Game guides / Beyond These Stars
Beyond These Stars Beginner Guide
Written for the launch build (October 16, 2026). Systems may change with post-launch updates.
Beyond These Stars is a city builder from Balancing Monkey Games, the New Zealand studio behind Before We Leave, published by Hooded Horse. Your Peeps, small round citizens, are rebuilding civilization on the back of Kewa, a gigantic space whale traveling through deep space. That premise changes everything about the genre: your city moves, your land is a living creature with moods and needs, and resources run out unless you look after the habitat or find them on other worlds. It reached 250,000 wishlists before launch.
Platforms: PC via Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store, and the Microsoft Store, plus PC Game Pass at launch. Standard price $29.99, with a 20 percent launch discount to $23.99 for the first two weeks on Steam. Modes: campaign, sandbox, and scenarios. Start with the campaign: its tutorial walks you through the first steps, and the game is complex enough that skipping it costs you more time than it saves.
Your first city, step by step
1. Follow the campaign tutorial
The campaign guides you through the opening: securing water and food for the colony, mining, harvesting wood, and building basic industries. Do what it asks, in the order it asks. Reviewers note the game has a nice tutorial but a steep learning curve after it, especially for beginners, so treat the tutorial as the easy part and stay alert once it ends.
2. Water and food first, always
Plant potatoes and build houses. That is the opening in miniature: food production and shelter before anything ambitious. Keep an eye on your Peeps. Their needs grow as the colony grows, and neglected Peeps go on strike, which stalls everything downstream.
3. Build near the green patch
You arrive on largely desolate, inhospitable land, save for a small patch of green by the water. Build there first. Water access, farmable soil, and room to expand matter more than a clever layout in the first hour. Terraforming (digging canals, adding topsoil, planting trees) comes later, once you understand what the land needs.
4. Set up the first supply chain, then watch it
Every industry is a chain: raw material in, processed good out, byproduct somewhere. Watch each link. Reviewers warn that unwanted byproducts can clog industries and stop them producing, and a clogged chain can quietly implode a save. If a factory stops, check its inputs and its outputs before assuming it is broken.
5. Mine, but plan for the mine to run out
Mined resources are not infinite. Once a mine is depleted, you must build another one elsewhere to keep that supply going. Keep an eye on remaining reserves in every mine, and always have the next site in mind before the current one runs dry.
Pollution: the number that shrinks your world
Pollution is the early game trap. Highly polluted tiles can become toxic, and factories inside toxic waste stop functioning entirely. Worse, the land on Kewa is fragile: if you do not tend the ecosystem, your usable habitat shrinks.
- Build industries near forests. Forests help absorb pollution, so placing dirty buildings near tree cover is better than clustering them on bare ground.
- Build cleaners. Cleaners are specialized buildings that lower pollution in an area. Place them where industry concentrates.
- Do not pave over everything. Keeping forests standing and maintaining canopy helps spread the atmosphere and keeps the habitat viable. Plant trees to maintain a steady flow of raw materials as well as a buffer against pollution.
- Move extraction off-world when you can. The game explicitly offers a choice: risk Kewa's ecosystem by mining hard at home, or gather resources on other worlds to keep Kewa happy. Off-world outposts are the sustainable answer.
Kewa: your city is a relationship
Kewa is not a map. Kewa is a character: a lonely space whale with hopes, dreams, and desires for the journey. Eventually you can talk to Kewa, which unlocks travel among the stars, and from then on you must watch Kewa's happiness and well-being as a core stat.
- Extraction erodes Kewa. Every act of mining and industry wears down topsoil and biomass. Terraforming, water management, and canopy density are how you give back.
- Trust shapes travel. Your relationship with Kewa influences which star systems you can reach, how often you travel, and how long you can stay at an outpost before Kewa decides it is time to leave. A strong relationship means predictable, longer windows. A weak one means Kewa may leave while your outpost is still working.
- Travel uses a star map. Open the overview to see a galaxy map with fog of war. Click an open hex tile to send Kewa there. Kewa travels in real game time while you keep running your city, and exclamation marks flag tiles worth investigating.
Outposts and shipping: how to get what Kewa lacks
Kewa's environment is plentiful but limited. Some essential resources are scarce or absent, and space is finite. Outposts on nearby planets fill the gaps:
- Scout first. Once Kewa reaches a tile, send a scout drone to search it. You may find old Peep relics, alien artifacts, or a planet worth settling.
- Launch a rocket. To settle a planet, build a rocket carrying Peeps and materials. It launches from Kewa's back and lands on the planet, where you build a new settlement.
- Build basics fast. A new settlement needs wood cutters, water pumps, and bridges first. Planets are deliberately short on some basics, so your first job is infrastructure, not production.
- Ship the unique resources home. Once the outpost runs, ship its unique resources back to Kewa to unlock new buildings and materials. The flow reverses: early on you send supplies out, later the outpost feeds the home city.
Shipping has two modes. Manual shipping gives precise control: exactly this much of this resource, right now, which suits emergencies and one-off needs. Automated shipping is set and forget: it maintains an ongoing supply of a resource, and reviewers describe it as much easier to use than the equivalent system in Before We Leave. Use manual for crises, automated for staples.
Terraforming: shape the land instead of fighting it
Once the basics run, start shaping Kewa's back to fit your city:
- Dig canals to move water where farms and industry need it.
- Add topsoil in preparation for farming on poor ground.
- Plant trees and maintain forests to keep raw materials flowing and the atmosphere spreading, which lets the city expand.
- Use adjacency bonuses. Placing buildings to take advantage of adjacency and shorter travel times beats a sprawling, spread-out layout. Plan around the contours of the land, or reshape the land to suit the plan.
Common beginner mistakes
- Ignoring byproducts. A factory that cannot dump its byproduct stops producing. Check outputs, not just inputs.
- Letting one mine be the whole plan. Mines deplete. If you have no second site ready, the chain that depended on it stalls.
- Polluting the home tile into toxicity. Toxic tiles shut down the factories inside them. Cleaners and forests are cheaper than rebuilding.
- Neglecting Peeps until they strike. Strikes stall production across the colony. Keep needs met ahead of growth, not behind it.
- Treating Kewa as scenery. Kewa's happiness governs travel, outpost windows, and habitat size. A city that mines Kewa to exhaustion runs out of world.
Sources: LadiesGamers review (campaign tutorial, potatoes and houses, pollution and cleaners, depleting mines, clogging byproducts, strikes, Kewa happiness), Saving Content review (star map travel, scout drone, rockets, outposts, shipping), Steam community developer notes (manual vs automated shipping, Landing Pad), Xbox store listing (Kewa description, terraforming, fragile equilibrium, outposts, travel companion), Pixel Herald launch report (250,000 wishlists, $23.99 launch price, 20 percent discount, PC Game Pass), Metacritic (October 16, 2026 release). Written for the October 16, 2026 launch build; systems may change with updates.
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Frequently asked questions
What do I do first in Beyond These Stars?
Play the campaign tutorial. It walks you through securing water and food, mining, harvesting wood, and building basic industries. Then plant potatoes, build houses near the green patch by the water, and set up your first supply chain before expanding.
How do I keep Kewa happy?
Limit extraction on Kewa's back, keep forests standing, use cleaners to control pollution, and terraform to repair the land. Better yet, gather resources from off-world outposts instead of mining Kewa hard. Kewa's happiness affects travel options and how long outposts last before Kewa moves on.
How does pollution work in Beyond These Stars?
Industry pollutes tiles around it. Highly polluted tiles can become toxic, and factories inside toxic waste stop functioning. Build industries near forests, place cleaners where industry concentrates, and keep canopy cover to protect the habitat.
How do outposts and shipping work?
Send Kewa to a star map tile, scout with a drone, then launch a rocket with Peeps and materials to settle a planet. Build wood cutters, water pumps, and bridges first, then ship the planet's unique resources back to Kewa. Manual shipping handles one-off or emergency deliveries; automated shipping maintains an ongoing supply.
What happens when a mine runs out?
Mined resources are finite. When a mine depletes, build another one elsewhere to keep that supply going. Keep an eye on reserves and have the next site in mind before the current mine empties.
Is Beyond These Stars on Game Pass, and how much does it cost?
Yes, it launched on PC Game Pass on October 16, 2026. The standard price is $29.99, with a 20 percent launch discount to $23.99 for the first two weeks on Steam. It is also on GOG, the Epic Games Store, and the Microsoft Store.
What game modes does Beyond These Stars have?
Three: campaign, sandbox, and scenarios. Beginners should start with the campaign, since its tutorial covers water, food, mining, wood, and basic industries before the game opens up.