It has been over four years since indie sandbox game Starbound was first announced, and now after two and a half years in development on Steam Early Access, the game is finally ready for its official release.

Starbound is the brainchild of Finn “Tiy” Brice, who has worked on other successful indie games, most notably Terraria. Brice is the founder of indie game developer and publisher Chucklefish Games, which is probably best known now for having recently published the incredibly successful farming sim, Stardew Valley.

“So Starbound’s next update is the big 1.0 and it’s getting close, so I wanted to update everyone on where things are and what to expect,” Brice announced in a recent blog post. “Leaving Early Access doesn’t mean the end of updates for Starbound by any means, instead it will mark a shift away from engine work and towards additional content creation.”

The update will introduce story content to Starbound, with eight instanced missions that players must unlock by finding various clues scattered throughout the game world.

“Clues can be found in many different ways, from visiting towns and talking to the locals, exploring dangerous dungeons, to building colonies and completing quests.” Brice said. “Our goal is to reward however you like to play.”

The update also includes a number of other new features and gameplay tweaks. For example, planet generation is about to become even more diverse with the removal of restrictions on which biomes can be present on each planet. Brice said that this will allow for more “interesting combinations.”

In addition, the patch will introduce a number of new dungeons, side quests, weapons, and more, giving players tons of new content to explore.

You can read the full description of everything being added to Starbound in patch 1.0 on the game’s official blog.

Image courtesy of Chucklefish Ltd