Available in a playable beta version since early December, Starbound's take on procedurally-generated exploration has at least one galactic-sized milestone to celebrate in 2014. The indie adventure game has sold over 1 million copies, according to a tweet today by developer Chucklefish Games.
Starbound's sales success mirrors another molten-hot, early-access hit of recent weeks, namely the DayZ Standalone alpha. DayZ creator Dean Hall published an update on Reddit over the weekend revealing that the alpha version of the zombie survival game has sold nearly 800,000 copies in less than a month. While both games have some pretty radical differences in tone and setting, they both emphasize open, sandbox-style experiences and are finding huge audiences in spite of their still-evolving development.
The Starbound beta can be here . The developer mentions something about planet-sized "spaceship dungeons," which have me, almost without thinking, reaching for my wallet. Ah, I see what it did there.
Thanks, Games Industry International .
