The Planet Crafter is bringing its chill terraforming to consoles in July

Miju Games is bringing its hit terraforming survival game The Planet Crafter to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on July 21. The console release includes day-one availability on Xbox Game Pass.

The game originally hit PC early access in 2022 before reaching its full release in April 2024. It just crossed two million copies sold on Steam, proving there is a massive market for survival games that do not constantly try to murder you. There are no zombies, hostile aliens, or rival factions to shoot. The only enemy is the barren, dusty rock you just crashed your escape pod into.

Making the sky blue

You start with a tiny drop pod and a strict oxygen limit. Early gameplay involves making short, panicked sprints to gather iron and ice before you suffocate. You build wind turbines, thermal heaters, and basic drills to slowly alter the planet's atmospheric pressure and temperature.

The progression system is visible and permanent. As your machines run, the sky transitions from a harsh red to a breathable blue. Eventually, clouds form and rain starts falling. The dry canyons fill with water to create lakes, moss spreads across the rocks, and you unlock the ability to engineer plant and animal life.

The developers took heavy inspiration from idle games. Your terraforming equipment keeps running as long as your power grid holds up. This leaves you free to explore the map, hunt for rare minerals in meteor craters, and investigate procedurally generated shipwrecks without having to manually feed your machines.

From survival to science

The late game shifts entirely away from basic survival. Once the atmosphere is breathable, you stop worrying about oxygen tanks. The focus moves to genetic manipulation and massive automation. You build incubators to mix DNA extracts, eventually populating your new world with fish, frogs, and custom animal species.

Console players will have access to the massive base-building tools PC players have been using for years. You can construct sprawling, multi-tiered glass domes and connect them with transit tubes. The building system is highly modular, letting you snap together massive agricultural hubs and storage facilities right on the water's edge.

No crossplay at launch

The console versions support online co-op. You can build those massive bases and explore the map with up to seven other players.

Miju Games recently confirmed that multiplayer is restricted to players on the same platform family. PlayStation players cannot currently play with Xbox or Steam users. If you want to build a world with your friends, you all need to be in the same hardware ecosystem.

The survival genre usually focuses on keeping the player alive against external threats. The Planet Crafter flips the script by making the environment the project instead of the antagonist. Turning a dead planet into a lush, green resort is a deeply satisfying loop, and console players can finally start digging in the dirt next month.