Preview: Starsand Island Is a Cosy PS5 RPG Straight Out of a Studio Ghibli Daydream

We recently had the opportunity to go hands-on with Starsand Island, an upcoming cosy RPG developed by Seed Lab. This gorgeous anime-style life sim takes place on the titular Starsand Island which feels like something straight out of Studio Ghibli.

Players create a character and explore the island paradise in an immersive third-person perspective experience. Your story begins when you return to the island where you apparently lived as a child. You inherit a small basic house and some surrounding land.

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A brief tutorial teaches you the basics of crafting and making changes to your house in build mode. After this, you're thrown into the world and free to play however you wish.

Like most games in its genre, Starsand Island has the typical cosy activities of crafting, farming, fishing, and bug catching, but what really sets it apart is it also has a strong focus on role playing. There is a stamina bar which slowly depletes when doing activities which you recover with food and drink. You also must sleep regularly enough or face the consequences.

The island feels busy and lived in and there’s lots of main characters you can develop relationships with. These characters seem to remember previous conversations you have had, and this makes choices feel more impactful.

As your relationship with a particular character improves, you gain the ability to hangout, visit, and eventually even become roommates with them, and of course there is the possibility for dating and romance, too.

The world itself feels fun to inhabit, and you can interact with a surprisingly large number of things. You can shop at all the different stalls you see and even use vending machines and rummage through trash cans too.

There is a vehicle hire system, and you can zip around the world on a bicycle or scooter, and there are plenty of other hidden transport options to discover. The roads are rather empty though with no NPC traffic which does detract somewhat from this otherwise immersive world.

What really sets Starsand Island apart from the likes of, say, Animal Crossing, for example, is its complex build system. It functions much closer to games like The Sims and allows you to completely change the size and shape of buildings by adding and moving walls, doors, windows, and roofs as well as all the usual interior decorations.

Rather than just relying on money like The Sims, most build items will need to be crafted, and this encourages you to search for rare materials. Being able to fully customise a building you crafted yourself and then actually live inside it feels rewarding and allows to leave your unique mark on the world.

As well as personalising your home, you will eventually be able to customise other lots around the world, the most exciting being the Starsand Island Waterpark – a water theme park where you can build your own water slides and other attractions (similar to Planet Coaster 2) and can then ride them in first person.

Overall, Starsand Island looks to be a promising title, mixing cosy game farming and crafting with an intricate build system and immersive role playing. These systems all gel together well into a great experience for builders and simmers alike.

The colourful anime style visuals and warm welcoming world will also be appealing to anime fans everywhere. Starsand Island is set to release on 1st February and we are excited to see how the game develops and playing it upon its release.

Are you looking forward to Starsand Island when it releases next year? Is this the kind of cosy game you’ve been waiting for? Let us know in the comments section below.