Cubic Odyssey Review

I’ve always been fascinated by games that focus on building and creating rather than telling a story. Between games like No Man’s Sky and Minecraft, there’s certainly a wide variance in how the genre can be executed. Cubic Odyssey is another entry into the space exploration/mining/crafting scene, but does it have enough new ideas to warrant a spot at the table?

I went into this review with minimal expectations, seeing as the game seems incredibly similar to things I’ve already played on the surface. It can be a difficult line to walk for a game when faced with those kinds of immediate perceived inspirations, but it seemed Cubic Odyssey wasn’t afraid of those comparisons, either.

After getting started, the game really surprised me with a lot of the changes it brings to the genre as a whole, but along with those changes came some drawbacks that I can’t say I’m a fan of. After more than 20 hours with Cubic Odyssey, this space fairing game was fun, but some odd design choices make the beginning of the game a bit of a slog.

The Cube World

One thing that really stuck out to me when playing this game was that, visually, there’s a lot of beauty sort of strewn about on the ground. But space is where the game really shines. Looking up into the sky at an unbelievable skybox is really something amazing, but out in space, surrounded by vast swirling nebulas in every direction, it’s easy to get lost in it all.

That’s not to say the planets themselves lack any sort of visual appeal, but that came more from the stark differences between each world. Cubic Odyssey doesn’t have worlds with various biomes. In fact, the maps are all fairly small, so each world acts as its own, self-contained biome.

This means that each world you visit has its own sort of quirks, from being mostly water, to almost nothing but magma. Beyond that, each world is made of different materials, so you could have one planet with mushroom trees while others have coral trees.

It really makes for some incredibly unique environments that all have their own charms. This also means that each planet comes with its own flora and fauna, some cuter than others.

The most visually stunning thing, though, are the planets themselves in space. Each one is a cube, and as you approach its surface, the planet will begin to warp and grow before you’re thrust into the planet map.

Each and every time I landed on a planet, I was blown away by this visual. Watching the planet itself bend and shift as I approached just made for the coolest entrances I’ve ever seen.

It wasn’t incredibly demanding on my PC, although some occasional spots would make it drop a few frames, but nothing serious. Some lower-end PCs may struggle, but almost everyone should find this game runs well on their setup.

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Journey Across the Universe

While the narrative here won’t be breaking down any sort of barriers, you’ll still pretty much be forced forward to more difficult planets for specific items. Each planet will have various different ores and items that you use to craft your needed equipment.

The game seems to want to encourage you to set up shop on other planets, but there’s really no need, since you can easily set up on planets with an abundance of resources and reap the rewards. The only reason you need to press forward is to unlock a new shop item, which you’ll absolutely need to upgrade equipment.

It’s not exactly the best reason to keep moving forward, but it does at least prevent you from sitting on one planet the entire time. Still, you’ll likely be spending a good chunk of time on planets that you haven’t connected with warp portals.

You can spend some time on a planet gathering resources, then head through the warp gate in the system to take you to any galaxy you’ve visited previously without the need for a warp core, an item that can take some time acquiring at the very beginning.

This is a great upside, since it means you can travel to galaxies that have Ancient Temples with built-in warp portals, and clear them to add a new place to warp to. Warping is virtually instant too, so it makes it much easier to get between your bases.

Aside from the minimal story and the need for upgrade items, there’s not much of a reason to push yourself to travel the universe, but you’ll likely do it regardless to satisfy your curiosity, much like I did. Getting better equipment certainly made the game much easier, but in a way, it eventually made the game too easy.

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Welcome to the World of Tomorrow

The best parts of this game are the baked-in ways that make it so much easier to do all the mundane tasks that the genre is known for. With some creative design, the team has brought a lot of new ideas to the genre that will have some lasting impacts.

There are so many quality-of-life changes that bring a new spin to the genre, but a few of the best ones will likely become new staples of the genre as a whole. This is where the game is looking to separate itself from its predecessors, but in doing so, I fear that it has also fallen into some new kinds of pitfalls.

They’ve changed durability to no longer be attached to the use of your items. Instead, they lose durability when you die, like in some old school MMOs. This means your items and weapons can be used indefinitely if you’re careful.

Tired of picking up random pieces of stone and dirt? Well, with the filter system, you never have to pick up these kinds of blocks unless you want to. This made digging for ore significantly easier, and it’s contained in your inventory screen, so it’s never hard to change.

Along with that, you’ve got a faithful companion who will scan for any ore types you’ve already found, making it easy to find what you’re looking for. Once you’re down in the deep ground, you can actually use a hot key to highlight other nearby ores.

Combining this with things like the jetpack and the ability to teleport back to your ship really brings the worst aspects of the genre into a new light. But of course, with many great changes, something had to give. For Cubic Odyssey, that something really harmed the early game.

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Better Be Duracell

Since I’ve gone over some of the bigger positives so far, I’ll cover some of the negatives. One thing that really got my goat was that everything in this space age society runs on batteries.

Each piece of gear or equipment you have will only operate if you have the battery power to do so. It isn’t very difficult to make or even find these batteries, but they don’t stack in the menu, so each backup you carry knocks you down one available inventory slot.

It’s so incredibly frustrating to run out of batteries as it effectively kneecaps everything you are doing. Trying to run? Oops, no battery. Need to jetpack? Oops, still no battery. Teleport back to your ship? You guessed it — no battery.

This also extends to your ship, meaning if you want to really explore space and have dog fights with other vehicles, you’ll want to get plenty of batteries for your ship. It became tedious at the very beginning to carry them around or have backups in case of an emergency, but running out of power was so much worse.

Eventually, this becomes virtually meaningless as every single humanoid enemy you face off against drops a battery. After the first few planets, I really never needed to make more myself since I was now collecting so many.

It was disheartening to have a mechanic that was rather annoying for so many of those first hours basically be tossed out as soon as I could handle myself. It made me wonder why it was so integral to the system at all.

Combat for Dummies

Combat wasn’t incredibly deep, but there’s at least enough there to keep you on your toes. Enemies have access to all the same guns as you, so they’re able to snipe, shotgun, or melee depending on the weapon they have.

In the beginning, combat can be frustrating as you lack any real protection, but once you get a few kills and scavenge some weapons, most enemies will die in just a few shots. Still, it’s almost not worth it to use anything but ranged weapons since enemies can do extreme amounts of damage in very small bursts.

Combat encounters really boiled down to wiping them out at range before slowly working your way closer in an effort to not get immediately one shot. I will say wiping out an enemy base with just a few shots feels incredible, but getting wiped out in just as many shots makes you feel rather lackluster.

Space combat ends up being a choice of whether you have the resources to even handle the fight, since each time you fire your lasers you burn battery power. You can add on weapons to your ship to make combat easier, but they still require power, so more than anything, you’ll need batteries.

Crafting Everything

Since this is a survival-type game, you’ll be crafting a lot of your gear—but in a way that’s far more similar to the systems in No Man’s Sky than anything else. Instead of using your ore to actually make any items or gear, you’ll use them to create other crafting items that will then be used for more crafting.

If that sounds confusing, don’t worry. It’s certainly an aspect of the game I struggled to enjoy, but the game does its best to make the process simple and easy. Any time you’re crafting something that has other components, you can easily create those components should you have the necessary ores and items to do so.

This wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t so many items to make that feel pointless. For instance, if you’re looking to make some higher-end gear and appliances, you’ll need a Capacitor, but to make that Capacitor you’ll need to combine four different ores.

It eventually becomes cumbersome to have to take your raw materials to make into other materials so you can craft the actual item you want. They make the process easy which is nice, but there are just so many items to craft that you’ll go insane if you try to memorize all their compositions.

The game does let you pin recipes to your screen so you can easily make sure you have what you need, but it’s still irritating to have to go collect a ton of ore and materials to make items to get the thing you actually want. You also can’t have more than one recipe at a time pinned, so knowing every item you’ll need can become difficult as you work your way up.

Upgrades People, Upgrades

One of the more interesting parts of the game is that you have the ability to upgrade your skills as you use them, a la Skyrim. This is sort of the main progression feature that lets you craft, find, and use other items.

You won’t be able to mine certain ores without an upgraded mining tool. However, the only way to be able to craft that tool will be to increase your crafting skill. It’ll happen pretty naturally and is a decent mark for how capable your character is, but again, it feels like another barrier that doesn’t necessarily fit.

Each ability does have improvements they provide. For example, Mining will provide extra ore and buying items could have greater discounts. This is a neat use for the system but ultimately rarely plays any part other than hitting the necessary checkpoints for certain items or gear.

The Cubic Vibes

Despite many of these negatives and complaints I was finding myself having, the vibes in this game are still immaculate. The background music, ambiance, and audio queues are incredible and absolutely suck you in to the game.

The music changes a bit from planet to planet, but each change really captures that interstellar ideology of exploration. Much in the same way that Halo utilized its score, Cubic Odyssey really wanted players to feel like they’re in a movie with the background music creating a much-needed atmosphere.

Speaking of atmosphere, when you’re going mining, you’ll occasionally hear a ‘PING’ sound as you break ores. Not only does this make your monkey brain produce the happy chemical, it also means that ore has dropped some extra resources for you to pick up.

It’s something relatively small in the grand scheme, but it does help to make the tedious task of mining a bit more interesting. This isn’t the only audio cue that really stands out. Much like the Covenant Elites in Halo, the enemies in Cubic Odyssey make a pretty distinct sound. It’s just a little janky as the audio seems to come from all around you, but the actual sound is fairly memorable, much like the sound of Zombies in Minecraft.

This all culminates together to create a style and vibe that really does stick out and makes Cubic Odyssey a game you’ll remember, even if it’s not a completely stellar space exploration and crafting experience all the time.

Closing Comments:

All in all, Cubic Odyssey is a good game that gets a little bogged down by its own complexities, like character abilities and battery power. It’s a solid game thanks to all the quality-of-life changes it brings to the genre, along with the strong atmosphere and interesting visuals. While it probably isn’t a game that I’ll add to my repertoire, I think it will certainly make a name for itself in the industry. If you really enjoy survival exploration games, then this will be a game you can sink countless hours into. Cubic Odyssey is a solid game that simply gets dragged down by some odd design choices that clearly serve to add difficulty, but that difficulty ends up becoming inconsequential at a certain point. Still, it is enjoyable, and all the things the game does right make it a meaningful addition to the genre as a whole.

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Cubic Odyssey

Reviewed on PC

Released

May 14, 2025

ESRB

Everyone 10+ // Fantasy Violence

Developer(s)

Atypical Games

Publisher(s)

Gaijin Network Ltd

Multiplayer

Online Co-Op, Local Co-Op

Number of Players

Single-player

Pros & Cons

• The QoL changes really help to remove the tedious parts of the genre.
• The artistry in the game is gorgeous and provides some breathtaking views.
• Instant ship teleportation makes getting back home a breeze.

• The necessity for batteries means wasting space in your inventory.
• With so many items to craft, it can get difficult to figure out exactly what you need.
• Exploring the universe takes a backseat to resource management.