Five years in, chill exploration-crafting game Astroneer gets its first paid expansion [Video]

Sandboxy exploration and crafting game Astroneer has released its first paid expansion after five years of free releases and development. Glitchwalkers is a change of pace for Astroneer, a story and character-focused expansion that takes the varied mechanics of the old game onto a new planet with its own separate progression and save file.

“Aeoluz, a brand new planet, is our biggest and most complex to date. New biomes and challenges await any Astroneer brave or foolish enough to set foot on this uncharted world. This planet will provide much more of a challenge, as your foe has re-written the very rules of this world to stop you,” says developer System Era Softworks.

Long-time Astroneer players will also dread and/or celebrate the return of a feature from Astroneer’s earliest early access days: Storms! The new glitched storms aren’t exactly like the old, dangerous dust storms of the Early Access period …