It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly four and a half years since I originally played ICARUS on PC, way back at the end of 2021. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you read my original review here, where you’ll see that I was absolutely blown away by the incredible and ambitious survival/crafting game from our friends across the ditch. After releasing an absolute banger, you may expect the developers to simply sit back and watch the rewards roll in, but not Rocketwerkz. The studio hasn’t spent the years simply resting on its laurels, instead, they have been diligently supporting Icarus post-launch, with both massive and minor updates, at a pace that is as insane as it is impressive. In order to make sure that fans of primitive technology over on consoles (no pun intended) don’t miss out, they have been working with GRIP Studios to finally bring ICARUS to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. Naturally, I strapped on my finest stone pickaxe to once again claim my prospect and drop in to the VERY hostile world that awaited.
Hello, my old friend
In order not to repeat myself, I won’t go into the nitty gritty of the game. For that, I would once again direct you to my previous review here. Suffice it to say that ICARUS is a beautiful, challenging and unique take on the survival/crafting genre. The main gameplay difference between this and say Minecraft or Ark: Survival Evolved is the almost ‘roguelike’ setup of prospecting missions and meta-progression. Although there are options to create smaller, kinder worlds, the bulk of your time will likely be spent in the massive open world or (like me) completing time limited missions and then returning to orbit with your spoils (or not at all). Your character’s experience level and tech-tree unlocks persist between expeditions, but everything you have built or gathered during the mission is left behind, save for the in-game currency (known as Exotics) and the equipment you bought with it. Revisiting this kind of gameplay in the console edition reminded me of just how different this actually feels to play. Trying to balance the urgency felt when you land with nothing and you see the clock ticking down with the fact that the world will ABSOLUTELY punish you if you don’t take the time to establish yourself properly is exhilarating. There were many a time when I thought I could just quickly complete a mission with the barest of essential tools, only to consistently have my shit rocked by the many, many hazards on Icarus (the planet).
Speaking of duality, playing ICARUS on console was both an awesome experience and an incredibly frustrating one. The game that I know and love is all there. It is just as gorgeous to look at, challenging to play and satisfying to progress through. However, it feels like the UI and control scheme hasn’t really been adapted for consoles. Although there have been multiple patches and some improvements since I first played the review build of the game, it still feels like a square peg PC system trying to fit into a round console hole. Specifically, navigating the inventory and crafting screens feels VERY unintuitive and led to many instances where I was frantically trying to repair or craft gear in a dangerous situation, only to be totally hamstrung by the finicky controls. Players on PC are often fairly close to their screens and have the ability to quickly mouse over large areas, and so smaller icons and text is less of an issue. When playing on a console, however, we are typically much further back and limited to navigating with the analogue sticks, necessitating larger UI elements and simpler layouts. Although steps have been taken over the last few weeks to mitigate this particular problem, playing the most recent build still felt ungainly and annoying. I’m hoping that with enough feedback and time, the developers can implement a more appropriate user interface and experience for consoles.
The only waterfront property I’ll ever afford
Otherwise, aside from some minor graphical issues and a few crashes, ICARUS held up pretty well on PS5, and I’ve no doubt that those things will be patched (if they haven’t already). The console edition also comes with the New Frontiers expansion to the base game, offering a huge new region to explore and plunder. If you haven’t been following along with the updates to the PC version of the game, there are now all new maps, creatures, craftables, pets and even rideable mounts to check out, most of which you can discover in the console edition. As I mentioned in my original review, Icarus offers and incredibly broad, deep and interesting take survival/crafting genre, one which you could easily spend hundreds of hours in, toiling away from the comfort of your couch.
One of my few true gripes about ICARUS unfortunately persists in the console edition of the game and is perhaps exacerbated in it. As mentioned back in 2021, multiplayer in Icarus lacks any kind of matchmaking ability, relying on you filling out your expedition party with friends only. This may be pretty easy for some people, but for me it forced me to seek out randoms on the Icarus Discord to match with. Not a deal breaker by any means, and I can understand the reasoning behind this decision, but one that feels like a barrier to enjoyment for me and potentially others. The console edition also includes a reduction to the number of players able to share an expedition from eight down to four. While it may be easier to fill out a smaller party, I’ve yet to see if the difficulty has been balanced to allow for this, as back in the day our party of eight struggled with even medium level missions. Please, please believe me when I say that playing solo is no joke in ICARUS and although you can definitely do it, the game feels like it has been tuned with multiplayer in mind.
What was in those mushrooms?
Final Thoughts
It’s really hard to know how I feel about the console release of ICARUS. It is an absolute banger of a game and one which I would highly recommend all fans of the genre play. However, even though GRIP Studios has faithfully brought that experience to the console audience, it feels like there is still a bit of work to do before it feels like it’s meant to be there. If you have the patience and tenacity for it, ICARUS: Console Edition might just become your new obsession for the next few months. If you are easily turned off by frustrating controls and UI that only compound the challenging nature of the experience, perhaps wait and see if they implement a change down the road. Either way, I’m glad I got to search for space gold again, pardner!
Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher
- Rocketwerkz, Grip Studios
- GRIP DIGITAL S.R.O.
- PS5 / Xbox Series X&S
- March 26, 2026
