Gather ‘round, Astroneers! We know we’ve been a bit quiet as of late, but it’s because we’ve been hard at work on both STARSEEKER and new updates for ASTRONEER. We’re excited to share more on both games real soon, but we also have a plan to keep you better up to date on the happenings here at System Era. So, let’s start with the most exciting news!
Earlier this week we shared this teaser on our social channels. For all of you that won’t be at PAX WEST, we will be doing a STARSEEKER Direct in September! More details to come, but expect to get a deep dive on STARSEEKER gameplay then!
We earlier announced that we would be doing this direct on September 4th, but a certain other big game launches that day so we decided to delay it slightly. We will update you all with a date ASAP.
We have exciting details to share with you about our next big game, STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions. Join us for a packed livestream to reveal more details on gameplay and other specifics about the game we’ve been dying to share. We might even have some ASTRONEER sneak peeks to share as well.
We love sharing cool ASTRONEER merch, it was a hit in our last PAX show, but this year for the first time we’re also bringing brand-new STARSEEKER goodies!
PAX West 2025
That’s right! We’ll be heading to our favorite convention that’s also just around the corner from our headquarters, PAX West. We’ll have a real nice space-y booth to welcome fans and new friends alike, and many of our System Era folks will be there too in order to help out and get a chance to meet you. But what will we be doing there?
STARSEEKER Demos: You read that right! This will be the first opportunity where players get the chance to try out a snapshot of our brand-new game set in the Astroneer universe, STARSEEKER. We haven’t shared much on the game yet because it’s been in active development since we unveiled it earlier this year, but we think we have a snippet of the game that’s really fun and we look forward to sharing at PAX.
Merch & Swag: What’s a convention without goodies of your favorite games? We’ll be sharing free custom badges for anyone who has a go at the STARSEEKER demo, but we’ll also have some cool merch available for sale for anyone looking to proudly show their love of our games. We have a few new items you might not have seen before, so make sure to have a look. Some things to note:
- Every purchase at the merch store will come with a free Foam Carrotling Mitt.
- Anyone who visits our booth can get one of the many cards we’ll be giving away with redemption codes for the Safety First palette so you can match Frank’s unique fashion sense.
- These promotions are available while supplies last.
Of course, we also look forward to just getting to meet up with our fans and answer any questions we can about both ASTRONEER and STARSEEKER. If you do get the chance to attend PAX, make sure you drop by to say hello:
- Booth: 1613, Level 4 of the southern side of the Seattle Convention Center’s Arch Building, at 705 Pike Street.
- Days: Friday, August 29th to Monday, September 1st.
- Demos: Running all throughout the day while the event is open!
No, this doesn’t mean we’re adding dragons (Yet???).
A New CM Enters the Chat
It’s always tricky to jump into a new community that’s been around for a few years already and try to sit on the big chair as Community Manager. The good folks at System Era have helped bring forth an endearing community of space nerds, whether it be for the love of exploration, mass production assembly lines, or just having a cozy little base in space to call your own where you can find some peace mining for resin.
I usually go by the monicker of Honourael online (pronounced like monorail), but you can also just call me Chris. I’ve been working as a CM for a variety of games for the past decade, but most importantly, I’m a fan of all things nerdy. I also love me a good strategy or 6X game like Civ, or a fun survival sandbox game like Subnautica or Grounded, so I always had ASTRONEER on my radar, but I admit I’m a bit of a novice compared to everyone.
I know I have some big shoes to fill, so I’ll do my best to help Joe and SES out in making sure we maintain good communications with our community, as well as ensure it’s a fun and welcoming space for all Astroneers. In fact, I’ve been in lurker mode for some time now to try and work on some changes that will help with these goals, and this new blog series is one such addition.
SES Community Updates
One thing that’s clear to us at System Era is that we haven’t been sharing as much as we’d like. We started as a small scrappy team and have grown over the years to support ASTRONEER and its wonderful community, but the more we grow the harder it’s been to keep up on our messaging. With this new monthly blog series, our hope is to change that and keep you better informed of both the happenings at SES and our community.
It’s not every month that we’ll have big news to share, but even during slower months we’ll be aiming to share an update. This might mean giving you a sneak peek at something we’re working on, learning more about how a member of the SES team does their work, or giving a deep dive into a specific topic. These blogs will often coincide with important milestones in the month, so they might not always come out the same day, but they’ll still be monthly.
Community Roundup
As part of our push to maintain communications, we’re also bringing back the Community Roundup, but it will look and work a little differently. Instead of just gathering all of the cool community content we’ve seen since the last roundup in a single place, we’ll be featuring three members of the community.
The plan is not just to feature fanart, or even new fanart, we might do some digging for cool community content we didn’t feature before, but we’ll also try to feature contributors from the community who have shared useful resources like their own crafting chart or a helpful guide. We’ll reach out for permission to feature you via Discord, and everyone who gets featured will also receive a code for a mysterious Secret Stalk Hat to wear in-game.
- Note: Only an official SES team member will ever reach out, you can recognize them by their server tags. We’ll never ask for any personal information, only your approval to share your work via our channels and links to credit you accordingly.
So, let’s kick things off with an especially cool community creation that caught my eyes in scanning our community channels! I’m a big fan of LEGO, and ASTRONEER’s clicky-ness always makes me think of playing with a LEGO set (the Dev team will be the first to tell you that’s no coincidence).
These amazing LEGO creations are the handiwork of ITeter and they truly encapsulate (pun intended) the look and feel of EXO technology! You can find more of ITeter’s work on Instagram and even show your support by buying the build instructions here so you can make some of these at home!
Little Victories
It’s not just fan artists and contributors that will get a chance at getting featured and earning a Secret Stalk Hat, we also have this Little Victories section where we feature two players, one who shared something really cool they made in-game and another who might just be starting at the game but still shared a proud moment or milestone, like finally getting around to tidying up their base or crafting their first rare material.
If you share either a cool creation or a proud moment with a good enough quality screenshot or video (sorry, no pictures of screens), then you’ll be eligible. For the sake of fairness, there will be an element of randomness and we’ll avoid repeats, so keep sharing those screenshots and videos in our official Discord’s media channel as you normally would and keep an eye out for a DM from our team!
When faced with the question of how much research is enough research, T0astii’s answer is “Yes.” Maybe we should be thinking bigger too. Hmm…
A common recommendation we see players give each other is to wait until you’ve completed the base game before diving into the Glitchwalkers DLC. Before taking this big leap, meen decided to immortalize the moment with this nostalgic interplanetary tour.
Sneak Leek
Lastly, every entry of the SES Community Update series should have a teaser of what we’re working on like this one, or “leeks”, as we affectionately call them in our Discord. Some months might have riper leeks than others, but we’ll try to always feature at least a small peek behind the curtain.
On this occasion, signs indicate that this leek might be of interest to you.
Keep your ears to the ground because we have much more to share! Especially right after PAX. 😉
– Honourael.
More Astroneer Content in These Places