Lightyear Frontier, now in early access on Steam and Xbox Game Pass, is a chill farming and crafting sim that lets you explore a sci-fi planet however you want.
I wake up in the morning and immediately get into my mech; I never leave home without it. An unnecessarily cheery voice in my ear tells me that it’s a beautiful day and maybe I should water my crops. I attach a big hose to my mech’s arm and water my berries. Then, I walk out into the giant meadow where I’ve made my home, feed the local wildlife, and wander over to a huge, mysterious door. When I’m done, I go home, leave my mech, and crawl back into bed for a good night’s sleep. I think about the upgrades I need to collect resources for and the areas I have to explore, but I know I can take my time.
This is how most days go in Lightyear Frontier, developed by Frame Break and Amplifier Game Invest and just released in Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview. (It’s included with Game Pass on both console and PC.) It’s a sim in which you explore and take care of a pastoral, abandoned planet while using a mech. The idea of being inside a mech in a video game is already appealing regardless of genre, and by combining this with the ever-popular farming and crafting sim, Lightyear Frontier feels like a no-brainer for a lot of players.
But it appeals to another kind of player, too: the kind that just wants to vibe, man. A lot of farming and crafting games task you with some larger goal. Stardew Valley has you build a farm and use your charm to bring life back to a dying community, while others task you with building a successful business. Lightyear Frontier tasks you with bringing this planet (you name it at the start) back to life and unraveling mysteries involving some ancient ruins and PIP-3R, the upbeat and slightly annoying in-orbit probe that helps you along your journey.
