Arcbound vs Starhold
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Arcbound
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Arcbound is a colony simulation game set entirely on a single evolving starship. Everything is connected. And everything can fail at any moment. Design and expand your ship room by room, manage oxygen, power, and crew survival, and guide a fragile civilisation from Earth’s final evacuation into deep space. WHAT YOU DO Design and expand your Arcship room by room Manage oxygen, power, water, and food to keep your crew alive Send missions to Earth to recover resources and survivors Grow your ship into a self-sustaining spacefaring civilisation Every system connects. Every decision has consequences. Inspired by classic colony sims, Arcbound takes the genre into a single fully interconnected starship, where layout, systems, and social dynamics are tightly linked. FROM ESCAPE SHIP TO STAR-BOUND SOCIETY Early Access includes both phases of Arcbound’s journey: Phase 1: The Exodus Stabilise your ship before Earth collapses and prepare for launch. Phase 2: The Voyage Guide a growing civilian population during multi-year transit as your Arcship becomes a living society facing internal pressure, scarcity, and unknown signals from deep space. BUILD YOUR ARCSHIP Start with a small emergency platform and grow it into a fully functioning star-faring vessel. Design living quarters, engineering bays, hydroponics, research facilities, and life-support systems while managing power, water, atmosphere, and maintenance across a fully simulated ship. A well-designed ship creates stability. A poorly planned one barely survives. MANAGE YOUR CREW Your crew are more than workers. They form friendships and rivalries, develop beliefs, suffer stress, and react to the decisions you make as commander. Social relationships and ideology evolve over time, influencing morale, productivity, and the long-term identity of your Arcship. Rescue new survivors, but every arrival may change the culture of your ship. SURVIVE THROUGH MISSIONS Send crews beyond your vessel on dangerous expeditions to secure vital resources. Recover technology, extract survivors, or raid for fuel, missions always return something… but consequences follow. Injuries, conflict, and unexpected events can reshape life aboard your ship long after the mission ends. Missions can trigger injuries, political tension, or unexpected consequences that ripple through life aboard the ship. KEY FEATURES Grid-based ship construction and expansion Fully simulated oxygen, power, water, and resource networks Crew needs, skills, relationships, and ideology systems Consequence-driven mission system Research unlocking new technologies and discoveries Civilian population and societal stability management Emergent storytelling driven by player decisions Pause and time controls for relaxed strategic play Designed for long-form sandbox progression In Arcbound, your entire civilisation exists within a single evolving Arcship. Every decision shapes not just your ship, but the society living inside it. Stabilise your ship before Earth collapses… or carry your failures with you into the void. A CALM SURVIVAL EXPERIENCE Arcbound is designed as a chilled but thoughtful space management experience. Most of the time you’ll be carefully expanding and optimising your ship, until emergencies, social tension, or difficult choices introduce moments of drama. There is no single correct way to survive. Only the ship you build… and the future you create. Join the community on Discord
Starhold
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Starhold: Real-Time Space Strategy Command fleets. Conquer systems. Outmaneuver the enemy. Starhold is a fast, focused real-time strategy game about capturing every node on the map before your opponent does. Every match is a fresh tactical puzzle: when to attack, when to fortify, when to sacrifice a system to win the war. No timers, no waiting, no grinding, just pure strategy, playable in a few minutes or a few hours. Features • Real-time fleet combat across handcrafted maps • Three difficulty tiers — from chill to cutthroat • Dozens of levels with escalating complexity • One-handed landscape play, built for phone and tablet • No ads. No energy bars. Unlock the full campaign with a single purchase. Easy to play, hard to master: Tap a friendly planet, drag to an enemy one, your fleet flies out. That's the whole interface. Everything else is strategy: timing your strikes, reading the board, exploiting the enemy's overreach. Built for short sessions: Levels are sized for a coffee break or a subway ride. Lose? Restart in one tap. Win? The next map is already waiting. Pilot your flagship. Hold the line. Rule the stars.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Starhold at none against Arcbound's 1. Arcbound's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs every 5 days). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Arcbound sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Starhold asks for nothing beyond the download.
Arcbound ships an update every 2 days, Starhold every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Arcbound | Starhold |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Every 5 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 336 MB | 192 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Dean Lennard | LIO SOFTWARE LTD |
In-app purchases
Arcbound
- Arcbound - Early Access$9.99
Starhold
No in-app purchases









