It’s one thing to survive on an alien planet. It’s another to completely reshape it. The Planet Crafter arrives today on Xbox Series X|S, PC and PlayStation 5, challenging players to turn an inhospitable wasteland into a thriving world capable of supporting life. Better still, Xbox players can dive in from day one through Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and PC, and there’s Play Anywhere support too.
After catching our eye in our roundup of the best new Xbox and Game Pass games of July 2026, the full console launch has finally arrived, bringing one of PC’s well-regarded survival experiences to a wider audience.
At A Glance
- Game: The Planet Crafter
- Developer: Miju Games
- Publisher: Miju Games
- Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5, Play Anywhere
- Price: Standard Edition £19.99 (included with Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and PC), Deluxe Bundle £31.99
- Genre: Survival Crafting / Base Building
Survival Is Just The Beginning
The Planet Crafter starts with a familiar survival premise. You’re dropped onto a hostile world with barely enough equipment to stay alive, forced to manage oxygen, thirst and health while gathering whatever resources you can find.
Before long, however, the focus shifts away from simply enduring the environment and towards changing it completely.
Using increasingly advanced machinery, you’ll begin raising atmospheric pressure, generating heat and producing oxygen, gradually transforming an empty landscape into one capable of supporting plants, wildlife and eventually entire ecosystems. Watching that evolution unfold is one of the game’s biggest draws, with every milestone visibly altering the planet around you.
Build, Explore And Leave Your Mark
Don’t think that terraforming is the only challenge waiting on the surface. Building and expanding your base plays a major role throughout the adventure, providing space for new equipment while opening the door to more ambitious projects. Better tools allow you to venture further afield, uncovering abandoned wrecks, mysterious ruins and valuable resources hidden across the planet.
Then, as your technology improves, you’ll unlock new crafting options and even begin creating life itself by combining DNA extracts to introduce animals into the growing ecosystem.
Alone Or With Friends
While The Planet Crafter can easily be enjoyed as a solo experience, there’s also support for online co-op with up to eight players.
Working together makes gathering resources and constructing large terraforming projects far more manageable, while adjustable difficulty settings and creative mode ensure players can tailor the experience to suit their preferred pace.
Whether you’re looking for a relaxing building game or a more demanding survival challenge, there are plenty of ways to approach your new assignment.
More Worlds Await In The Deluxe Bundle
Players wanting even more planetary engineering can opt for the Deluxe Bundle, priced at £31.99. Alongside the base game, it includes both currently available expansions:
- Planet Humble (£6.49), introducing an entirely new world to terraform, complete with fresh mysteries and its own story.
- Toxicity (£7.99), which takes players to a planet scarred by industrial pollution, tasking them with restoring its environment using new machinery and tools.
If you decide to start with the Standard Edition (either through a cash outlay or Game Pass), a Deluxe Bundle Upgrade is also available for £12.99, adding both expansions later.
Ready To Shape An Entire Planet?
Survival games often ask players to adapt to hostile environments, but The Planet Crafter flips that idea on its head by putting the focus on changing the world instead. Seeing barren rock slowly give way to forests, wildlife and breathable air offers a rewarding sense of progression that’s quite different from many of its genre contemporaries.
With its arrival on Game Pass making it even easier to jump in, Xbox players can finally see what all the fuss has been about.
The Planet Crafter is available now on Xbox Series X|S, PC and PlayStation 5. The Standard Edition costs £19.99 and is included with Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and PC, while the Deluxe Bundle is available for £31.99.
If you need a review, ours is on the way.
