival in an infinite procedurally generated universe.
Necesse
WHY THIS
Shares an atmospheric mood with Starbound.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Build, quest, and conquer across an infinite procedurally generated world. Play alone or with friends as you establish a settlement and explore deep dungeons, fight monsters and bosses, mine rare ores, craft magical equipment, recruit specialists for your colony, and more!
Don't Starve Together
WHY THIS
Shares mod support and base building with Starbound.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Action and Indie with Starbound.
Fight, Farm, Build and Explore Together in the standalone multiplayer expansion to the uncompromising wilderness survival game, Don't Starve.
Project Zomboid
WHY THIS
Shares mod support and crafting with Starbound.
Deck Verified — runs on Steam Deck out of the box. Shares Indie and RPG with Starbound.
Project Zomboid is the ultimate in zombie survival. Alone or in MP: you loot, build, craft, fight, farm and fish in a struggle to survive. A hardcore RPG skillset, a vast map, massively customisable sandbox and a cute tutorial raccoon await the unwary. So how will you die? All it takes is a bite..
Frequently asked about Starbound
- Does Starbound run on Steam Deck?
- Starbound is rated Playable on Steam Deck — it runs, but expect some manual adjustments (control remapping, text size, or graphics settings) for the best experience.
- How much does Starbound cost?
- Starbound is listed on Steam at 14.99 USD (current store price; Steam sales may reduce this temporarily).
- Does Starbound have multiplayer or co-op?
- Yes — Starbound supports multi-player play according to its Steam store listing (Multi-player, Cross-Platform Multiplayer, Online PvP).
- What games are most similar to Starbound?
- Based on Steam play patterns and shared genres/tags, the games most often recommended alongside Starbound are Terraria, No Man's Sky, Necesse.
- Who developed Starbound?
- Starbound was developed by Chucklefish.
imho.run ranks Steam game alternatives using a mix of collaborative filtering (ALS / iALS / EASE / LightGCN), content scoring over genres, categories, Steam tags, developers, and publishers, plus AI-extracted vibes mined from review text. The page above is generated in seed mode anchored on Starbound.
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