Lightyear Frontier’s chill mix of Armoured Core, Stardew Valley and PowerWash Sim is ripe for release in March

Mech-farming sim Lightyear Frontier has confirmed its release for next March, landing around a year after the delayed chill space game was originally meant to touch down on Planet PC.

We first saw Lightyear Frontier back in 2021, unveiling a colourful and serene mixture of mechs and agriculture a la Stardew Valley. It was initially aiming for an early access launch in spring 2023, which eventually slipped back to an uncertain release window as devs Frame Break worked to finish it up.

The farming at Lightyear Frontier’s heart has vibes of both Stardew - of course, being any farming game in 2023 - but also the less obvious comparison of PowerWash Sim in the feel of its space-age tools and its generally laid-back atmosphere, which tasks players with clearing up and maintaining their patch of alien planet without much punishment for taking it at your own pace. You get a gun that can shoot seeds into the ground, suck up water to help them grow and other such handy tools.

This being a mech game, you can also customise your mech by snapping on new parts that will help you efficiently tend your land. Armoured Core this ain’t, but a gentle take on farming sims, stomping mechs and first-person shooting (here with seeds) it is. Katharine was quite taken with what she saw earlier this year, and its vivid colour palette is certainly a nice change from the black void of space and hospital-white gleam in many sci-fi games.

The whole thing looks and sounds charming, with the ability to befriend NPCs - though not quite to the town-wide scale of Stardew - as well as team up with friends for co-op farmhanding. Frame Break also revealed their plans for post-launch content, alternating between mini updates that will improve quality-of-life and accessibility features and respond to community requests, and bigger updates that will look to expand the game with the neighbourhood froendship system, ability to keep animals, new crops and an expansion to the game's world, including extra story elements and hidden secrets.

Lightyear Frontier will be ready to harvest next March, coming to both Steam and Game Pass.