Stars Reach is live in early access: wobbly servers and cold reviews on day one

Raph Koster's sandbox MMORPG is playable at last. Playable Worlds opened paid early access for Stars Reach on Steam on August 18, exactly the date it had been promising since July, without slipping a single day.

The studio's post is a short welcome: your first steps happen on Haven, where Mayor Bob and the townsfolk walk you through fighting, foraging and crafting with your starting tools. Under that sit combat, building, government, trade and the crafting system rebuilt from scratch in the last big patch, plus portals and wormholes for hopping between planets.

That same post admits the servers are rough and the team is still tuning them to smooth things out. Playable Worlds says it will use that Steam thread to post known issues, downtime and maintenance windows for as long as the launch period lasts.

Reception started rough: a few hours after the doors opened, the Steam page read Mostly Negative, at 39% positive across 98 reviews. It is a small sample from a hot day, and it is also the number anyone who lands on the store page sees before buying.

The plan on the store page hasn't moved: at least six months in early access, a progression wipe before 1.0, and the switch to free-to-play at that version, when the $30, $50 and $80 founders packs stop being sold. Until then, getting in costs money.