Being stranded is a fear that, like many, I also have. The premise of being stuck somewhere where the promise or chance of rescue is slim. It’s also a theme that has run through so much pop culture. From Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet to Robert Zemeckis’ Cast Away, humanity has a strange draw towards “the worst case scenario”. Even video games are no stranger to the concept of being stranded! Games like Subnautica, The Forest, and Raft explore being…stuck…with no hope of rescue. That being said, Goose Byte and Spiral Up Games have brought us another entry – The Signal: Stranded on Sirenis.

The Signal: Stranded on Sirenis is a single-player survival crafting game that is coming to early access on Steam, with a demo of the game coming tentatively in October 2025. Gamer Social Club was granted with an early sneak peek at what’s brewing from Goose Byte and what we can expect with The Signal: Stranded on Sirenis.

So, without further ado, let’s take the dive into surviving…Sirenis!

The World and Story

The Signal: Stranded on Sirenis starts like any good survival game starts…with our vessel crash landing on an unknown planet. You know – the usual. As the player, you’re the only surviving member of your crew. And the planet is…aware of your presence. And talks to you. Imagine Sirenis as your Navi, to hearken to another video gaming reference.

From your brief conversation with the planet, you understand that your brother also came here – a brother that for all intents and purposes has been missing. It begs the question – did Sirenis purposely crash us here? Who knows! I’m sure that will be the neat part of this game as you delve into what it has to offer.

Across Sirenis, there are various crash sites from other vessels, as well as ancient ruins. Ruins that, despite appearances, are active…with aggressive robotic creatures that attack on site. In the words I have shouted at many games “I JUST GOT HERE – WHY THE AGGRESSION??” Along with these ruins are portals to other regions…and it’s not clear where they bring us. Even Sirenis themself says that they cannot help us in these regions.

Along with aggressive little robots with a penchant for blaster fire are the various fauna on Sirenis. Some are docile – others, quite aggressive. Imagine hermit crabs that have the jump skills of a low-gravity Mario. But enough about the world – what’s the gameplay like?

The Gameplay

Crafting

Much like other survival crafting games, The Signal: Stranded on Sirenis will require you to explore and use the resources on hand to get yourself out of your predicament. A vast majority of the resources on Sirenis are harvested via a Plasma Cutter. The various resources on the planet will make themselves very apparent to you.

It goes without saying that these resources will not only help you survive (because you’ll need to monitor your food and water intake), but also help to build out your base (via a Base Core). Use what you harvest from the area to build structures, along with various workbenches that can further refine resources, as well as craft advanced components like computer chips. My little base, while small, had a lot packed into one small building unit.

And of course, what survival game would not have weapons? Because weapons! Given the…temperament of most of the creatures on Sirenis, it’s probably for the best that we can defend ourselves.

I mentioned a Base Core earlier. But what exactly does the Base Core do? This is the central location to your humble abode on Sirenis that will be the source of advancing all of your skills and technology while trapped on the planet. Research more advanced crafting stations, discover new craftables (like a vehicle!), and gain a deeper understanding of your own shields and weapons. But how do you actually use it? By spending Research Points! And where do those points come from? Your Research Station.

What you essentially need to do is funnel discovered resources into your Research Station. The more rare/advanced a resource, the more Research Points that are yielded. But with more advanced materials comes a longer research time. Time frames that may be so extensive that you’ll need to find something to occupy yourself with while you wait.

Combat

Combat is pretty self-explanatory. Enemy appear. Point gun at enemy. Enemy go bye bye. Loot. Repeat. In the early stages of access to this game, we had crabs, we had bots, and we had bots that go boom. No, seriously – they trundle up to you and just blow up.

You start the game with just a pistol, but have the ability to build up to also having a shotgun, as well as an Assault Rifle. I only built up to having access to the Shotgun, but it packs a punch!

The Good

Now that I’ve gone through the brass tacks of the game, let’s talk about the pros and cons of what I experienced. We’ll start with the good!

First and foremost – the scenery of Sirenis is quite vibrant, and while not the most detailed at times, gets the point across. You are a stranger in a strange land. I definitely feel that there was also a desire here to mimic the cell-shaded styles of games like TellTale’s The Walking Dead. Coupled with the dream-like scenery is a musical score that really gives me some Minecraft vibes…but with more sci-fi slipped in.

The process of gathering materials to start building is also intuitive and doesn’t feel like too much of a slog. Though who knows – I might change my tune as the game progresses. You do have something of a limit on personal storage space on your person. You can build more storage crates, but still – who wants 30 crates at their base?

I also enjoyed the simplicity of the combat. Here’s a weapon – point it in that direction and pull the trigger. In a world of games with increasingly complex combat mechanics, sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and just shoot.

Lastly, what story we were presented with thus far is definitely pulling me in. Why am I here on Sirenis? And what happened to my brother? And who is controlling these obnoxious and endlessly spawning robots (we’ll get into it)?

The Bad

One of the first things I noticed – resource harvesting. To have what you need to craft you need a LOT. Like, more than you think you need. That being said, you’ll be spending a lot of time roaming the map, looking for resource nodes. It just made the process feel…tedious. I also noticed that the resources, when they did actually respawn, took a long time to do so.

But you know what didn’t talk long to respawn? Enemies. Seriously. Every time you turn back to an area, everything has respawned. I get something of a respawn rate of enemies but goodness – allow some time to pass. The worst part – the enemies aren’t difficult – just tedious to wade through time and time again.

In the same vein of enemies is something more specific: enemy accuracy. These autonomous robots need to be recruited to the Olympic Games because they are accurate. Problematically so. If you’re engaged in combat with them, be prepared for at least one hit from a laser bolt. Coupled with this is then having the need to carry countless First Aid Kits on you. And if you die? All your stuff gets dropped and all the enemies respawn too.

One of the last notes that I have on a more negative note are some movement glitches I experienced. In one of the early ruins, I walked too close to an elevated platform. And I got stuck. For a good minute. Which I spent alternating between sprinting and jumping to dislodge myself. Maybe it was just a fluke occurrence. Nope. Every time I wandered to that specific area. Unfortunately, I would hazard a guess that more areas like this exist elsewhere in the game.

I think the main term that kept coming up for me was this: tedium. I understand that survival crafting games had some element of tedium to them. But…there is a way to break that up. And unfortunately, the way to break it up is not endlessly spawning enemies that always follow the same movements and attack patterns.

The Overall

The Signal: Stranded in Sirenis provides another unique take on the survival crafting genre, while also providing a unique story that will leave you looking for more answers. That being said though, the biggest drawback, in my opinion, is the somewhat loop-like nature of gameplay (at least this early on). My hopes – this becomes less problematic/apparent as the game progresses. There is potential here for something truly enjoyable. And while I didn’t outright dislike the game, there are elements that gave me pause to my enjoyment of it.

That being said, I hope that Goose Byte continues to craft and tweak The Signal: Stranded in Sirenis and give fans of this genre something that they can sink their crafting teeth into.

Gamer Social Club was provided early access to the demo of this game for the purpose of this preview.