Pixel Starships

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Mostly Positive · 73%Mostly Positive · 73%2023

Free to play

US Steam price, checked 2 h ago

The verdict

A deep FTL-like ship builder with programmable crew AI, wrapped in a mobile-style free-to-play game with long timers and heavy pay-to-win. Skip it if you hate wait timers, monetization or bugs.

Great for

Tinkerers who love min-maxing ship layouts and scripting crew AI, in short casual daily sessions

Main risk

Multi-day upgrade timers and pay-to-win walls gate progress and PvP behind real money

What players love

Deep ship building and strategy

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews

“Designing every room, managing the crew, and programming ship systems gives Pixel Starships an impressive amount of strategic depth.”
Steam review · 1.7 h played ↗

“Much deeper strategy than I was expecting from a free2play game.”
Steam review · 504.6 h played ↗

“The seemingly simple game has strategic depths that will surprise you.”
Steam review · 360 h played ↗

Unique crew and room AI scripting

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews

“The AI coding aspect is unique and makes this game interesting for me.”
Steam review · 20.1 h played ↗

“Learn programming logic via the scripting AI for rooms and crew.”
Steam review · 2382.5 h played ↗

“Programming the AI for your ship and crew gives this game a unique spin.”
Steam review · 132.1 h played ↗

Helpful, active community

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 positive reviews

“Various fun strategies and a healthy community to learn those strategies from!”
Steam review · 8.2 h played ↗

“But I have asked for help and the community has helped.”
Steam review · 4 h played ↗

F2P is viable, not too pushy

Mentioned in ~1 in 13 positive reviews

“Great game - f2p definitely possible. Paying sometimes speeds things up but not needed.”
Steam review · 342 h played ↗

“FTP can get you very far, and there is no paywall on content.”
Steam review · 379.2 h played ↗

Frequent updates and charming pixel style

Mentioned in ~1 in 17 positive reviews

“They are updating both of them almost every single day”
Steam review · 475.1 h played ↗

“Great pixel graphics, good sound and entertaining stories that read like a comic book. Constant updates and great support when needed.”
Steam review · 705.6 h played ↗

Casual, idle-style play

Mentioned in ~1 in 19 positive reviews

“If you plan to visit it once a day for like 5min, it is great.”
Steam review · 15 h played ↗

“it plays more like an idle game. Is it the best idle game I have ever played? Definitely!”
Steam review · 67.2 h played ↗

What players complain about

Pay-to-win monetization

Mentioned in ~3 in 5 negative reviews

“Extreme disadvantage if you do not constantly pay money.”
Steam review · 121.7 h played ↗

“It's not even optional anymore to not pay because the p2win crew and rooms give such a huge advantage, without them you get farmed in pvp by 100 people a day.”
Steam review · 47.1 h played ↗

“At high levels it becomes impossible to play without donations, you'll just get crushed by Chinese players.”
Steam review · translated · 26.4 h played ↗

Huge upgrade timers and grind

Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews

“Bottom line: You will spend more time not playing the game than playing the game.”
Steam review · 10.9 h played ↗

“Its fun but once you need to wait a whole day for something to upgrade and can do nothing else its really bad.”
Steam review · 34.2 h played ↗

“you wait two or three days for buildings and there's no point logging in.”
Steam review · translated · 91.2 h played ↗

Bugs and server connection errors

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews

“-Constant bugs that have been there for years -New bugs -Lack of bug fixes”
Steam review · 272.7 h played ↗

“The game says "Connection lost" several times a minute and restarts, losing all trophies.”
Steam review · translated · 37.8 h played ↗

“There are issues with the game, and any time it encounters one it resets.”
Steam review · 3.3 h played ↗

Mobile port feel, clumsy UI

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“Mobile game. No volume control. Clumsy ship / crew control / customization interface.”
Steam review · 0.7 h played ↗

“Awful port. All the problems of mobile games are on display.”
Steam review · translated · 0.1 h played ↗

Developers ignore community, nerfs and sequel

Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews

“the Developers are absolutely terrible at listening to the community which joins to make a miserable Player Experience.”
Steam review · 2541.5 h played ↗

“Savy's inability to listen or care about its community while using us as a cash cow and not fixing literally 5+ year bugs killed all hope I have for the game.”
Steam review · 679.2 h played ↗

Can't launch or log in (RU region, accounts)

Mentioned in ~1 in 14 negative reviews

“The game only works with a VPN. Thanks, devs.”
Steam review · translated · 54.2 h played ↗

“the customer support is poor, and creating a new account is a nightmare after you already had one.”
Steam review · 27.8 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Verified

Minimum

OSWindows 10

Processor2Ghz

Memory2 GB RAM

GraphicsIntegrated GFX

Storage500 MB available space

Recommended

OSWindows 11

Processor3Ghz

Memory16 GB RAM

Graphics1GB Graphics Memory

Storage1 GB available space

OSWindows 10

Processor2Ghz

Memory2 GB RAM

GraphicsIntegrated GFX

Storage500 MB available space

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