It's a survival/crafting game! It has very nice visuals and you walk around in a giant mech which is cool but it's a survival/crafting game! And moreso than almost any genre out there I'm starting to feel like when you've played one, you've played 'em all. (I guess calling it a "survival" game is a bit of a misnomer bc there's no enemies or hostility in this game, you get what I mean lol)

I really do have to give Lightyear Frontier some credit for its visuals, it's super gorgeous, it has a far more artistically interesting world than most of these games. The glowing green lights in the night sky, the pink trees and neon flora. It's nice! I found myself quite interested in the relics and artefacts and stuff, as well as the giant skeleton in the Yellow Forest, it has some cool stuff going on in its world!

But, like most of these games, it's a bit of a slog. It's still in Early Access so I give it somewhat of a pass, but even with your Titanfall mech thing, movement didn't feel fun! It felt sluggish, and almost every day you're having to venture out to a different corner of the map for some resource that can only be found there, and it takes ages to get there and back with basically nothing going on in-between! And it's so easy to get overencumbered without inventory upgrades that certainly early on, you're gonna have to be making multiple trips! Multiple boring trips! I didn't feel like setting up multiple base camps all over the world, that would have drained my resources and made things take even longer! (Also, there's some glitches present, naturally. I fired about 6 red paint blobs at my Upgrade Depot and it simply did not change colour when everything else did, lmao)

But monotony aside, this is a solid foundation. It's got a gorgeous world, some beautiful stuff to make and some gorgeous ways to customise your camp. You could get a real pretty looking homestead if you invest enough time in this! It just needs to be a bit more, uh, fun to get there! Needs a little more life in it! It's still early days, so I'm confident they can bring that, and maybe fix that voice actor's attempt at what I think is supposed to be a Southern accent? Because SHEESH that shit is bad

!! This is a review of the Early Access version !!

Lightyear Frontier's world is an idyllic one. There's no real danger, the animals are cute and friendly, and resources are abundant. This is not a game where you are fighting for your live, but instead one that pitches the fantasy of a beautiful frontier homestead that you can grow on your own time. It's a wonderfully relaxing game thats thematically adjacent to titles like Terra Nil and Slime Ranger.

The Terra Nil comparison is important, because like that game your goal is environmental cleanup. You get access to new resources by cleaning up regions of the world. But the further out you go, the stronger the tools your cleanup efforts require, which is what defines the central progression loop of the game

Cleanup a region -> Get new resources -> Craft new workstations and new tools -> Cleanup more difficult regions

This loop makes for a great sense of progression, where each goal feels manageable with a bit of time and effort. Some environment design choices can pose a few annoying obstacles to this loop, but on the whole progression is consistently satisfying.

On the smaller scale, you spend your days building out farms, crafting resources to use in upgrading your tools and building new decorations and crafting stations. While there is a day/night cycle, you are never forced into certain actions by the cycle, like you are forced to sleep in Stardew Valley. If a new day rolls around while you're out exploring, you get the daily summary of the things you accomplished that day just like if you slept at home, and afterward can continue where you left off.

All of this makes for a wonderfully relaxing experience you can take at your own pace. There are still a few issues with the currently pointless economy, some awkwardness with how fertilizers work, and the necessity of certain buildings, but this early access build still provides a satisfying experience.