StarRupture Early Access Review: A Beautiful, Broken Factory Builder

StarRupture tries to be Satisfactory with guns, but right now it feels more like a shift at a factory where the safety manual is missing and the machines are on fire.

I have spent the last week on Arcadia-7, a planet that is equal parts gorgeous and determined to kill me. This is the latest project from Creepy Jar, the folks who made us pick leeches off our legs in Green Hell. Now, they have traded the Amazon rainforest for a sci-fi penal colony. The premise is simple: you are a prisoner, you owe a debt to a faceless corporation, and your job is to strip-mine this planet until you die or pay up. It is a loop I have played a dozen times before, but StarRupture throws a few curveballs that make it worth talking about, even if I spent half my playtime screaming at the inventory screen.

The World Wants You Dead (And That's Cool)

The star of the show isn't the factory building, it is the planet itself. The game runs on Unreal Engine 5, and it shows. The lighting is incredible, the textures are sharp, and the environments actually feel alien. But the real spectacle is the titular "Rupture."

Periodically, the local star decides to throw a temper tantrum. The sky turns orange, a siren blares, and a wall of fire sweeps across the map. You have to scramble into a shelter or get incinerated. It resets the flora, spawns new resources, and visually looks terrifying. It gives the game a rhythm that other factory builders lack. You aren't just building in a vacuum; you are building against a ticking clock.

Building Is Fun When It Works

The core loop of mining ore, smelting it, and shipping it off to your corporate overlords is satisfying. There is a distinct lack of power poles, which I actually love. Power transmits through the floor foundations, meaning you don't have to wire every single machine like an electrician from hell.

However, the building system is currently a mess.

I cannot tell you how many times I tried to place a machine only to be told "Invalid Placement" or "Collision Detected" when there was absolutely nothing there. The terrain is bumpy, and the game hates it. You have to build massive platforms just to get a flat surface, and even then, snapping rails together can be a glitchy nightmare. When it works, it feels like Factorio in 3D. When it doesn't, it feels like early access jank at its peak.

The User Experience From Hell

Here is where I have to get cynical. The User Experience (UX) in StarRupture is bad. It isn't just "early access" bad; it is "nobody played this with a controller or bad eyesight" bad.

First off, the text size is microscopic. I have 20/20 vision and I was squinting at my monitor to read the resource requirements. There is no slider to fix this.

Secondly, the inventory management is a crime against humanity. You cannot craft items using resources stored in nearby chests. You have to physically take the iron out of the box, put it in your pocket, walk to the bench, and craft. In a game about automation, this manual shuffling is baffling. There is no "sort" button that works well, and the storage containers are awkward to place. It wastes your time in the worst way possible.

Combat And The Chatterboxes

You aren't alone on the planet. There are bugs, Vermin, that want to eat your face and destroy your drills. The combat is functional. You get a pistol, a shotgun, and a rifle, and they feel punchy enough. It isn't Doom, but it works as a way to break up the mining monotony.

What doesn't work is the constant chatter. Your character and the AI handler, GAL, never shut up. The dialogue tries to be witty and sarcastic, but it mostly comes off as grating. I don't need my character to make a quip every time I pick up a rock. Let me suffer in silence, please.

The Verdict

StarRupture is a diamond covered in a lot of mud. The foundation is rock solid. The graphics are great, the concept of the Rupture is fantastic, and the loop of upgrading your tech tree is genuinely addictive. But right now, it is held back by a thousand tiny cuts. The bad UI, the buggy building placement, and the lack of basic Quality of Life features make it a frustrating experience.

If you are a die-hard fan of the genre, you will find fun here. For everyone else, maybe wait for a few patches.

Score: 7.0/10 A stunningly beautiful mess that needs a few more months in the oven.

TECHNICAL RATING 0.0/10

PLUS [+]

• Unreal Engine 5 visuals are stunning and run surprisingly well.
• The Rupture mechanic adds genuine tension to the genre.
• Power distribution through floors is a smart design choice.

MINUS [-]

• Inventory management is tedious and lacks basic QoL features.
• Building placement is buggy and collision detection is awful.
• UI text is microscopic and unreadable on some screens.

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