Astroneer is an open-world space adventure where you colonize planets by creating habitable structures, farming and mining resources. There is no specific story, although the challenges of each planet give rise to struggles of achievement to placate the wild landscape.

As well as build a home on a far off planet, you can also sculpt the hills and valleys with the terrain tool. This creates space to build different structures (storage silos, atmospheric condensers, research chambers, component smelters, batteries, generators, turbines, and solar panels) and explore with different craft (rovers, buggies, space shuttles).

The game has a complex hierarchy of building and materials. You develop production sequences that take the raw material you find and turn it into more useful substances. You need considerable patience and time to achieve this.

For example, Ammonium can be converted into hydrazine fuel for an Astroneer's spacecraft, or used in its raw form to create a limited-use thruster. When low on oxygen, the Astroneer recharges by staying near craftable tethers, which can be chained over long distances to prevent suffocation. As of the game's full release, an "oxygenator" is required to provide an extended reach of oxygen when tethering.