Starcom: Unknown Space

The appeal of Starcom: Unknown Space is turning a small scout into a custom starship while investigating uncharted systems. At ≈ $9.73 from GOG, it suits players looking for exploration, research, and tactical combat in a solo journey. The Steam PC version has full controller support, and ship modules let you tailor your approach. At $16.24 from GOG, this is a timely buy if exploration and designing your own starship are the main draw.

Loading store offers

92%Steam Reviews4.5K reviews

Released: Sep 2, 2024

Space · Exploration · Open World · Space Sim · Action RPG

GOGStarcom: Unknown Space·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-19~~~ $13.77~~-29%from~ $9.73(~ CN¥65.00)ALL-TIME LOWSave $6.51 vs SteamBuy now

Steam·Platform:·United States Steam official price~~~ $24.99~~-35%~ $16.24Buy now

All-time low ~ $12.49across Steam & third-party storesat the recorded all-time low

Loading store offers

Wishlist price

Set a target to receive an email when an eligible offer in your selected region is at or below that amount.

Price History

Past 36 months · Updated daily

Historical Low~ $12.492026-03Current Low Across Stores~ $24.99Steamvs. Historical Low+100%

Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.

01About Starcom: Unknown Space

Explore a vast universe of strange worlds and alien factions, investigate anomalies, and reshape your ship around your preferred approach. Research unlocks modules, while your choices influence how alien groups regard you. Steam player rating: 92% across 4,482 reviews. Interface languages: English, German, Russian, and Ukrainian. Released September 2, 2024.

Credits

Developer

Wx3 Labs, LLC

Publisher

Wx3 Labs, LLC

Steam player reviews

92%positiveVery Positive4,482 Steam reviews

Lowest recorded in 36 months

$12.492026-03-28 · SteamBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.

Language support

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
English	Yes	—	—
German	Yes	—	—
Russian	Yes	—	—

Show 1 more languages

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
Ukrainian	Yes	—	—

Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-19

02Before you buy

Exploration and shipbuilding

Explore more than a hundred star systems, investigate anomalies, and design your ship with a flexible module system.

Mode and controls

The Steam PC version offers single-player and full controller support.

Languages

English, German, French, and Japanese are supported interface languages.

03Frequently asked questions

Do I need to know Starcom: Nexus?

No. It tells a new story, and familiarity with Starcom: Nexus is not required.

When can I save?

You can save anywhere outside combat.

How do I unlock ship technology?

Scientific discoveries grant Research Points used to unlock modules and upgrades in the technology tree.

Popular Steam reviews

Native-language selection · 10 reviews

Selected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.

RecommendedSteam player

12/31/2024

There was a PC game I played a long time ago called Solar Winds. A top down 2D space exploration game that at the time felt huge, vast and as if anything could happen if I explored or flew far enough. The anticipation of what I might discover. Played it again as an adult because I remember enjoying it so much but never got a chance to finish it. I learned what the phrase 'through rose-tinted glasses' meant and was slightly let down. Starcom: Unknown Space, in 2024 (haven't played Nexus yet) reminded me of what it felt like to play Solar Winds as a kid and I feel like I got my nostalgia fix I was looking for. Story was well written, light but thought provoking (if you don't mind reading a lot of text as there's no voice acting, which is probably a good thing). Had me hooked trying to piece together the mystery of this 'Unknown Space' while occasionally blowing up enemy ships. I feel there is a lot more that could be added to this game but it was created (mostly) by Just one person so just wow. Worth a play for anyone looking to scratch that space exploration and ship building itch without it getting too complicated. It left me wanting more, which is a good thing....... when's the next one coming?? (^.^)Show moreShow less

50.1 hours at review386 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

12/20/2024

If you're going to have an idle game mechanic where it takes 20 real time minutes just to cross open space, don't have the player mysterious die without prompting and have to reload from last manual save. No one has time for that.Show moreShow less

25 hours at review270 people found this helpful

RecommendedSteam player

09/04/2024

You've played Stellaris, right? Fun, isn't it? But isn't the best part of the game always exploring a new galaxy? Sending out your exploration ships and seeing all the weird things you find, and maybe even getting caught up in some bigger plots here and there? And of course, sometimes running into things that want you extremely dead. Have you ever thought "I'm kinda bored with all that empire building stuff. Wouldn't it be better if I could just play as the exploration ship instead"? If so, this game was made for you. Click the "add to cart" button.Show moreShow less

26.6 hours at review311 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

09/02/2024

I really hate leaving this game a negative review but Steam leaves us no choice without having a neutral button. I cannot recommend this game at this price point. Had it of been $10 or less, sure. Not at $25 though. The game is super repetitive. After 4-5 hours, you have seen everything this game has to offer. Go to new system, scan planets, go to next system, rinse and repeat. The combat is simple in a good way, but also highly repetitive. You also deal with crazy power scaling issues. When you start the game, you quickly find out how pitifully weak you are. You grind resources, build yourself up, go back and dominate the areas that were giving you trouble. Cool! However, VERY shortly after, you find yourself quickly outgunned once again and now you are back to the material and research grind and it is not a fun grind. The ship building is great IMO, if you can ignore the slog of a grind you have to endure to upgrade. My only complaint is there really is no point in using any other weapon system other than plasma. I would love to be given a reason to use the other cool looking systems like missiles and lasers, but there really is no point in them at this time. The story telling, while pretty predictable, is still one of the game's strong suites. The dev also has a lot of attention to detail when it comes to science which is reflected throughout the story and in your exploration encounters. Also, the game is highly polished. I have not ran into any bugs or performance issues. Like I said before, if Steam had a neutral option, I would have picked it. Out of 1-10, I would give this game a 5. I truly hope the dev capitalizes on the foundation he has built, because it is a great foundation. It just needs some more interesting loops added to the game to boost it to a solid 8 out of 10, or a big price cut to something that more reflects what you are getting here.Show moreShow less

12.4 hours at review230 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

03/18/2026

By the time I got around to writing this I hadn't played in nearly a couple of months (when checking my game list of things to uninstall) I realised I got to a point in this game where it wasn't completed, but I played a very decent amount of; yet had no real compelling reason to go back Early on it's very good, you feel a sense of progression both in story and tech advancement - building up your ship , getting better weapons and systems is very fun and I enjoyed that element. But by mid-late game it really grinds to a halt. You're doing the same repeating cycle over and over; go to a new system, scan stuff, maybe do an rng event, maybe fight a bit, and so on. System after system - and none of it really means or impacts anything, beyond perhaps you triggered some other quest gate you had long forgotten about, and get a few resources you probably already have lots of. That's the other problem, the resources. It's an absolute chore to decide how you want to upgrade your ship (have to fly back to HQ) then since various traders only trade certain items you pretty much need to visit most of them (all over the galaxy) to balance out what you might want. It's just a massive pain to even bother with, to the point that it's just easier to out-range an enemy and kill them even though you might be subjectively 'weaker'. The story also really loses its' way and I found myself just engaging in the affairs of other lifeforms' tasks and it might unlock something story related along the way, but I wasn't hugely invested in it by that later point. On the plus side the characters are pretty interesting. the science lady was particularly amusing, and the alien species genuinely felt like that had their own different ways of thinking and agendas. That all aside it is genuinely enjoyable as a sort of space explorer game - I'd give it a neutral rating if I could - it's somewhat akin perhaps to something like Freelancer, except worse in almost every way except modern (albeit basic) graphics.Show moreShow less

60.6 hours at review132 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

08/20/2025

I dunno, this is one of those games that, at first, is super-cool. The longer you play the more the cracks appear, and the bigger those cracks get. Positives: -The graphics in this game are really nice. Planets look pretty cool, space in the background is not migraine-inducing. The stars and effects all look really sharp. The art and art-style are impressive. -Ship-building is a good mix of simple, but detailed. You can customize but you don't get lost in technical mumbo-jumbo. You can make a missle frigate or a laser focused point-defense ship with plasma batteries. It's pretty cool. -The story starts out interestingly enough. -The universe is expansive.. although that leads to the next section.... Negatives: - When your universe gets too expansive you have to balance that open space with convenient travel. This game tries, but it just has too many times where you just set the auto-pilot and go make dinner. There are star-systems with zero 'flingers' or wormholes to warp you to and you just.. have to fly there.. the long and slow way. - There are items you have to find out in the middle of nowhere. In the vast empty of space, somewhere, is this one item. The easiest way to find a needle in a haystack is with a magnet. Too often, this game provides no magnet. - The good story quickly gets way too convoluted. I got to a point where I stopped trying to follow it. I don't remember who or what told me to go where or why or what this race is, and why they're looking into artifacts about that race or.. who's creating drone ships and what that has to do with cat and dear aliens trying to kill each other. Ffs I give up. I'll just kill everyone and RP the bad guy, way easier than following universal bread-crumbs and intergalactic drama. - The next problematic issue is the quests and quest systems are too convoluted and complex. To the point where an update tried to fix quests not triggering because previous quests weren't done in the right order. They also added a feature so you search log notes to look for quest information. If you need a search function for breadcrumbs in text dialogue, it's too much. It's all just.. too much. - The last major negative is that there is one quest where two races are being played against each other by a third faction. And you kind of have to make a choice about who gets wiped out, unless you do this long, weird, over-complex quest that, if you find, and do, everything right, it might work out. I stopped played at this point. Morally ambiguous decisions where you have to watch two groups, neither of which is right or wrong, kill one another, and you are going to take part in one side or another... no. If my only choice is a crazy-complicated quest, that I may not be able to do or uninstalling - I am uninstalling. This is a great game, when it can keep it simple. The problem is, way too often, it can't. The quests are convoluted, the factions and their dynamics are overly complex, the amount of chat dialogue you need to track is excessive.. it's just way more work than I, as a player, want to put into a game. And because of the quest line between the two races destroying each other, and having no clear way to reliably (and understandably) intervene, I'm out. If I want complex issues and inter-racial tension, I'll watch the news.Show moreShow less

25.7 hours at review96 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

02/21/2023

The game places you in an unfamiliar world at the helm of something like a survey ship in Stellaris, or the captain's chair in Star Trek Voyager. You fly around (slowly) between stars and planets, spotting anomalies and sending your crew as landing parties to investigate them. Occasionally you'll meet alien races and get involved in their politics or have to fight them. Every so often you'll return to your main base to research new technologies and upgrade your ship with the materials you found. None of this content is procedural, and the writing is pretty good (more so for world building than character development), so the feeling of discovery and wonder is really there. The simple, clear, and elegant aesthetic vaguely reminiscent of an art-deco style contributes to this atmosphere. The highlight is the excellent ship building: a good mixture of abstraction and functionality, giving an experience halfway between puzzle solving and creative expression. Sadly, the good mostly stops there. The ship building only impacts combat, which is a very small portion of the game, and one that is trivial once you've reached the halfway point. Speaking of combat, the hectic, 80s arcade feel of it seriously clashes with the calm and meditative mood the rest of the game has. Solving anomalies is a bigger part of the game, and that's done with dice based stats checks. But those stats are completely unrelated to the ship or anything you can control; instead they get increased by the crew levelling up - which only happens when solving anomalies! The catch-22 is self evident; the lack of player agency all too clear. The larger problem, however, is that the game forces the player to wait all the time. I don't mean it's slow, I mean you have to wait. Twiddle your thumbs, make yourself a coffee, chat with the the neighbours, and take the dog out level of waiting. Travelling between stars can take a couple of minutes of doing nothing but waiting for the autopilot to get you there. Even fast travel takes 10+ seconds between neighbours. If you fail to solve an anomaly (through the bad luck of the dice roll) you'll have to wait up to 15min before being able to try another without a huge penalty. Time during which there's nothing worth doing as any exploration will require you to back peddle for the anomalies you skipped once your crew has healed. If combat doesn't go great, you'll have to hide and wait while your hull heals before you can do anything again. Even trivial things like getting science points from objects you pick up requires navigating a menu and then waiting for an entirely unnecessary bar to fill up. In every single aspect of the game, when there's a cost to be associated to a mechanic, the dev decided that it should be to eat up the player's time and make them wait. Frankly, that's borderline disrespectful; and neither enjoyable, nor interesting, nor engaging. That said, the game does have some very good sides; the writing and the aesthetics makes for a nice atmosphere, and the ship builder is very well executed. But they're not enough to carry the disjointed, disparate mechanics. There's far too little content as is: 15h for me to clear the map, a large chunk of it spend AFK because the game needed me to wait. Some people will like the product as it is, but at this point there's very little reason to hand over money other than to support the developer. I'm hoping that with more work it will become a gem, and I will check back on it as it progresses, but for now it's too shallow to really shine.Show moreShow less

14.7 hours at review95 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.