Ah, the cosy sim. I’ve spent plenty of hours of my life looking for a relaxing alternative to existence in the likes of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Coral Island and Dreamlight Valley. I’ve longed for a new world that offers the absolute bare minimum to worry about, and build myself a nice big house on the beach to spend the rest of my days in. Starsand Island offers the perfect island getaway experience in spades, but this ended up being a little less Maldives and a little more Fyre Fest.
The basics are as basic as a basic cosy sim narrative can base as your character returns to the island of Starsand after being away for a period of time. Your childhood friend Solara is there to welcome you home and becomes your tutor through the opening hour or so. There’s a fair few mechanics to work your way through, so be sure to walk into this one knowing you won’t be let off the leash quickly – there’s far too much to learn about the island first. Ugh.
The slow rhythm of cosy sims are part and parcel of why they’re so popular, and Starsand is no different. The game expects you to know that it’s gonna take a second to get your head around everything, but once you do and you’re free to roam the world, there’s a nice amount to be getting on with and you’ll be instantly familiar with the crafting and whatnot if you’ve any game in this genre in the past twenty years.
And of course there’s no rush to do anything. An early mission has you finding pieces of a skateboard that you need to put together in order to get around the island a little quicker. It’s a persistent mission where you need to find a thing to get a thing to find the thing to craft the thing to buy the thing to get the thing to buy another thing to get the thing to make the skateboard. It’s life sim 101 that offers little to nothing of note that you haven’t seen before. You know the beats, you know how it all moves.
What Starsand does have in its favour – if you’re willing to power through it – is a bunch of things to do. You can explore over five main professions encouraging you to choose an option to see through across the game including ranching animals, farming crops, crafting, exploring and of course fishing. What would a cosy sim be without fishing? Exactly.
You’ll have the chance to try them all at some point and then choose which one to focus on throughout your playthrough and of course, there’s no rush to get any of these done. The lack of a cooking profession is a strange omission, perhaps cooking up some of these fishes with the crops you’re growing would be one profession too many, but it seems like a typical inclusion in the genre. Maybe it’ll come down the line in an update but for now, it’s not like there isn’t a bunch of stuff to be getting on with regardless. Maybe I just wanted to hang with the games resident chef Aurelis a little more. They’re cool.
I went for ranching to kick off with and it became a little obsession during my playthrough. Being able to raise rabbits, deer and chickens with mentor Pastelle became a nice little mechanic loop that I was enjoying. Fishing was fairly boring – and my argument that the fishing mechanics in Animal Crossing should be standard across the board still holds true against Starsand Island – and farming is exactly what you’d expect it to be in a life simulation. Worth looking into though if you want to make some easy cash early on.
It’s unfortunate then that whilst there are sparkles to be discovered they’re few and far between. From a technical standpoint this game runs poorly, and I’ve heard it is even worse on Switch 2. The console ports appear to have been a bit of a rush job, and are disappointingly optimised on both PS5 and Switch 2, it would seem.
That I was reviewing the game on a PS5 Pro and still seeing these issues, along with long loading times – frankly abhorrent in 2026 – and a narrative that offers quite frankly little more than the basics that you would expect from this genre.
The audio is surprisingly not annoying, with a peaceful soundtrack adding to the presentation. It’s just a shame it’s all so generic and straightforward. What Starsand does it does fairly well, but it’s not like you’ll be discovering a new way to play the cosy sim genre here in any real capacity. It’s taking the greatest hits and throwing it into a compilation nobody really asked for. I can’t think of a single thing Starsand has brought to the table that we haven’t seen a hundred times before.
Starsand island is a full cosy life sim without a personality or anything that really makes it unique. The game is bright and full of characters that are interesting but nothing stands out that makes it an essential purchase in any way shape or form.
Starsand Island is available now on PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5 (reviewed) and Xbox Series X|S
Developer: Seed Sparkle Lab
Publisher: Seed Sparkle Lab
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
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