On March 12, Stellar Wanderer DX launched—a space shooter worth checking out if you’ve got a soft spot for Microsoft’s Freelancer. That said, it’s not an entirely new game, but a heavily modernized “Deluxe Edition” of Stellar Wanderer (2016), which originally released on mobile. Boo, right? Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen?

Five years ago, I’d just crash-landed—well, technically landed—in a games editorial office, and people were doing the usual editorial small talk: favorite games, favorite genres, favorite movies, blah blah blah.

So naturally, in a games editorial office, I made the wildly misguided mistake of asking whether anyone else was into X, No Man’s Sky, or Star Trek. I don’t think I’ve ever been greeted by more people suddenly pretending they were fascinated by their fingernails. 😀 I might as well have walked into a Hideo Kojima fan club and asked if anyone there liked Metal Gear Solid.

Anyway: if you, too, could picture yourself sitting in a games editorial office, then Freelancer (Digital Anvil / Microsoft) is probably a name you know.

No, I’m not here to announce the long-overdue GOG version or a sequel to that beloved space blaster—but I can tell you about a pretty similar release: Stellar Wanderer DX.

Exploring as a Fighter, Trader, Tank, or Engineer

As mentioned, the new Stellar Wanderer DX is based on a mobile version that’s 10 years older. Never heard of it? Me neither... until now. Still, mobile roots or not, Dream Builder Studios’ game has quite a bit going for it:

• Open galaxy
• Roughly 10-hour campaign
• Side missions (including escort, mining, and racing jobs)
• Smooth space combat in both third-person and cockpit view
• Mining
• Trading
• Smuggling (yes, of course there’s a space police force)
• Bounty hunting / piracy
• Ship upgrades (tractor beams, hidden compartments, passenger cabins)
• Choice between Fighter, Trader, Tank, and Engineer classes (from level 2 onward)

The campaign may not sound especially long. But true to the Freelancer formula, you can also just ignore it completely and spend hours messing around with everything else instead.

Freelancing while saving the world on the side? Yep, that tracks

The campaign kicks off in suitably straightforward fashion: as a freelancer, you’ve just survived an assassination attempt targeting both your employer and yourself. After that, you end up on a space station, where a businessman named Anderson—surely not acting entirely out of pure generosity—gifts you a new ship, and just like that, the "fun" part of freelancing begins. You can see all of this in a short intro cinematic, though it moves way too fast and cuts off pretty abruptly. That whole segment could’ve used a little more care.

That said, according to the game description, the story doesn’t stop at a failed hit job. Stellar Wanderer DX features rival factions, including “hostile armada units, ruthless pirates, and mysterious aliens.” You can either make their lives miserable or try to win them over. On top of that, the story promises interstellar intrigue and a larger threat to humanity waiting in the wings. No cyber princess needs rescuing this time, but for a self-proclaimed "old-school space combat simulator," the game still absolutely works for me.

Official material is frustratingly vague when it comes to the playable classes. I do own the game, but I haven’t had enough time with it yet to give you anything solid. Still, it definitely looks like the classes are meant to shape your playstyle rather than lock you into rigid professions. And if you’re curious, you can check for yourself: there’s currently a free demo) up on Steam.

Stellar Wanderer vs. DX: What’s new?

The original Stellar Wanderer on iOS/Android already had many of the core building blocks in place, but the DX version is clearly not just the same game dumped onto PC and consoles. Here’s what was specifically changed or improved in the new edition:

• Star systems rebuilt from the ground up and expanded with new points of interest
• Overhauled presentation: all ships, cockpits, and environments now feature far more detail
• Reworked gameplay systems and controls: smoother progression, clearer systems, and deeper strategic decision-making
• Fully voiced campaign (English)
• “Additional content”: no further details are known

Right now, Stellar Wanderer DX is available on PC and PS5; a version for Big N’s Switch is slated for April 10. Publisher Leoful has also teased Xbox Series X/S and even Xbox One versions of the space game. Those are set to arrive “later in 2026.”