# Stellar Horizon — user reviews > 95 indexed App Store user reviews of Stellar Horizon by S.MARSAULT, rated 3.90/5 from 57 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/stellar-horizon/id1077483949/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/stellar-horizon/id1077483949.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 27 · 4★ 12 · 3★ 9 · 2★ 4 · 1★ 5 ## What do users think of Stellar Horizon? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Vast procedurally generated universe with billions of stars - 🎮 Elite/No Man's Sky-like gameplay in mobile format - 🌍 Ability to land on and explore planets - 💰 One-time purchase with no ads or paywalls - 🔄 Frequent updates and active developer support - 🎯 Deep economy and trading system - 📦 Small file size (~30MB) for massive content - 🛸 Space exploration and dogfighting mechanics - 🎨 Unique procedural generation system - 👨‍💻 Impressive work for a single developer **Cons** - 🐢 Extremely slow planetary movement and exploration - 🎮 Clunky and unintuitive controls - 📱 Tiny text that's hard to read on mobile devices - 🗺️ Poor navigation and star map interface - 🎯 Lack of clear objectives or end goals - 🌍 Limited planet variety and repetitive environments - ⚙️ Performance issues and slow loading times - 🎬 Lack of animations and immersive landing sequences - 🧭 Difficult to select specific stars or plan trade routes - 🎓 No tutorial or onboarding for new players - 🔋 High battery consumption - 🐛 Frequent crashes on some devices **Commonly reported bugs** - Game crashes on launch for some devices (iPhone 5, iPad Mini) - Launch button disappears during gameplay - Cannot launch from flat surfaces - Game hangs when not skipping animations - Planetary exploration gets stuck and prevents takeoff - Discovery scanning not working (version 1.0.105) - Manual docking at orbital stations is impossible - Slow frame-by-frame movement causing 10+ second delays per action - Navigation pointer doesn't correctly point to mission targets - Crashes when approaching stations - Interface bugs with skip function **Most requested features** - Free-flowing joystick movement on planets instead of grid-based - Improved star map with zoom and selection capabilities - Tutorial or guided onboarding system - Larger, scalable text options - Multiple planets per star system - Moons and orbital mechanics - Real-time smooth planetary exploration - Direct mission navigation with auto-pilot - Multiplayer or PvP functionality - Better ship and station graphics - More interactive content on planets (aliens, combat, NPCs) - Difficulty settings - Faster planetary movement animations - Asteroid mining and resource gathering in space - Story-driven campaign or narrative elements - MFi controller support - Motion/tilt controls for flight - Variable speed control during flight - Automatic docking computer - Strategy guide or in-game hints ## Newest reviews (18 of 95) ### 3/5 — Good game but *2023-12-15* I think the emphasis should be on exploring not trying how to figure out navigation. Had to play the game repeatedly just to be able to get to another star system, and refuel. Never had get back with the cargo I brought. If that worked better this could be an awesome game. ### 2/5 — Not impressed *2023-06-28, version 1.0.125* If you want Elite forget it doesn’t take me there ### 4/5 — So much potential. *2022-12-11, version 1.0.125* I’m really enjoying this. I’ve played now for 150 hours. It’s good fun exploring and expanding your ship. I have a few things to make it even better. The on planet exploration is a bit clunky, you often get stuck, can’t take off which is frustrating. The planetary navigation is difficult, you can only see three planets so it make it difficult trying to figure a trade route. I tend to move aimlessly. Asteroids should yield resources, as should pirates. Having said that, it’s a great Elite homage. A few tweaks and it could be a brilliant experience. ### 3/5 — An update would be nice *2021-09-14* It’s been a year without update so I’m not holding my breath however this is a great little sim if you can stomach some annoyances. Mainly planetary exploration. I’m good with the old-school dungeon crawling method that they’ve used by hitting a button and moving forward one frame at a time. The problem is the amount of time it takes to do anything on the ground. Maybe it’s just this iPad from 2017 however to move one space ahead it takes at least 10 seconds of the screen sitting there with the wait dial spinning like it’s loading. This is whether you turn or move in a direction. Exploring a planet is near impossible because of the amount of time it takes. No joke it’s like watching the Mars rover move but even slower. Navigation is also lacking, I haven’t found a way to click on a mission and have it pointed towards that star, and there isn’t a search feature so navigating around is a bit of a pain. I don’t understand why you can’t just click on a mission and have it have a navigate button so that at least you’re set to go, like a elite dangerous. It could be a fun little in the same however the developer really has not put in some quality of life stuff making it obnoxious. Planetary exploration really needs to be fixed, I’m OK with it being slow but the wait time to move anywhere is obnoxious enough not to play the game. ### 4/5 — Good game *2021-01-01* I love this game. It feels like a lot of time and effort when into making it. I also love there aren’t ads constantly popping up. But there are some aspects that are rather clunky. The wormholes seem to go to only two parts of the galaxy, not sure there is any benefit of building a base, especially having to go back to them to collect income, navigating a planet can be rather difficult, especially trying to go up steep inclines, it takes forever getting to a legendary system, there are a few bugs (like being able to cheat by having no money and paying the fines to get almost unlimited money), but even getting the best ship and weapons doesn’t have a great payoff considering trying to cover a large distance to a legendary system can take hours since the wormholes shoot you out two places. I’m not sure what the end goal is... I like the free play, but the game doesn’t hint of what the long term game or when you’ve completed it, so it can be monotonous. I’d keep the open play with the option for an ending... I assume now the point is to visit all the legendary systems, maybe the AI computer giving some more guidance with an end story... haven’t been able to do that yet. Also a strategy guide of some sort would be nice. Overall a fun game with loads of potential and I’d love to see some updates. Good job developer, it’s a unique game with a bit more polish id give it five stars. And if the developer wanted to put a price on it to fund future developments on it I would pay a few bucks. ### 3/5 — Some potential, but no polish *2020-08-28* This game is rather strange. On one hand the developer has done some very interesting things, like a procedurally generated universe and planets. On the other hand, the UX is terrible and a number of features are underdeveloped. There is immense potential here — I really wanted a game like this for mobile and this is all I could find on iPad. But the flaws like the UX, and the slow planet navigation, and inconvenient navigation make this a chore. Keep working on this, please! ### 2/5 — 1980s movement pace *2020-08-14, version 1.0.125* I honestly can’t believe anyone can play this. If this is fun then I missed the boat. Sorry I really tried.... ### 4/5 — Great game but there’s one thing I don’t like about it *2020-05-25* This game is fantastic and I’ve been looking for a game that lets you explore different planets, but there is one thing that I wish you will improve. The movement controls are a bit show and you don’t get a lot of freedom to move and look around, so can you add something like a joystick and make it so that you can swipe the screen to look around just like most first person games. I really love this game and I hope you would do this. ### 3/5 — The Elite on Steroids *2019-12-30* Enjoying the game. Experiencing a lot of crashes to home screen. Saving the game frequently to avoid losing progress, but this makes for very frustrating game play. I’d give 5 of 5 stars for the game aside from this. Hopefully will continue development and address the crashes. Thank you for an enjoyable app. **Developer response:** Thanks, i'm glad you enjoy my game ! I'll do my best to fix that. ### 4/5 — Very nice *2019-12-26* I only just started playing, but some possible features: •Brown dwarfs! •Gas giants and moons •Multiple planets **Developer response:** Thanks for your ideas ! ### 5/5 — Great Game! Needs a fix *2019-08-25* Enjoying this game! Lots to explore and do. Have noticed one thing that need to be fixed. On the Navigation page the Imports list only shows page 1 items that are a good trade and not all 5. Hope that can get fixed soon to make finding trade routes easier. ### 2/5 — Excellent Start ... Way too restrained *2019-04-08* I admit, I only played about 15 minutes, landed on one planet, looked for some resources, and that was all I could take, and I apologize for that, I’m sure it deserves more. Obviously a lot of work, thought, and passion went into the game. Thank you for that. And the game could be great if fleshed out. As is, it’s like a desert, just the bare-bones outline of a full featured game. #1 - on the planet surface, the vehicle only moves by use of arrow keys? Really? And we’re to explore a universe at that rate? Instead - use full 3-d reality and motion, make the vehicle really fly over the surface at the user’s discretion. Including to varied altitudes! #2 - Lighting! Again, use 3-d lighting set up so one can get more depth perception and sense of object location. #3 - Details! Everything needs details to bring life to the scenes. Textured surfaces will help. Ships as featureless wedges? Not nearly enough to bring life to the game. And they don’t have to be complicated ... smooth curves go a long way. #4 - Music, well ok, to get the great stuff is well beyond most budgets, but the somber, melody-less, music I heard during my brief experience with the game needs cheering up somehow! #5 - lack of people, even poster people that don’t move add drastically needed life to any scene. Sure, animation is a challenge, but it doesn’t take a lot to get in a sense of life being present. #6 - add a tutorial session, include landing on a station, planet, and the other major activities. #7 - add a story line. The human mimd is made for stories, we’ve dragged ourselves out of the mud with them. Nothing adds purpose to a game like a good story line! Look at what’s possible with Blender 3D, it’s free, and it has its own game engine. The beta version of Blender 2.8 is working and fairly stable. It features a ray-based render engine, Cycles, and a new real-time renderer, Eevee, pretty sweet! ### 4/5 — My detailed review *2019-03-14* As a space person I like space games this game is a good game bringing in the fact of the planet movement buttons I’d weather use a joy stick instead of buttons this is why you get 4 stars the end. NOTE: thanks for using my idea 😀🙂 **Developer response:** Thanks ! The possibility of a joystick would be nice, it is on my todo list. ### 5/5 — Genial!! *2019-03-13* Sencillo y estupendo magnífico e increíble,el mejor juego para iOS,solo en español please.. **Developer response:** Thanks !! ### 5/5 — Great game, not your regular type of game *2019-01-24* This is the only game on an iPhone that can match other games like elite dangerous so well. Most other games are over the top shoot em ups, but this game is so much more. With a whole economy and guild system it gets really in depth. Depending on the player this can be a good or bad thing. It will be a lot harder to learn and master but when you do, it can give so much content in return. It feels like every day I find something new that I had no idea was in the game such as wormholes, dinosaurs/life, monoliths, and so much more so when u find them it feels like you are progressing. Overall this is a great game that is tough around the edges but if u can get over the graphical quality, controls, and the depth and complexity of the game and want a game to relax to and play any way you want, this is the best to get. This game is great if you are an avid player of games like elite dangerous and no mans sky. **Developer response:** Thanks !! ### 4/5 — Space Exploration Game I Have Been Looking For! *2018-12-31* This is the game I’ve been looking for! I purchased and started playing (on IPad mostly) just a few days ago and I’m really enjoying this game. It’s more in the lines of space exploration, which is what I’ve been looking for. It’s also nice to play a game that you don’t get targeted all the time and get a chance just to enjoy exploring. This game has many bells, whistles, and choices and I found it relatively easy to play. I’m not the greatest at battling attackers when it happens but the nice thing is the developer doesn’t make you start all over from scratch. Also nice to pay one price and play! Nicely done and looking forward to continuing play and future updates. ### 2/5 — I must be missing something. *2018-12-17, version 1.0.118* Played for 15 minutes and got bored. Feels like a great start to something, but feels unfinished. I could not figure out what to do to be working toward anything in the game. ### 5/5 — Excellent and continuously improving. *2018-12-06, version 1.0.118* A definite ‘must buy’ for those who prefer space faring/trading games. At all times, you choose what you want to do and where you want to go. Freedom.... ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Crashes a lot *2019-02-09* Nice game, if you can play. Too bad, you cant ### 1/5 — Slow and uneventful for a paid app *2019-01-30, version 1.0.118* App is really slow and not worth the money I paid. Should have offered a free version to try first before taking my money for nothing. Plenty of high end space games out there for less or free. ### 1/5 — Launch Button Keeps Disappearing *2018-09-07, version 1.0.113* If it wasn’t for that This would be 5 Stars, Quite the crippling problem. ### 1/5 — No tutorial *2018-07-15, version 1.0.110* This game is not intuitive. You need a tutorial. Deleted after 5 minutes. How do I get a refund? ### 1/5 — DO NOT BUY!!! *2018-04-04, version 1.0.110* I highly would NOT recommend to purchase this game, it is trash, you cannot even properly walk when you land on the planets, and it is HIGHLY repetitive and the spaceship design and animation quality is bad. I have to give this game 1 star until they improve the graphics and animation, the list goes on of all the bad things in this game, I want a full refund! ### 1/5 — Too confusing, no tutorial *2017-09-14* There is a lot to this game. But there is no tutorial, just a "Guide". The Guide is nothing more than a lengthy list of which button does what. So I read through the list, then gave the game a try. It was very confusing. I kept having to go back to the Guide. Even then I couldn't figure some things out. Finally I gave up. My advice: Avoid this game until the developer includes a tutorial. ### 1/5 — Not what you think it is... *2016-07-03, version 1.0.31* Let my loss of $3 be to your benefit. I can't even read the screen the text is so small. And, traveling along a planets surface is one still frame snapshot at a time. There is virtually no animation, other than the little dots on the radar. This is very amateurish at best and I would not play it even if it was free. ### 1/5 — Disappointed *2016-05-16* Though this game reminds me of Frontier Elite I once played on Amiga 500 back in the days, this one has a lot less to offer. Yes, there are billions of star systems, but I really miss a good star map, one I could move and turn in all three directions, not only one. I wish I could see the stars names even though they are further away than one hyperspace jump. I wish the radar would adjust to the capability of the space ship and showing more possible destinations in range. I wish the star systems would have more than one planet each. I wish those so called Jobs on the board would be a bit more than just 'fly from a to b to c'. And I wish the direction the game then shows in the star charts would be a correct one! But it just points nowhere. I wish navigation would be a little better. It's quite difficult to aim at an enemy fighter to actually hit it. I would find it also a lot more realistic, if there would be a charge for fuel. And it would be nice to have the possibility to change font size. Breaking my eyes over those tiny letters. One star for the general idea. But I have seen better games for free. 🙁 ### 1/5 — Tutoriel absent *2016-04-05* Très déçu de cet achat. Il n'y a pas de tutoriel. Je ne comprends rien et pas le temps de chercher. Manque de clarté. Décevant. Idem pour le YouTube. Pas réussi à faire la première planète. ### 1/5 — Schrecklich *2016-03-21* Sehr primitiv gemacht. Winzige Schrift, unspielbar. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Request *2026-03-13, version 1.0.125* Please put mermaids in the water too 😂 ### 5/5 — Mining resources and flying hyperspeed *2025-11-26, version 1.0.125* Fun thanks ☺️ ### 5/5 — No Man’s Sky in Your Pocket *2025-10-26, version 1.0.125* Stellar Horizon really captures the essence of the genre. Very impressive work for a single person. ### 5/5 — Nice mobile space *2025-02-03* A unique project. Mobile No man's sky and Elite dangerous. The game has a future, but there have been no updates for a long time. Is there a way to contact the developer? There are ideas for development, modern mobile hardware allows you to achieve more. ### 5/5 — Here’s a bug *2021-08-17* I scanned a peace that holds up the White House it it says there’s nothing there and I can’t launch on a flat surface ### 5/5 — I bloody love this game *2021-04-28, version 1.0.125* This game is a great purchase for money have had it a few years now, I just wish they would update the game more it’s such an enjoyable experience!! ### 5/5 — Why can’t I LEAVE *2021-01-31* I like the game already but can you just add a leave button. And I’m using my moms iPhone and I’m 8 ### 5/5 — Simple but surprisingly fun *2020-12-30* I downloaded this because it sounded like no man’s sky for iOS. It’s definitely simpler but that makes it better suited to play a bit here and a bit there. The vastness of the game is astounding given its memory size which I suppose is the beauty of procedural generation. Well worth the the $2.99 even if you only make your way across a small chunk of the galaxy. ### 5/5 — Finally!.. a pocket open universe! Total freedom!! *2020-06-12* Wow! different , very cool, fun! , huge exploration! Please, Keep the updates coming!!!!! It would be great to have an option to enlarge the font. (I’m playing on my iPhone and text is small.) Having giant ships flying by or to fight against would be really sweet too! Love the game! ### 5/5 — Love it *2019-09-12, version 1.0.118* Great game, always wanted to try the original Elite, this is scratching that itch, highly recommended --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-25.*