I’ve spent a dozen hours farming in a sci-fi mech on a gorgeous alien world, and while Lightyear Frontier does not reach the addictive heights of ConcernedApes’ farming classic, it reminds me of my first experience with Stardew Valley about eight years ago – making it a great companion game.
Lightyear Frontier opens in a rather quirky way: your chubby little protagonist crash-lands on a vibrant world, and you have to piece back together your bright red mech as chill acoustic guitar plays in the background and bird-like creatures roam the verdant plains. Repairing the mech is in no way difficult, as wildlife poses no danger and massive plumes of smoke guide you. Finding all its farming and gathering arm implements amounts to a relaxing stroll through an alien park.
It wasn’t until I got my mechanical feet back under me that Lightyear Frontier brought back those initial, just-one-more-day feelings of Stardew Valley. Yes, the gameplay loop is split between crafting a little homestead, gathering materials, and cleaning up weeds, but that wasn’t what brought me back to an all-consuming farming addiction. It was the realization that there was absolutely no pressure to do much of anything in Lightyear Frontier.
When I first played Stardew Valley, I struggled because I became obsessed with maximizing my time. I didn’t understand the massive praise and hype surrounding it, in fact. Most games have, in the over three decades I’ve been playing them, instilled in me a constant pressure to win and do things right. Playing in such a way is the very antithesis of the game itself; the opening moments of droll office work spelled this out clearly, but I was too much of a Gamer™ to realize it. Once it dawned on me that I didn’t have to maximize every second of the 15-minute days, Stardew Valley quickly became one of my favorite and most played titles. It’s much the same reason that I sunk hundreds of hours into Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
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Lightyear Frontier works the same way, and I was well prepared to chill. I recently disparaged the likes of Nightingale and Palworld simply because I disliked the mix of survival and crafting; in Lightyear Frontier, I found the crafting much more streamlined thanks to the mech, and the survival mechanics are non-existent. Each of the mech’s arm attachments serves multiple genre-standard functions, such as chopping down trees, watering plants, or sucking up pesky weeds. Without the constant threat of hunger, the environment, or wolves/PokéWolves trying to eat me, I didn’t mind crafting oil presses and furnaces to smelt ore.
At any time, I could stop to take in the gorgeous firmament, dominated by a planet with a Saturn-like ring around it, with absolutely no pressure to do otherwise. I could also take my time feeding the local wildlife – rather than killing them – and building fences to keep them away from the little home I built. Instead of rushing back to base in order to rest, I often spent in-game days exploring the wilds and cleaning up weeds with my mech’s vacuum hose or spraying away purple gunk like in Mario Sunshine. There’s no penalty for not resting in a bed, you see – only benefits if you choose to do so.
I was a little confused about where to find certain materials to upgrade my mech, making it able to break harder minerals or clean up stickier goo, but that mattered little because, once again, there wasn’t a reward for doing so quickly. Like in Stardew Valley, I always had more days to chill, building up my little farm as I went along.
Sure, there isn’t a unique cast of townsfolk to romance (big Abigail fan here) or a dangerous dungeon-delving side-adventure to partake in. Instead, Lightyear Frontier offers a handful of distinctly gorgeous biomes that, every time I visited, I couldn’t help but pick out a spot I’d like to eventually build in.
Much like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing: New Horizons before it, Lightyear Frontier is one of those chill games that’s easy to start up but difficult to put down, serving as a great accompaniment to sprawling adventures like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Dragon’s Dogma 2 that demand a lot of time and attention. Consider giving it a go before or after you check out Stardew Valley’s latest patch – if you’re anything like me, you won’t regret it.
Lightyear Frontier is available on PC and Xbox.
