My Rant About the Storytelling of Astroneer, and its Directive Based Gameplay
For those of you who do not know, Astroneer has a story. I won't talk about it in detail, but the story gives me chills. There is an amazing video that explores the lore of the base game, minus the DLC's and stuff. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/7FoNk5ELA1c?si=W1lw6VUgF5L-ETuH I did not finish this video because I am determined to solve the rest of the lore by myself.
With that out the way, here is my rant:
When I played this game, I found myself driving across Sylvia for hours, trying to find pods with curious items because of how interested I was with the story, noting down the logs in the curious objects, activating and reactivating them over and over again waiting for something to happen, and nothing did. So I gave up on those. And then I gave up on the story.
I love storytelling in games. As much as I love sandbox games like Minecraft and KSP, nothing draws me back to a game then when there is a distinct story that I am deeply interested in. This is similar to my favorite game, subnautica. I loved the game, but what made me come back to it wasn't the creatures, it was the story. It still stands as my favorite game, even if I don't play it any more. When I read the logs from the curious items in astroneer, I have the same curiosity from Subnautica. They are so incredibly intriguing in a game where I only expected resource gathering. But without any leads to pick up on, I gave up on the story.
This is where I went wrong, and where I wish the game was different. It's in the directives.
This next section is kinda spoilers, so please don't read if you are interested in the story.
In order to advance in the story, you need to complete the directives. But this is so incredibily difficult when mid to late game directive takes up to hours to complete. On top of that, the game drowns you out with 15 directives at once. And on top of the top of that, when you complete a directive, it gives you another one to complete that takes longer. For example, you have the rail system on Glacio. It required me to mine deeper and deeper in the Glacio and build rail bundles. It was a long time ago so I don't remember all the details, but it took me days of nonstop playing just to finish the rail network and get all of the frozen argon, or whatever it was.
And then it told me to activate a rail outpost on Calidor.
Needless to say, I didn't do it. In my mind, I spent hours doing something I did not feel was necessary, with rewards that I did not need or want, just for it to instruct me to repeat the process on a different planet, where I would once again need to make a base, mine deep into the planet, and spend more hours on something that I don't feel is important. The same goes for the processor units on Desolo or Novus. It seemed like busy work that had me planet hopping countlessly and wasting fuel.
What I didn't know at the time was that the way to progress in the story was to complete these directives. But that being said, there is no indication that by completing these directives, you can advance in the story. There is barely any mention of any substantial story in the directives, other than lines that can easily be overlooked or brushed off. I don't recall ever feeling like I completed a milestone or got closer to the finish line after completed a directives. Because I didn't know that by completing endless objectives would get me farther into the story, I stopped completing them and just played the game my way, which of course thwarted any progression into the story.
Here is my opinion. Astroneer walks on a line in between Sandbox and story game. But imagine that line is torn in two, thrown in the air, and dusted in sand. It has elements of a story game that don't fit in well with a sandbox game, and elements of a sandbox game that don't fit well with a story game. The objectives is one of those elements. Objectives are things usually found in story games. The game wants to lead the player somewhere in order to progress the story. In Astroneer, the story is so incredibly subtle that the directives don't feel meaningful. They feel like "Go here, do this, craft that, reward". And while that works for a short amount of time and helps new players learn the game, it makes late game incredibly tedious. Another example would be the very subtle story. The curious items are a great way to spark curiosity, but a not so great way to leading the players to the story. It makes it so subtle to the point where I didn't think the story was something that could be pursued or solved. I think this unintentionally leads players like me to have to guess how to continue, and in combination with how meaningless some objectives feel, turned me away from the game.
I want to end this whole speech that's longer than some of my essay's by saying that Astroneer is a great game. I know I sound harsh, but I was hooked by this game when I first played it, and needless to say I will return to this game to actually finish the rest of the story I did not watch. I am with the people who love this game, and I understand why I might sound a bit crazy to the people who like the freedom and aren't as interested in the story. The developers of this game deserve praise, especially considering its rocky development. Despite the bugs, and despite some blaring issues, this game will always be great.