Starheim

Media

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). 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. 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. Everything has full physics, making it possible to push another player into the sun if you wanted to. (and they stayed still long enough) Ships move rediculously fast, so you can turn your ship into a kamikase craft. You can pick up asteroids with your tractor beam and launch them at people really fast if you want. 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. There are safe zones around upgrade centers and shops. Boss fights are designed to be taken on by a party of at least 2 players, and party members share EXP, encouraging team play. 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. 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. 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 built or looted and equipped to ships to increase their stats. 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.