The name Starborne might ring a bell to some of you space game fans out there – and no, we’re not talking about dimension hoppers in Starfield. The original Starborne, subtitled Soverign Space, was an ambitious, genre-mashing MMO and RTS hybrid, and now its successor is live on Steam after many months on mainly mobile platforms. Its name is Starborne Frontiers, and it’s a strategic autobattler that has the added bonus of being free-to-play.
Starborne Frontiers was intended to be a lot closer to its older brother, and the project started out as an MMORPG. However, over time, Icelandic developer Solid Clouds scaled back its ambition somewhat and morphed the game into a “squad RPG” with combat that fans of strategy games, particularly autobattlers, will really gel with. The game centres around a galactic battle between ten warring factions and the emergence of a mysterious force known as The Abyss.
There are both PvE and PvP game modes, and as you progress through the game you’ll unlock more pilots and ships that you can use as part of your fleet. There are over 100 bespoke options to get, but you can also tinker with them and improve them with a customization system that lets you change a ship’s “weapons, shields, and software.” You’ve got six gear slots to fill on each vessel, so pick wisely. In battle, you need to pick a composition of ships that will be tough to beat and plan your formations and attacks strategically to defeat an opposing fleet.
While the game has been on mobile for a little while now, it is now finally out on Steam, and to coincide with coming out on Valve’s platform, there’s a big Halloween update arriving too. This adds a new (and slightly strange) new PvE boss called Count Garlick who has a minion of bats led by Gary the Bat. No, I’m not joking.
It does also introduce a day and night cycle, which did confuse me a bit at first given this is set in outer space. However, when you’re fighting against an evil bat called Gary, who cares. When the blood moon rises as part of this new mechanic, that’s when Gary and his minions will flock to the battlefield.
Starborne Frontiers is out right now on Steam and is free-to-play. You can find out more about it and download it for yourself right here.
For more, check out our lists of the best RTS games and best autobattlers on PC so you can unearth some other excellent strategic games.
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