Ultima Online's designer is back with a new sandbox MMO Stars Reach

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Published Jun 3, 2026, 10:43 AM EDT

Stars Reach is an ambitious new sci-fi MMO from Ultima Online designer Raph Koster

UFOs fly above a planet's surface in Stars Reach

Raph Koster, the game developer best known for his work on influential MMOs like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, has unveiled his next game. It's a sci-fi sandbox MMORPG titled Stars Reach, and it's launching this summer.

Stars Reach is the first game from Playable Worlds, which Koster co-founded in 2018. In it, players can explore the universe, find planets to settle on, and then build up those settlements over time. There will obviously be a lot of combat and resource gathering in Stars Reach's gameplay loop to support that, although it will have a classless leveling system, so people don't lock themselves into a certain play style.

Stars Reach will even let players form governments to manage their settlements and impose taxes on those who live there, so expect it to be an MMORPG that truly leans into the role-playing, second-life aspect of the genre.

Playable Worlds even promises that Stars Reach will always take place on a single server that will never reset. As a result, players can expect everything they build to remain persistent as long as Stars Reach's servers are online. It's certainly one of the most ambitious MMO games that we've seen announced in some time.

But unlike some other MMO projects that have made big promises but never actually gotten any sort of release, Stars Reach actually has a relatively imminent launch window. It'll be released via Steam Early Access sometime this summer with three different paid versions: the $29.99 Firstlight Pack, the $49.99 Voyager Pack, and the $79.99 Cosmonaut Pack.

The early access version of Stars Reach will focus on the more cooperative aspects of the game, such as exploring the universe, building settlements through resource gathering, and trading with other players. Features like PvP, factions, and a "planet-eating hive mind" that serves as the primary antagonistic force of the MMO will be added.

Stars Reach will be released via Steam Early Access later this summer. We do not know how long the game will remain in early access.

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