Is Starsand Island, the new farm sim in early access, worth your time?

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The first highly-anticipated farming sim of the year has arrived, and it’s a real gem. Starsand Island is a crafting-centric life and farming simulator where you return to the sunny island of your childhood to reconnect with old friends, explore new romantic interests, and help transform the town into a bustling tourist hotspot by chopping down trees and crafting items for main story quests.

Revitalizing small towns takes time, and Starsand seems to offer a longer playtime than I initially expected. You can find out more about my first season in Starsand Island, but here’s a quick overview for fellow farm sim fans on what to anticipate from this title compared to other life sims.

Release date: February 11, 2026 (early access)
Price: $27.93 during early access, $39.90 at full launch
Steam Deck: ⚠️ Playable
Full release: Expected summer 2026
Play time: Developer estimates at least 100 hours in early access

Starsand Island is a life sim that emphasizes crafting quests. Picture a system similar to the crafting stations in Palia or My Time At Portia, with a touch of creature breeding and automation reminiscent of Palworld.

Feature	Included?	How it works
Farming	✅	Crops grow on a continuous timer, not once per day
Ranching	✅	Animals have roles like eating weeds or bugs and can be bred for specific traits
Mining	✅	Mine higher rarity ore materials by progressing through the dungeon-like forest
Crafting	✅	Build and upgrade crafting stations to process materials for increasingly complex quests
Fishing	✅	Reel in fish without snapping your line then sell, cook, or display them
Friendship / Romance	✅	Give gifts to unlock tiers of friendship, eventually inviting a partner to move in together
Combat	✅	Use a ranged slingshot or bow to fight bosses in the forest or bring automated little robots to fight for you
Museum / Collections	❌	There isn’t a museum or community center bundles collections system
Character progression	✅	Complete quests to level each job (farming, ranching, crafting, fishing, exploration) and unlock gameplay perks at each tier
Calendar events	⚠️	There are seasonal events but townies don’t have birthdays on the calendar
Shop simulation	❌	There’s no market or shop simulation element
Character customization	✅	Buy or craft new outfits, save presets, and set your own daytime, swimwear, and pyjamas
Property customization	✅	An almost level-editor like freeform build mode with detailed editing and toggled snapping
Multiplayer	⚠️	Planned for full launch

One of my favorite features in Starsand is its build system, which allows for deep customization of my home. I needed a lot of stone and wood to expand my crafting patio, but I easily pieced together a floor and then toggled snapping off to create a custom lattice ceiling that I’m quite proud of. If I ever feel overwhelmed, Starsand offers a “layouts” feature with attractive pre-made homes that only require me to gather the necessary resources.

Currently, Starsand lacks a strong incentive to sell my crops or crafted items. I’ve made enough money from basic bulletin board tasks and the “stamps” achievement system that I find myself hoarding produce instead of selling it. The developers have acknowledged “balance and reward distribution” as a known issue, so I’m curious to see if this changes during early access.

Starsand Island feels nearly feature-complete, with a few minor rough edges like vehicle handling and occasional voice line glitches. A major feature planned for the 1.0 launch is multiplayer, though the developers haven’t provided detailed information on how co-op will function.

Initially, I found driving vehicles and riding mounts to be a bit floaty and awkward, but a pre-launch patch has already improved the experience with more responsive steering. Similarly, navigating tools and UI menus with a controller was somewhat convoluted until the same patch streamlined tool selection to the D-pad and made other enhancements. Feedback is being incorporated quickly, and these minor issues haven’t diminished my enjoyment of Starsand’s quests and characters.

For those who care about playtime value: I spent 23 hours completing my first season in Starsand, earning 2 out of 5 friendship tiers with a few characters and reaching rank 2 out of 5 in four professions. The developers estimate that early access offers “more than 100 hours” of content, and if I maintain my current pace through the first in-game year, that seems accurate.

For life sim enthusiasts: Having played many life sims, I believe Starsand is a solid representation of the genre based on my first season. It addresses common frustrations like managing storage chests and introduces fun features like rentable mounts, customizable outfits, and a detailed building system. It’s the first 3D farming sim I find visually appealing and easy to control. Just be prepared for a heavy focus on crafting and resource gathering.

For those interested in romance: Building friendships is currently a slow grind in Starsand, as advancing to a new affection tier requires weeks of gifts and conversations. The short cutscenes introducing each love interest give me hope for what dates might be like, but without experiencing one yet, it’s hard to gauge how special those moments will feel. In the meantime, daily interactions with love interests often involve repeating the same dialogue.