Starheim is a free to play spaceship piloting MMO set in a universe based on Norse mythology. Materials collected by destroying AI ships, other players, and mining asteroids can be used to upgrade your ship, with dozens of models to choose from on your journey from a small fighter to a dreadnought.
All Reviews:
Mostly Negative (13) - 38% of the 13 user reviews for this game are positive.
Release Date:
Oct 27, 2023

Sign in to add this item to your wishlist, follow it, or mark it as ignored

Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“The game's core is done and about 15-30 hours of content is added, but there are 9 worlds (regions of space) planned and as of now there are only 4.
Ships can currently be leveled up to around level 40 out of 100, with different ship models around every 10 levels. (Fighter, Destroyer, Frigate, Artillery Ship, Dreadnought) The ships already exist in the project, they just have to be set up.
The game is developed by one person, and I feel like enough is done that people could get enjoyment out of the game in it's current state while I continue to create the rest of the planned maps, with the added benefit of feedback from players.
The multiplayer nature of the game allows people to continue playing around with other players even if they do run into the content wall after defeating the first 4 bosses.
In some ways the Early Access is also to gauge how much interest there is in this style of game that mixes genres that aren't usually mixed.
If it does attract player interest in Early Access, I would like to expand the scope to include building your own space station that can be visited by other players, complete with areas to display your ships and other achievements.
The player interaction aspect is definitely prioritized over story.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“The game will be out of early access when all 9 regions of space and all 9 region bosses are added. There is a basic story planned involving gods from Norse Mythology as well. Estimated time for that is 6-12 months.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“More features are planned such as a faction vs faction PvP event and player to player market.

The existing maps will be filled up with more content, and additional boss mechanics are planned such as missiles that fly up and create a red circle that shows where they are going to explode, giving players a chance to get away. This kind of stuff seems like the best way to make bosses harder in a way that damage can be mitigated with skill rather than just ramping up boss difficulty till its impossible without a strong enough ship.

*This has since writing been completed* An "Artillery Cruiser" class of ship is planned, and the models are already in the project, but at least one additional weapon type needs to be created for them. The idea with the artillery ship is to have a "heavy weapon" slot that can have a huge railgun that can hit anything in a line in front of you within far clip distance of you. The ship's other stats will need to be lower than other ships to balance it around having a super weapon.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Fully playable with PvE content up to level 40 out of the planned level 100.
Online multiplayer + open PvP adds significant gameplay potential even after PvE content is played through, along with the ability to continue partying up to fight bosses.
Multiplayer features such as trading, parties, factions, chat/PMing, PK Points and dropping equipment on death as a PKer are all working.
An open PvP area with zero repercussions for dying exists for players to fight eachother without having to worry about losing anything.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“It's free to play so the price won't change after early access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“There is a bug reports and suggestions channel on the game's discord server where players can get involved in development of the game and usually get a response from the developer directly.”
Read more

Play Starheim

Free To Play
 
See all discussions

Report bugs and leave feedback for this game on the discussion boards

About This Game

Starheim is a free to play spaceship piloting looter shooter MMO with ship progression set in a universe based on Norse mythology in early access for PC and Android (Google Play).

Combat:

The game focuses heavily on ship to ship combat, allowing players to blow up NPC ships en mass and collect the loot they drop, or fight other players.

The main idea is to simplify the spaceship piloting mechanic seen in other big space titles like Eve or Elite Dangerous by locking ships and bullets so everything is on a flat plane. Not having to deal with anything moving up and down makes it possible to control a very fast moving ship, dodge bullets, and warp around like not usually seen in MMO space games.
A major decision was made early in development to not feature any kind of "Heat seeking missile" type weapons, meaning you have to actually point your ship at a target to hit them. I've never really cared for the "Locking on and firing a missile and waiting to see if it hits" type of space combat, even if it is more realistic.
Boss fights are designed to be taken on by a party of at least 2 players, and party members share EXP, encouraging team play.

Physics:

Ships are all driven by real physics, meaning when you push the forward button, your ship gets pushed forward with realistic thrust, and momentum is maintained until you press back to activate the reverse thrusters to slow down. This can be challenging to get the hang of, but it does make for a more realistic spaceship pilioting experience, and opens up ways for players to play around with the physics.
Slamming into another player will effect their movement or send them spinning off, instead of you ship just bouncing off.
Asteroids are driven by real physics too, allowing you to shoot them to launch them at people or NPC enemies.
All ships come equiped with a Tractor Beam, which creates a gravity well in front of the ship that attracts asteroids and NPC ships, allowing you to "grab" an asteroid and carry it around with you and shoot it to launch it at someone on demand.

Open PvP:

While fun combat is always important, the primary goal with the game was to create a sandbox where players can interact with eachother.
A lot of inspiration was taken from oldschool MMOs where you could just get on and mess around with random people in an open PvP enviroment, and the mechanics are as open as possible to allow players the freedom to play however they like.
Most of the world is Open PvP, with the ability to set it to "Peace" or "PK" mode.
Enforcer ships protect high traffic areas like upgrade centers, and will attack PKers on sight.
Death isn't super punishing unless you haven't put stuff in the bank, so it's all in good fun.
PKers (Player Killers) get 10 PKPoints when they kill another player, and getting 30+ PKPoints makes a player redname, where they can drop their equipped modules if they die, upping the stakes for attacking other players.

Factions:

The game has a Faction system that allows peoples to create or join a faction with other players.
Later the faction system will be used for a faction vs faction PvP event, pitting the followers of dark gods like Loki against the gods of order like Thor.

Making the strongest ship you can:

Players can build ships of several different classes including:
Fighters (Speed Focus)
Destroyers (Damage Focus)
Frigates (Survivability Focus)
Artillery Cruisers (Heavy Weapon Focus, think big railgun)
Dreadnought (Good damage and survivability but slower and a bigger target)

Modules to add additional offensive or defensive capabilities can also be bought or looted and equipped to ships to increase their stats.
Ships and Modules have an upgrade system similar to land-based MMORPGs, with stats that go up to Legendary, +9, 2 Sockets.
Since it's based on Norse mythology, we had to make the objects that go into sockets Viking Runes. These runes grant various stat inceases or effects like boosting EXP gained.

Elements:

The game is heavily element based, each weapon being able to change between 8 different elements, changing the visual of the projectile and changing the type of damage it does.
Nearly every ship has an element based energy shield that needs to be taken down before damage can be dealt to the ship's Hull HP.
Hitting a shield with an element that counters it does 50% more damage, for example hitting an Ice shield with Fire element.
Hitting a shield that counters the weapon deals reduced damage, for example hitting an Earth shield with a Lightning bullet.
Countering NPC shields with an opposing element increases their drop rates by 50%.

The game can be played with a Mouse and Keyboard, Touch Screen, and partially with a Controller (Mouse and Keyboard still needed to navigate the UI, Controller to control the ship).
It runs well on Steam Deck even in the early access version, and has an input mode specifically tailored to Steam Deck, but some functionality may always require the touch screen such as dragging items from one inventory to another. Steam Deck is kind of the perfect type of device to play it on since it's the kind of casual experience Steam Deck was built for, so good Steam Deck compatibility is high priority.

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • OS *: Windows 8 or higher
    • Processor: Dual core 1.8 GHz or higher
    • Memory: 2 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Geforce GTX 650 or higher
    • Storage: 2 GB available space
    Recommended:
    • OS *: Windows 8 or higher
    • Processor: Dual Core 2.3 GHz or higher
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Geforce GTX 1070 or higher
    • Storage: 2 GB available space
* Starting January 1st, 2024, the Steam Client will only support Windows 10 and later versions.

Customer reviews for Starheim

Review Type


Purchase Type


Language


Date Range
To view reviews within a date range, please click and drag a selection on a graph above or click on a specific bar.

Show graph



Playtime
Filter reviews by the user's playtime when the review was written:


No minimum to No maximum

Display
Show reviews in selected display order





Learn More
Show graph
 
Hide graph
 
Filters
Excluding Off-topic Review Activity
Playtime:
Played Mostly on Steam Deck
There are no more reviews that match the filters set above
Adjust the filters above to see other reviews
Loading reviews...