Driftbound: Idle Space RPG

Optera Games

About this game

A mining run, a profitable trade route, or one more pirate to take down. What does your ship need next?

Driftbound is an idle space RPG where you start with one ship and work your way from the safe core worlds to the lawless rim. Mine, craft, trade and fight through a procedurally generated universe. Set your ship to work, close the game and come back to see how it went.

MAKE A LIVING IN SPACE
Mine asteroid belts, harvest gas, scan for salvage and turn raw materials into better gear. Stations have their own economies, so a full cargo hold is worth more if you know where to sell it. Take delivery jobs, follow leads from station residents, or carry contraband past customs if you're willing to risk your cargo.

PICK A SIDE IN THE FACTION WAR
Earn a faction's trust and take its oath. Complete three Orders a week, climb ten Merit ranks and choose a doctrine that suits how you play. Patrols, deliveries and scans help push your side's front. Watch systems change hands, hunt named captains, intercept convoys and work towards a Warlord's stronghold. Special war encounters wait for you to start the fight.

BUILD A SHIP THAT CAN HANDLE IT
Fit weapons, shields, engines and cargo upgrades. Craft equipment, collect rare modules and choose perks for the jobs you enjoy. Fight pirates with automatic weapons, then decide when to fire a missile, repair or get out. Better gear opens up tougher places with better salvage.

THERE'S MORE AFTER YOUR FIRST RUN
Follow the campaign and faction stories, hatch space pets and collect outfits and trophies. Re-enlist to earn Renown for permanent Admiralty upgrades. Push into harder Deep Runs or descend into the Undertow to see how far your build can take you. Your pets stay with you when you re-enlist.

PLAY AT YOUR OWN PACE
Travel, work, pet incubation and ordinary combat can progress while you're away. The return report shows what happened, and you can carry on with a mission or change your plans. Offline play works without the online features. Connect when you want to trade with other players on the Exchange, see nearby pilots or try a friendly duel.

No ads, in-app purchases or subscriptions. No account signup required. Pixel-art ships and worlds, adjustable text size, and nine languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Czech, Bulgarian and Simplified Chinese.

Ratings and reviews

So for some reason as of today (9/5/26) the game will no longer load past the initial loading screen. The loading bar stops at 1/3 and never progresses. I've cleared the cache and rebooted my phone but the issue persists. Edit: I got it working, seems the 1.8.0 Update requires a complete reinstall of the game and when it reset me back, I also lost the Forge items I had crafted.

scratches the star traders itch well! game is engaging and has plenty of depth. zero ads or iap. just buy once and play the full experience. the dev is outstanding and beyond responsive (bug report to fix in less than a day -- WOW). While it could benefit from some more content (faction wars?, things to hunt, etc) it'll still provide tons of entertainment. I'm beyond excited to see where this game goes in the future!

Thank you for the update. I hope I'm not asking too much, but crafting is an inconvenience for me because I can't tell how many materials I have stored in my cargo/vault when I try to upgrade parts of a ship. It would be helpful to somehow track materials more easily. I also have a question: when selling at the best location, is there a limit to getting the best price, or do I get the best price the whole time I'm at that location? Or does it change when I switch tabs?

What’s new

Driftbound 1.9.6: two war cards say what they mean.
• A captured captain's card now names the real stations that take them, system by system, instead of "a Combine station". Capture one while docked at the right station and the handover happens on the spot.
• The Total War commission card showed its internal name and no rule. It now reads Total War, with what it does spelled out.
• Auto-dump can be set from the hold's ⋯ menu as well as Settings.