Cubic Odyssey Review: A 1.0 Release That Feels More Like a 0.5 Alpha

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Despite being riddled with bugs and unfinished features, Cubic Odyssey has somehow managed to consume over 50 hours of my gaming time. This ambitious space-sandbox hybrid attempts to merge the best elements of No Man’s Sky and Minecraft, creating an experience that’s simultaneously compelling and frustrating.

The concept alone deserves recognition. Cubic Odyssey presents players with a vast universe featuring diverse planetary systems, atmospheric soundscapes, and genuinely impressive visual design. The seamless planetary-to-space transitions happen without loading screens, creating an immersive experience that few games achieve.

While I understand why many players recommend this title, calling it a complete 1.0 release is misleading at best. This feels like early access content being marketed as a finished product.

The Good: A Stroke of Genius

Cubic Odyssey shines brightest during solo play sessions. The exploration mechanics create a relaxing, meditative gameplay loop perfect for unwinding after a long day. Traversing alien landscapes and discovering new worlds delivers consistent satisfaction.

The mining system initially appears tedious, but the developers implemented a clever solution through QB-1, your robotic companion. After discovering any resource, you can scan it, enabling QB-1 to detect similar materials in the surrounding area. This transforms resource gathering from mindless grinding into strategic exploration.

Base construction offers genuine creative freedom, with an innovative blueprint system allowing you to save entire structures and reconstruct them on different planets. Unlike Minecraft’s directionless sandbox, Cubic Odyssey provides narrative direction through its story campaign, giving purpose to your galactic adventures.

The Bad: Broken, Janky, and Unfinished

Unfortunately, every brilliant design choice comes packaged with multiple critical flaws. The game’s polish is severely lacking across fundamental systems.

The progression and itemization mechanics are fundamentally broken. Within minutes of visiting my first space station, I purchased a top-tier weapon, completely bypassing four levels of intended crafting progression. This trivializes the entire upgrade system.

Late-game content fares no better. The rare “glowing ore” requiring hours of grinding proves essentially worthless everything it unlocks can be purchased or discovered through normal exploration. Even derelict ships in high-difficulty sectors contain nothing but starter-level equipment.

Core gameplay feels unrefined. Ship controls range from clunky to barely functional. Controller implementation feels hastily added with poor button mapping. The complete absence of tutorial systems or in-game explanations forced me to constantly reference external wikis for basic mechanics.

Basic quality-of-life features are missing entirely. You cannot rename bases, place custom map markers, or search within crafting menus. These aren’t minor oversights they’re fundamental features expected in any modern sandbox game.

The Ugly: A Co-op Catastrophe

While single-player experiences hover around a 7/10 rating (with significant caveats), multiplayer functionality is completely unacceptable.

Purchasing Cubic Odyssey for cooperative play with friends would be a serious mistake. The multiplayer implementation is fundamentally broken, rendering it essentially unplayable.

Synchronization issues go far beyond typical online lag. When friends join hosted sessions, entire bases disappear into terrain. Players become invisible to each other. Ship sharing doesn’t function. Storage containers bug out, preventing all players from accessing their contents.

Community reports include deleted save files after multiplayer sessions and complete item loss when switching ships during co-op play. These aren’t minor bugs they’re game-breaking issues that should have prevented release.

This advertised feature is completely non-functional and shouldn’t be marketed as part of the current product.

The Verdict

My continued playtime in solo mode demonstrates that Cubic Odyssey contains genuine potential. The development team remains actively engaged with their community, which provides some hope for future improvements.

However, labeling this as a version 1.0 release is fundamentally dishonest. This is early access content without the appropriate designation, setting false expectations for purchasers.

The core concept excels. The single-player sandbox, despite its numerous frustrations, provides moments of genuine enjoyment. But overall quality barely reaches 6/10. The game succeeds on potential rather than execution.

Solo players with high frustration tolerance and appreciation for grindy sandbox experiences might extract value from this purchase. Patient players willing to overlook significant technical issues could find an enjoyable time-sink.

For everyone else, wait until the game receives substantial updates and actually deserves its 1.0 designation.

Score: 6.2/10 – An ambitious space-sandbox vision undermined by incomplete development and broken systems.

Disclosure: NLM received a complimentary review key for Cubic Odyssey. This did not influence our assessment.