Star Trucker Review Where Haulers Hit Hyperspace

by Jim Smale · Published June 13, 2025 · Updated June 17, 2025

Star Trucker review – There’s nothing quite like the thrill of threading a haulier through a meteor field while rerouting power to your shields! Star Trucker throws you into the dusty boots of a space-faring freight jockey scraping credits and chasing glory, one hyperspace jump at a time. It’s equal parts chaos, charm, and cosmic capitalism—complete with late-night transmissions, rustbucket repairs, and the ever-present hum of your trusty rig’s reactor core.

Star Trucker Review Pros

Decent graphics.
5.32GB download size.
Platinum trophy.
FREE SteelSeries promo pack DLC, which is a paint job and hood ornament.
Controller settings – Invert axis and sensitivity sliders and dead zone sliders. You can remap the controls, turn off the controller light bar, and set of the cab window auto recentres.
You can set CB chatter to come through the controller speaker for more immersion.
Driving/flying haulage gameplay.
Opening tutorial section, then ongoing tutorial pop-ups, and a central guide to check entries.
Five game difficulties or modifiers – custom, driver, all-rounder, mechanic, and free play. These will adjust how much maintenance you need to do on your rig or how many driving assists you get.
Free play is more a case of everything is open and you play how you want, but you don’t need to worry about side missions, and your rig is already fully kitted out.
Third and first-person views.
Pick your job from the job boards at stations, you have a huge list and can pick freely.
Road rules are in place so you get fines for crashes, hitting the scenery, speeding, etc.
To dock at stations you have to reverse your truck into the bays and use your mag lock to park your truck.
The interior is very clean, everything has a pop-up description of what it is, you have multiple screens and can see behind you, monitor air/gas, etc.
You have multiple other camera angles to help like looking out the left or right-hand side, underneath, top down, etc.
You pick a job at a station and then go to a terminal to pick up your cargo.
Thrusters show on each side of your truck and this really helps with controlling your truck in the third person.
The game has a lot of depth and needs a steady hand to guide your truck around.
Full voice work, mostly in the form of a radio charter.
You can turn the radio on and off.
Multiple-choice encounters usually occur when using your CB radio.
The light are on the PlayStation 5 dualsense is black and it looks really cool. The light does change with certain actions but it is slight.
Save and load when you want.
The map is used to plan your route, you place markers, etc, as you rank up, you unlock more of the map.
On-screen prompts for buttons and location names, including distance.
You can pause the game.
Momentum and physics play a massive part in the control and general driving of your truck and cargo.
On the controller the left stick is movement and the right stick is the camera and you use this to look around your cab.
Massive 3D game world.
Jump gates are used for travelling around sectors. You need to line yourself up with the gate and wait for it to power up.
The drop pods are satisfying as you line up and pull the load in; the lights change green to indicate you’re done.
End of job breakdown like time taken, distance, fuel used cash earned, cash lost, and stars awarded for the delivery objectives.
Earn exp from jobs and level up to get skill points, better jobs, Bigger cargo, etc.
Many job types, from timed ones to fragile or urgent ones.
Space debris is a thing and can damage your truck.
Your onboard dashboard shows alerts like space debris close.
The truck is also your home in a way. You can get up and walk around it, get a space suit on, and go outside to repair your truck, and turn the power to units on your truck individually.
You need to get supplies for your truck, like power cells, so you can recharge your space suit.
A living world.
Damage to your truck shows, smoke can pump out, lights go off, etc.
Has a real trucker atmosphere and a lot of it is owed to the CB radio implementation and the way the world is created.
When a cargo is attached, you get a percentage bar to tell you how damaged it all is.
The docking camera is a thing of beauty, lining up your cargo and hitting the mag lock is very very satisfying.
You can customise your truck by buying items and earning them.
Little quality of life additions make the game experience even better.

Star Trucker Review Cons

Driving the truck is not easy and it takes some time to get used to the momentum and weight of the truck.
It takes a while for the game to let go of you and let you explore and take on jobs at your own pace.
It’s very hard to judge the distance of debris or the corners of buildings, etc.
No graphics settings.
There are no PlayStation 5-specific options like haptic feedback or adaptive triggers.
Using the CB radio when driving is tricky.
When you lose control of your truck or mess up so badly, it’s frustrating not to have a quick and easy way to go back, and instead, you should save regularly.

Star Trucker

Official Website:

Developer: Monster & Monster

Publisher: Raw Fury

Store Link:

PlayStation

Star Trucker Review

Jim Smale

Graphics

80%

Sound

80%

Accessibility

80%

Length

80%

Fun Factor

80%

Summary

Star Trucker – The Thrills and Highlights of Gameplay: Star Trucker delivers a deep and immersive space haulage experience, blending truck sim mechanics with sci-fi scale. You’ll navigate a massive 3D world in both first- and third-person views, using physics-based controls that demand patience and precision. Choose from various job types, fragile, urgent, timed, and pick assignments freely from expansive job boards. From tight docking via mag-locks to navigating jump gates between sectors, the game emphasises realism and challenge. Multiple viewports, thruster indicators, and a detailed cab interior with pop-up UI enrich each journey. Momentum, cargo weight, and debris risk all factor into success, while the map, route planning, and voice-acted CB chatter enhance the trucker’s feel in space. Star Trucker – Where It Falls Short: Key Negatives: While Star Trucker excels in atmosphere, it stumbles in a few areas. PS5-specific features like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers are absent, and there are no graphics settings to fine-tune performance. Depth perception can be a struggle, judging debris distance or manoeuvring in tight spaces is often difficult. The CB radio, while immersive, becomes cumbersome during active driving. The tutorial is slow to release the reins, and with no quick reset system for major mistakes, players are encouraged to save constantly to avoid frustrating setbacks. Star Trucker – Immersive Story and Narrative Elements: Star Trucker’s strength lies in environmental storytelling. While not driven by a linear narrative, the game builds a believable world through interactive systems: radio banter, multiple-choice CB encounters, and a strong sense of living aboard your truck. As your mobile home and workstation, your rig deepens the role-playing element, especially when venturing outside in a spacesuit for repairs and maintenance. The layered world evokes the gritty solitude of deep space trucking, enhanced by small touches like controller speaker chatter and customisable interiors. Star Trucker – Visual and Performance Aspects: With decent graphics packed into a modest 5.32GB download, Star Trucker doesn’t dazzle but still delivers a clean, readable UI and satisfying visual details like thruster burns, mag-lock docking, and smoke billowing from damaged systems. Pop-up descriptors and multiple camera angles add both utility and polish. The PS5 DualSense lightbar subtly reacts to in-game actions, though its impact is limited. Despite lacking granular graphics options, the game maintains steady performance with solid voice work and ambient world design supporting its immersive tone. Star Trucker – Overall Verdict: Is It Worth Playing?: Star Trucker is a richly detailed interstellar haulage sim that earns its stripes with realism, variety, and trucker ambience. It takes time to find your rhythm, especially with its steep handling curve and few quality-of-life omissions. But for those craving a unique blend of sci-fi, sim, and solitude, Star Trucker is a rewarding space trucking odyssey, especially with perks like the Platinum trophy and the bonus SteelSeries paint job DLC sweetening the deal. Back of the Box Quotes: “Star Trucker turns space freight into an atmospheric sim adventure you won’t want to put down.”

80%