Starbound
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40 free Starbound trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Starbound hands you a damaged spaceship and a universe of planets that nobody built by hand, then leaves you to dig, build, farm and fight your way across it. Under the sandbox sits a full story, with a cast of playable races, a string of themed missions and a villain worth chasing. This quiz covers the whole game: the races and their cultures, the story missions and their bosses, the hub's shops and characters, the tools, pets and monsters, plus the studio, the soundtrack and the long road from beta to console. It opens with questions any player can answer after an evening with the game and ends with deep cuts for people who have unlocked every ship upgrade. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave knowing a little more lore than you arrived with.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which planet do giant tentacles destroy in Starbound's opening mission as the player escapes by ship?
Earth
Earth falls in the intro, wiping out billions of lives and most of the order the player is about to graduate into, whose members had gathered at its headquarters.
Q 02Which playable Starbound race has a Wild West culture and train-like starships?
Novakid
Novakid joined the game only because pre-orders passed $500,000, the first stretch goal, and they are the one playable race never handed an artifact.
Q 03Which animals in Starbound work as mercenaries and follow a UFO-piloting pirate boss?
Penguins
Penguins become hireable crew once Dreadwing is beaten: the Beakeasy bartender then sells dubloons, and one dubloon buys one mercenary for the ship.
Q 04On which earlier 2D sandbox game did Starbound's lead developer work as the main sprite artist?
Terraria
Terraria was his job at Re-Logic until about January 2012, and reviewers such as IGN later compared Starbound's crafting, exploration and combat with it.
Q 05Which Starbound race is stuck in a medieval society and opens each sentence with a word of emotion?
Glitch
Glitch are robots built by an unknown race to simulate organic society, but something went wrong and they never advanced past stone castles and farming villages.
Q 06Which crystal fuel, guarded on moons by an unkillable ghost, powers faster-than-light ship travel in Starbound?
Erchius
Erchius comes in crystal and liquid form, and carrying either on a moon summons a ghost that no weapon can hurt and that hunts the player until they leave.
Q 07Which animal is the ship pet aboard every Human character's starter ship in Starbound?
Cat
Cat companions come only with Human ships, and the lead developer joked that this one could be the last in the universe after the homeworld's destruction.
Q 08What is the main currency of Starbound, earned from monsters, quests and rent-paying tenants?
Pixels
Pixels are, in the game's lore, the fundamental material of the universe, which is why a 3D printer can reorganise them into almost any object.
Q 09Which London studio, a former publisher of Stardew Valley, developed the space sandbox game Starbound?
Chucklefish
Chucklefish was founded in 2011 by Finn Brice, who announced Starbound just a year later, in February 2012.
Q 10Which handheld tool do Starbound players grab during the intro and keep upgrading to mine and place blocks?
Matter Manipulator
The Matter Manipulator can be upgraded twelve times, gaining liquid collection, more mining power and a wider beam, so it stays the main mining tool all game.
Q 11Which tentacled creature the size of a small planet is the final boss of Starbound's main story?
The Ruin
The Ruin looks like a small planet, but on landing the ship's computer reports that the whole structure is in fact one giant living organism.
Q 12Which technique does Starbound use to build its planets, monsters and items so that every world is different?
Procedural generation
Procedural generation means a planet's terrain, weather, gravity, plants and even the look and behaviour of its animals are assembled by the game's engine.
Q 13Which vehicles, added in Starbound's 1.3 update, are needed to reach asteroid fields and space stations?
Mechs
Q 21Which former leader of the player's order, always seen seated, gives out Starbound's main story quests?
Esther Bright
Esther Bright also once tried to catalogue every known bug in the universe, publishing the results in a book called It's Not a Bug, It's a Creature.
Q 22Which orphan, raised as a protégé by Starbound's main quest-giver, grew up to lead the villainous Occasus cult?
Asra Nox
Asra Nox was found as a child after alien brigands destroyed her settlement, and that grudge drives her plan to erase every non-human race from the universe.
Q 23Which supreme leader in Starbound is really a propaganda figurehead invented by the ruling Miniknog?
Big Ape
Mechs are modular: players fit them with guns, shields and drills, and the body they choose sets how much energy and health the machine has.
Q 14On which PC storefront did Starbound launch as an early access beta, more than two years before version 1.0?
Steam
Steam hosted the beta from 4 December 2013, by which point pre-orders had already raised over $2,000,000 for the game.
Q 15On which console did Starbound finally launch in October 2024, eight years after its full release on PC?
Xbox One
Xbox One and Series X/S owners got the game on 24 October 2024, with controller support added, after a week-long public playtest that August.
Q 16Which human-founded aid organization is the player graduating into when disaster strikes in Starbound's intro?
Terrene Protectorate
The Terrene Protectorate gives every graduate a standard-issue tool for breaking down and placing materials, which is how the player comes to own one.
Q 17Which country's feudal era inspires the armor of Starbound's three-eyed, amphibious Hylotl?
Japan
Japan's influence shows in the hand-painted calligraphy and quiet paper-walled rooms of the underwater cities, which sit beside neon signs and dance clubs.
Q 18In which Starbound difficulty mode do characters never need to eat?
Casual
Casual characters still lose 10% of the money they carry when they die, even though the character creation menu promises no death penalties.
Q 19What is the name of the deadpan ship computer AI that briefs players on planets and missions in Starbound?
S.A.I.L.
S.A.I.L. stands for Ship-based Artificial Intelligence Lattice, and it likes to follow useful advice with a dry compliment on the player's bravery.
Q 20Which throwable item lets Starbound players keep weakened monsters as companions?
Capture Pod
A Capture Pod's light turns from blue to red when a catch succeeds, and throwing the filled pod again releases the creature wherever it lands.
Big Ape is a work of fiction, so the regime built a lethal mechanical version of him, which players fight as the boss of its stronghold.
Q 24Which winged god do Starbound's Avians worship, believing he stripped them of flight as a punishment?
Kluex
Kluex's most devout followers are chosen by the priests to climb a tall tower and take a leap of faith, believing their spirit will fly free.
Q 25What kind of broken weapon do Starbound players pick up while fleeing in the intro and can later have restored?
Broadsword
Broadsword in hand, the player has to cut through a tentacle blocking the way to the ship, and those who keep the damaged blade can later upgrade it.
Q 26Which farm animal, hatched from eggs sold at Terramart, do Starbound players harvest for plant fibre?
Fluffalo
Fluffalo show they are ready when their pelt turns a lighter brown, and elemental breeds exist too: fire, ice, poison and electric.
Q 27Which whistling monster of Starbound's starter planets turns aggressive and bites when players come near?
Poptop
Poptop behaviour matches its in-game description, which says the creature hums beautifully to confuse its prey.
Q 28Which planet type, labelled Lush in the navigation menu, does every new Starbound character start on?
Garden
Garden planets orbit only gentle white stars, carry a low threat level and have the weakest monsters of any planet type.
Q 29Which object, placed in an enclosed room with a door and a light, summons a rent-paying tenant in Starbound?
Colony Deed
A Colony Deed is sold at Frögg Furnishing, and satisfied tenants repay the cost with regular rent and sometimes by asking to join the ship's crew.
Q 30Which 2019 turn-based tactics game from Starbound's developer is set in the same universe?
Wargroove
Wargroove shares the setting closely enough that its races count as canon, and Starbound's plant-like Floran appear in it as one of the playable factions.