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1 Cubic Odyssey is a new voxel-style open world survival crafting game by Atypical Games (Radiation Island, Infinite Tanks). Explore, build, and craft your way through a voxel galaxy alone or with friends. The game is available now with publishing by Gaijin Network Ltd (War Thunder) on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S (but not via Game Pass). For this review I’ll be taking a deeper look at the PC version via Steam.
Speeders and Spaceships? Count Me In!
Alright so let’s get this right out of the way. Yes, Cubic Odyssey at a glance looks like a wanna-be Minecraft. There I said it. You can’t deny you thought it too just looking at screenshots.
I admit that I thought this as well – until I got to review it. I’m thankful for the opportunity to enjoy it, because there’s a lot more to the game than just those simple voxel blocks. Check out my thoughts in the review below.
Gameplay
Cubic Odyssey is an open world survival crafting game in the voxel-style format. The game features three modes – story, adventure, and creative, with the latter two modes available for co-op. In the story experience, you play as a character regaining their footing after crash landing on a planet. Shortly after repairing your ship you are set upon a path to an ancient temple. This eventually leads to the fight against a spreading galactic infection: the Red Darkness. The galaxy is an expansive and bustling area free for you to roam and explore at your own pace.
The adventure mode in Cubic Odyssey is what you would think of as your typical sandbox gameplay. You start in the same place as the story each time (at least as far as I can tell), but with the main quest no longer there as a guide. You are then free to go and do whatever you’d like without that path. Creative mode I presume to be similar to others in the open world survival craft genre – with the ability to build to your heart’s content. I did not have a chance yet to check this mode out.
Similarities
The most obvious similarity to other games in the genre to Cubic Odyssey is of course the core mechanics that come with the voxel style. Voxel blocks create a vast world and landscape to destroy, harvest, and build with. They make up the different biomes and areas to explore, from the sky to the deepest depths of the planet. It is an unavoidable similarity and is a core piece to the gameplay.
The more time I spent with Cubic Odyssey, the more my assumptions about what the game was were washed away. Even now while writing this review, I thought I’d have more similarities to include here. I suppose I could discuss how you have crafting and recipes and upgrades to those items. Or how there’s different skills that provide buffs as they improve. But when you get down to it, simply removing the voxel-style art and mechanics removes a lot of that. I could actually see the game more comparable to open world crafters like No Man’s Sky or Astroneer. So let’s get into some of the unique things that help it stand out.
Differences
Things that you would think of as potential quality of life improvements in other games are prominent here. Cubic Odyssey starts you off with a drone that can provide or replace three basic items at will: an extractor, a crafting table, and a gun. So no matter what situation you are in you won’t be stuck unable to gather, craft, or defend yourself. It also quickly introduces you to a speeder to zip around the map with ease. This simple yet early form of traversal is a boon to this style of gameplay. The next step of traversal is a spaceship, which is equally amazing.
Another major improvement present in Cubic Odyssey is a way to easily locate specific resources. This can be done using a scan function of that same drone companion, targeting the resource within the surrounding area. You can also use a handheld scanner to detect nearby resources in general in a small radius. At least the tier one version. But again this simple function saves so much time when you otherwise would be spending blindly digging for who knows how long, never knowing you are digging right by what you need. The value of these functions is immense when you’re someone like me that doesn’t have hours to spend too see minimal progress. However, it does feel somewhat like this feature as well as the traversal tools are thrust into focus almost too soon.
I am not 100% certain if the hundreds of different worlds are procedurally generated or not. The story planets at least seem to be static from what I’ve seen, which would make sense given Cubic Odyssey‘s main quest line. Even if none of them are procedurally generated, there are still hundreds of planets to explore. You even get to traverse and explore the space in between them! Each map is also massive, with different activities and notable locations throughout. I think there is enough variety between the planets that you could easily forget if you’ve been to one on a prior playthrough.
Graphics & Audio
For my time with Cubic Odyssey thus far I am playing on both PC and on my Steam Deck. The game runs very smoothly on both with default settings. This includes keeping the resolution at native 4k rather than scaling it to 1440p. I will say that the distance rendering on PC has incredible clarity and visibility. There is also clear visual distinction in textures between types of blocks and their variations. But to that effect there lies the issue.
Games with voxel-style art run into the same issue as pixel-style art and Cubic Odyssey is no exception. The issue, at least from my simple layman’s perspective, is that most of them look very much the same. Again – layman because I hold no degree in design or art or anything even close. Yes there are variations in colour palette and acuity between them. But let’s be frank. Take a screenshot from Cubic Odyssey that shows just landscape and none of the unique game features and show it to me or any other average gamer. The chances of them telling you it either is Minecraft or at least a texture pack for Minecraft are extremely high. Again, not that it is to the fault of Atypical Games – it is simply a part of belonging to this style of game.
Cubic Odyssey provides an ambient level of casual mood music for every occasion. Tracks seem to transition seamlessly too. At least as far as I can recall I didn’t hear any abrupt changes. I am also appreciative that the game doesn’t have awkwardly AI-sounding voice acting. As long as I can hear the pirates talking in their digital dialect before they attack me, that’s all I really need.
Longevity
I believe that anyone looking to play Cubic Odyssey for the core gameplay is going to sink a considerable amount of time into it. Not only do you have the story to play, but adventure and creative modes as well. Add on top of that multiplayer and hundreds of star systems and planets. I am barely scratching the surface with what I’ve seen so far. I’m only still in the first system!
Atypical Games also has shared a roadmap through 2025 with the intent of improving existing content and some plans for future content. Some of these include agriculture and player-owned space stations,. So there’s plenty more content to come too.
Final Thoughts
Cubic Odyssey is definitely not a game to judge by its cover. It adds in its own unique flavour to make it stand apart after that initial impression. It’s going to take me a long, long time to fully wade deeper into the game. If you’re a fan games like Minecraft, this isn’t one you’ll want to miss.
With a vast amount of content to explore and means of doing so, Cubic Odyssey is well-deserving of the Thumb Culture Platinum Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
If you enjoy this review, be sure to check out my other reviews here.
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