Its open world planets, where in terraforming can take place, are subject to procedural generation, with the exception of some planet-specific resources.

Craftable items include rovers, printers, jets, buggies, tractors, spacecraft, storage silos, atmospheric condensers, research chambers, component smelters, batteries, generators, turbines, and solar panels.

Resources, such as organic material, quartz, lithium, ammonium, and resin, are neatly packaged by the Terrain Tool into convenient stacks.

The game offers a more open-ended storyline that allows for creativity and self-paced progress, alongside optional tasks and missions that can result in lore and narrative via cutscenes and data logs.

In order to advance the main storyline, the player must discover and activate an alien Gateway Chamber and dig into the planet.

This process is repeated for the rest of the planets and moons, Desolo, Calidor, Vesania, Novus, Glacio, and Atrox, listed from easiest to hardest.

The game came about after Adam Bromell showed his friend Paul Pepera a "personal art project" consisting of a space man.

At first, they worked on the game only part-time, after about two years of development Bromell in an interview stated that they were about ready to commit to the project full time.

Bromell notes that the "no-frills" art style served a practical purpose as well, as it let them quickly build new ideas into the game.

Shacknews gave the game an eight out of ten, praising the atmosphere, exploration, crafting, base building, setting, casual survival elements, cooperative play, and pleasing aesthetics, while criticizing some minor technical issues.

[21] USgamer said that the game was "on the soft side of the survival spectrum", ultimately concluding that "[...] Astroneer falters in not having more interesting things to find within each planet.

Nintendo Life reviewed the Switch port, praising the developer support, crafting, terrain tool, and how well the game suited the console, while calling out the choppy framerate, janky physics, and bad camera and controls.