In a galaxy where survival games are born, crash and disappear faster than you can plant a crafting bench, Cubic Odyssey tries to stand out by mashing voxel charm with sci-fi ambition. It’s a love letter to Minecraft and No Man’s Sky, but is that fusion enough to leave orbit, or does it get shot down by its own overreach?
Story and Characters
Cubic Odyssey opens with you crash landing on an alien planet, where you’re introduced to QB-1 who’s your robotic assistant. Your goal is to push back against a mysterious force known as the red darkness and find your way back home.
Character creation is minimal but it gets the job done. You can choose from 4 starting classes, Miner, Pilot, Crafter and Knight – each provides perks tailored to early survival and crafting strategies. For example, the crafter starts with bonuses that streamline base-building.
What the game lacks in deep storytelling, it makes up for in tone. It injects a dash of humour in the form of pop culture references, with nods to franchises like Star Wars and Back to the Future, which left me giggling. These moments give the narrative charm, even if it never reaches emotional or thematic depth.
Gameplay and Progression
At its core the game adheres to the mechanics you would expect of the survival-crafting genre: resource gathering, tool creation, structure building and environmental navigation. Each crafting category is tied to specific workbenches that unlock progressively as players collect more advanced resources.
Yet, the game suffers from pacing issues due to its fragmented quest design. Progress often feels halted by a litany of micro-objectives that delay any sense of momentum. The structure could enjoy streamlining, combining trivial tasks into broader, more meaningful goals.
One of my major gripes during my playthrough was inventory management. Once your inventory is full and you try to pick up an item, it’s deleted. Gone. Unlike in games like Minecraft, where the item simply waits on the ground until you make space. Cubic Odyssey punishes you with permanent loss. It’s frustrating, and entirely avoidable.
Space travel, while initially exciting, presents a jarring spike in difficulty. Hostile space pirates dominate the early sectors, and unless you’ve significantly upgraded your equipment, encounters are frequently one-sided. Rather than challenging, this feels punitive and discouraging.
Visuals & Performance
Visually, the game showcases a polished voxel style. It maintains the familiar charm of Minecraft but enhances it with smoother textures, detailed structures with more vibrant colour palettes. Vehicle and tool designs are creative, helping the game stand out visually.
Performance felt solid. While occasional frame dips occurred during large-scale base interactions, they were brief and did not significantly impact gameplay. The user interface is clean and responsive, making resource and inventory management stress-free.
Cubic Odyssey’s sound design is functional, if unremarkable. Ambient music maintains a calm tone, appropriate for long stretches of exploration. Sound effects, especially for mining and construction are crisp and satisfying.
While the game lacks voice acting, written dialogue, especially from QB-1, delivers enough charm to remain engaging. That said, some lines are recycled a bit too often and may wear thin over time.
Verdict: Lost in Space, Found in Charm
Cubic Odyssey is bursting with potential, but it’s a game caught in two orbits. One is full of joy: its thoughtful crafting, vivid worlds and a quirky voice that’s hard not to like. The other is dragged down by grind-heavy objectives and unfair space combat that punishes curiosity. With time and updates, it might grow into something truly special. Right now, it’s a flawed but enjoyable journey for players who don’t mind getting lost along the way.
Cubic Odyssey is available now on Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S for £19.99. If you enjoy survival games with crafting, space travel and a colourful twist, it’s worth checking out. There’s a free demo on Steam too!