Product Info

Platform

Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PC

Publisher

Seed Sparkle Lab

Developer

Seed Sparkle Lab

Genre

Simulation

Players

1 (1-4 online)

File Size (Minimum)

9.8 GB

Release Date (NA)

Aug 18, 2026

Purchase From

eShop

PSN Store

Microsoft Store

Steam

Home » Starsand Island (Review)

Starsand Island is a colorful life simulation game where you trade the city for island living to raise animals, farm, fish, decorate your homes, build relationships, and more at your pace. However, not everything is all rainbows and butterflies, as the game carries performance issues, a weak story, and frustrations.

Escape the City Life

You’ll play as a male or female character looking to escape the stress of city life. You head to Starsand Island, a place you once visited in your youth and where you’ll inherit your grandfather’s plot of land. Now the work begins.

One of the game’s unique features is the addition of using various types of transportation such as skateboards, rollerblades, mopeds, cars, and ships. It’s certainly not lacking in this department, and it helps immensely in getting around on the island. Especially when you have a curfew at 2am. Go past this time, and your character receives a consequence with half the energy to use for the following day.

A Pallet Full of Activities

There’s a lot to do on Starsand Island. Activities on Starsand Island include fishing, crafting, cooking, collecting, animal care, decorating, and more. There’s also flexibility when it comes to decorating your property, and with the option to explore areas like the mines for minerals, there’s more to do. One of the best features of the game is the wide variety of activities available to players. The abundance of activities can make the game feel cluttered and overwhelming when you first start playing.

You can quickly acquire most of the day-to-day equipment, allowing you to start farming and then add various skills like ranching and carpentry. You can do as much or as little as you want, but it will likely impact your goals, quests and relationships with the townsfolk. 

Though there are a decent number of characters, many of them are tourists on the island and do little to progress the game. Hopefully some of them are placeholders to evolve the story further or have more meaningful relationships.

As far as sim farming games go, the overall development of the skills you can obtain and items you can gather is very broad, and you get to experience it sooner than some other kinds of games of the same genre.

A Work in Progress

The game’s colorful presentation is what captures your eye when you first see its gameplay. With vibrant colors and anime-based styles, it certainly gives that cozy feeling for a simulation game. However, the game does carry some bugs and performance issues.

The frame rate tends to drop, which is surprising to see while playing on a PlayStation 5 Pro. There have been times when quests in the game are not accurate. For example, the NPC will give wrong directions, or they will fail to give the interaction prompt needed to finish a quest. It’s inconsistent, and I would expect future patches to fix many of these issues.

The game’s dialogue and story writing feel weak, and it’s noticeable in relationships. Deep and meaningful relationships with a mentor or childhood friends are missing. The characters are mostly busy doing errands and main story tasks to push the plot forward. There is very little if any emotion, story or sharing of much of the character’s interest outside of some here and there. Since the game is new, I hope the characters and their future romances will be deeper and more relatable.

The game’s soundtrack is lovely and calming except for the moments you are battling in the mines, which gives off a faster and more aggressive tune but is still calming for a battle song. While I enjoyed the music, it isn’t very long and goes into a loop that feels repetitive. It can be annoying sometimes but others may not even notice it. The music is excellent despite the loop, but if the artists expand on the tracks, it may offer a better play experience since they won’t notice the loop too soon.

The Final Tool

Starsand Island is a solid game worth checking out if you love relaxing farming and skill-building sim games. The story and character development aren’t terribly deep, but there’s plenty of potential for the future. Give the developers a little more time to patch things up and you’ll find Starsand Island well worth your time exploring.

A PlayStation 5 review code was provided for this review. Starsand Island arrives on August 18, 2026 for the Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Players can visit the game’s official website for additional information.