Beyond These Stars | | PAX Australia 2026 Preview

Beyond These Stars is a city builder with a twist; it is set on the back of Kewa, a space whale that travels through the stars. As the settlement grows, managing resources is key to success, creating paths, connecting buildings and meeting the needs of the occupants, all while learning to coexist with the giant creature. It is an unusual setting, with the well-being of the travelling home a key part of the building process.

At PAX 2026, I had the chance to play a short demo of Beyond these Stars; the demo lasted approximately fifteen minutes. About half of the demo was the tutorial, which walked me through the basics of the game’s management side. The second half of the demo left me to my devices to manage and finish building my settlement. I was able to build some resource harvesters and some pathways and learn how to start the relationship between the space whale and its newest allies.

The tutorial also gave emphasis on Kewa’s circumstances and how to work the local resources and what effect that would have on the whale. This gave decent context for developing the settlement. The building and resource management felt decent, as did the overlying story elements. The tutorial set me on the right path to understanding how my role affected the whale’s life.

Visually, it had a nice aesthetic with the 3D modelling and the hexagon grid layout. The landscape was varied, and identifying the different resources and structures was easy to understand and use. The menus hung on the edge of the view and allowed me to navigate them with ease. The game had an intuitive setup, making the building layout and resource gathering easy to understand.

With the short session I had, I enjoyed the game even if most of my time was spent learning the basics. The demo offered a good section of the game and an understanding of the title; it also did a decent job of getting me interested.

Beyond These Stars released on 17/10/2026: Steam

[Explosion Network attended PAX Australia 2026 with a provided Media Pass.]