Ever since Starbound was announced back in 2013, it's been hailed by some as the ultimate Terraria replacement. When Starbound launched in Early Access, this was not only entirely disproved, but was also shown to be a silly statement, since Terraria kept growing ever-larger and more immense with each passing update. Starbound, too, inflated considerably, and despite what some would've had us believe, the two games coexisted.

Furthermore, both Terraria and Starbound received massive new updates only recently, so they're both still undergoing active development. We thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast the two in an attempt to define who, exactly, does either of these games cater to.

Terraria was the first - of course - and it is undoubtedly the more popular game by a considerable margin. At the time of writing, there are about 20k players enjoying the game, while Starbound sits at a comfortable 4k for the most part. It's important to state that both of these player bases are fairly healthy for what they are, and this is to be expected considering the particular niches that Starbound and Terraria - respectively - cater to. We'll get to that a bit later on, however.

For the most part, Terraria is pretty hardcore and a very focused experience. There is a pronounced element of base-building to be sure, but it doesn't take much to realise that it's pretty underserved and rudimentary. Instead, Terraria delivers fast-paced and precise combat and movement mechanics that combine to make for arcade gameplay like no other. There really is no comparing Starbound to Terraria in this regard, because Starbound is slow and imprecise, and even laggy in some unexpected ways, due to its odd engine.

Thing is, Starbound is a builder's dream. With the selection of items furniture it has and the tools that are at the player's disposal, as well as the underlying engine technology, there's virtually no limit to what you can build in Starbound. This is a slower, more deliberate game that places far more emphasis on exploration and creation, both in and out of the game itself. Modding is Starbound's biggest draw, in fact. While Terraria has got some cool mods to look out for, they can hardly compare with those available for Starbound. Steam Workshop integration has done wonders for Chucklefish's dream project, and the community has built upon their blueprint to an incredible degree. Terraria's game engine is sadly far more limited in what it can do, but this also makes for tighter and neater gameplay, as we've discussed above.

In more ways than one, Starbound has always been the No Man's Sky before No Man's Sky - a game that offers infinite procedural exploration and incredible potential for customisation at the cost of sheer gameplay depth, while Terraria does precisely the opposite. The catch is that neither of these options is bad, and developers simply cannot do both at the same time. Truth is, Starbound isn't a game that every fan of Terraria can have fun in, and same works vice-versa.

Which game is right for you depends largely on what you want to spend most of your time on. If you're into exploring and base-building, Starbound is one of the best options on the market, but if you'd like tight combat and deliberately-built content, Terraria is the way to go. Similarly, if you can handle incredible amounts of procedural generation, Starbound should be a safe bet, while those who'd prefer a more defined approach to gameplay can't go wrong with Terraria.

One thing's for sure - whether you'd prefer collecting T. Rex fossils in outer space or hunt down goblins in a fantasy world with Uzis and Miniguns, you can't really go wrong with neither Starbound nor Terraria, provided that you're informed on what each of these games does best. They're both great, and they've both got an astonishing amount of content. That's what counts the most, we think.