Explore the Galaxy in Beyond These Stars
Beyond These Stars resurfaced during the Cozy Quest 2025 showcase with a fresh trailer, an updated demo, and a clearer path toward its 2026 early access launch. The sci-fi city builder from Hooded Horse and Balancing Monkey Games once again invites players to guide a thriving community across the galaxy on the back of Kewa, a gentle space whale carrying an entire civilization through the stars.
The project has evolved steadily since its first public demo appeared during June Next Fest in 2024. Earlier this year, the developers highlighted late-game features at Gamescom, offering a look at how the adventure expands as players progress. With so many systems refined over the past months, the team prepared a refreshed demo designed to reflect the experience more accurately and give players something new to explore while development continues.
The update introduces deeper environmental management through a pollution system where unmanaged trash creates toxic tiles that can hinder progress. A fully redesigned interface makes it easier to read the city at a glance, with clearer overlays and new ways to follow resource movement. The developers rebuilt the tech tree to include a perk system that offers more strategic freedom, and they expanded the tutorial and narrative to create a smoother introduction to life aboard Kewa.
Every day life for the Peeps has also grown more dynamic. They now work in shifts and experience exhaustion, a system that encourages careful scheduling to avoid costly mistakes. The team also revised the building behavior as well, including new adjacency considerations and adjusted work radii that influence how neighbourhoods evolve.
With more than 170,000 wishlists on Steam, interest in Beyond These Stars continues to climb. The game is set to arrive in early access in 2026 for PC through Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store.