Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 02:31 am
Star Traders: Frontiers – Strategy Game Review
Star Traders: Frontiers is a Strategy/Entertainment/Roleplaying game from Trese Brothers LLC, first launched in 31st January 2019.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 652+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Star Traders: Frontiers Stand Out
You are the captain of a starship venturing through a massive open universe. Customize your crew and take command at the helm of your very own ship as you explore a galaxy torn apart by internal strife, alien threats, and political intrigue.
Command your ship and crew as a space pirate, merchant, bounty hunter, and more in Star Traders: Frontiers – an epic space RPG from Trese Brothers Games. Venture forth into a massive open universe, rich with adventure and the lore of the Star Traders. Choose your path by assembling and commanding your custom crew and spaceship in a constantly evolving galaxy torn by internal strife, political intrigue, and alien threats. Will you fly as a pirate terrorizing shipping lanes, join the solar wars as a military captain, or track targets across the stars as a fearsome bounty hunter?
- Explore a rich, open universe: Discover endless procedurally-generated galactic maps, meet unique characters, and take on enemies to conquer the galaxy!
- Become an intergalactic captain: Take on the role of a spy, smuggler, explorer, pirate, merchant, bounty hunter, and more (26 jobs total)!
- Customize your own spaceship: Choose from more than 350 upgrades and 45 ship hulls to build your very own vessel to venture across the vast reaches of space.
- Assemble and tailor a loyal crew: Assign talents and equip specialized gear for every spaceship crew member.
- Experience an ever-changing narrative: Decide to make friends or foes with other factions and influence political, economic, and personal vendettas.
- Mold the crew by your choices: As you make decisions and set the tone for your ship, your crew will grow and change to match. Destroy enemy ships with all hands on deck and your crew will become more bloodthirsty and savage. Explore distant worlds and loot dangerous wastelands and your crew will become intrepid and clever … or scarred and half-mad.
- Varied Difficulty Options! play with save slots to try out different builds or storylines or turn on character permadeath and enjoy classic roguelike experience
- Achievement Unlocks: accomplish story and challenge goals to unlock additional optional (but not better) content like new starting ships and new starting contacts
First there was the Exodus – when survivors of a great war left the ruins of the Galactic Core behind in search of a new home in the stars. Scattered worlds were claimed on the fringe of the galaxy. Each pocket of survivors held on to an isolated set of worlds while trying to rebuild under the great law of Shalun. Three centuries later, technology has brought them back together again. Discovery of the hyperwarp has bridged what was once an unimaginable distance between far-flung colonies, long-lost families, and political factions.
With that reunification has come great economic prosperity. The hyperwarp reestablished the transportation of cargo, goods, and technologies between the quadrants – but it has also brought great strife. Political rivalries have been rekindled, blood has been shed in age-old feuds, and the fires of war have been stoked. Amidst the political infighting, a ruthless revolution is rising – and the fervent explorers of the hyperwarp have awoken something that was better left asleep.
Our very first game, Star Traders RPG, took hundreds of thousands of gamers on an interstellar adventure. Star Traders’ success and overwhelmingly positive reception helped to launch Trese Brothers Games. It was the adventures of our community’s star-crossed captains that put us on a trajectory to share more of our worlds, ideas, and dreams.
We set out to capture the loneliness, bravery, and camaraderie of people living together in a spaceship sailing across the stars. It is with great pride that after releasing four other games in the Star Traders universe, we’ve created a sequel to the original Star Traders RPG.
Step onto the bridge of your starship, take to the stars, and create your own story in Star Traders: Frontiers.
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Star Traders: Frontiers is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 3rd December 2025
Recent improvements include:
- Added 2 new outfits to the game – more armored marines in space!
- Improved weighting of all newer contact types to ensure they correctly appear on zones and match to Black Market opportunities
- Improved Agility / Speed for Level 8 Craft
- Reduced/standardized repair cost for Level 6, 7 and 8 craft by up to 10%
- Fixed typos in Rumors – thanks for reports!
- Fixed typos and reported crashes
- Added new planet background for molten lava worlds
- Revised sorting in new game Ship list as requested
- Granted AI Captains access to Raptor Strikecarrier hull template
- Added Dagger Prow and Cloaked Boarding Assault to AI ship builder
- Reduced general AI ship builder preference for cloaking to match player rates
- Boosted drop rates for Ki-Karat Siazah (2nd Hand Blade)
- Reduced drop rataes for Cryoseal Mesh (Armor)
- Fixed typos and reported bugs in Captain logs related to missions
- Fixed Ship Component pricing on Duranium Coating IV
Download & Availability
Star Traders: Frontiers is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Star Traders: Frontiers on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
As of today update #358 was released. The Apple version is still on #356. Get it together Apple. Youre two updates behind on one of the finest games on your store.
This developer likes to abandon their games on other platforms, leaving people who paid for them without the product they bought functioning. We dont expect it to work for a lifetime, but they truly love abandoning games.
This game has knocked our socks off. The quality is excellent. We like the narrative/free-roam balance. Interesting lore and characters. No ads, just straightforward one-time purchase of the game and youre golden. Ive sank maybe a little over 30 hours into it and Ive barely brushed the surface. It feels robust, and thats something we dont normally experience with mobile games. This game set out with a goal and absolutely crushed it! If you enjoy RPGs, this game is worth a play.
June 26th 2025 (Update Review) They just dropped another update 3 months ago. Look at the update list. Tap on updates look at *everything theyve added mind you for free. Which we would had paid, this is a two man studio. Support these men. If you havent played this game check it out YouTube. Look at the reviews, it deserves more. Also, this is a game you can play for hours on end or even in bite size runs. Deep story Amazing role playing capabilities – you create any tv show, movie, book or game that you play whether Sci-Fi, Fantasy or Non Fiction. The replay value is bonkers.. – Trese bros is insane! Still updating this masterpiece even while working on their new title Cyber Knights, which is currently in early access on Steam. (Im buying that too for iOS) Trese bros, you guys are amazing! We had a review on here from 3 years ago, where pretty much called it Skyrim in space, we came here to update it, but somehow its gone. Is Apple removing older reviews? Anyways, If youre a gamer and youre reading this BUY THIS game, its pretty much Skyrim in Space but from a darkest dungeon 2D battle perspective. A very deep, elegant and sophisticated story. If you love to role play like them pc stellaris players then this will be your addiction. This game, because of its open world web filled with politics, agendas, factions, trading, smuggling, bounty hunting, spying, xeno alien hunting and so much more, trese bros, perfectly designed all these elaborate interplay of game systems that work silently in the background, which is part of the magic that immerses you into this organic, lived in universe.. It will have you naming your crew from characters of whatever shows, movies, books, comics that you are a fan of: Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune, Foundation, Justice League, X-men, Avengers, Ripley and her crew from Alien, your favorite sports team, your favorite manga or anime (infinite playground for your imagination here) Buy this game, you will not be disappointed. Also plenty of youtube guides are available.
Its pretty addicting when you really get into it the only thing we wish they had were missions that delve into cosmic horror or even space zombies and we wish we could customize ship colors/looks.
The best mobile game Ive played. We purchased this years ago for cheap and its still fun. There have been hundreds of free updates that continue to add to the game. Theres an old school brutality in losing crew members, which reminds us of the original X-Com. With so many professions to choose from, you can play a different style every game. Our praise to the developers and their devotion to this game.
Long time fan, thank you so much for this amazing game. Battleforce is way better than anything GW has put out for mobile right now.
We are down with text based RPGs, but this was sold to us as a strategy rpg. When you get past the overly long conversations, you have a lacking travel system, and a terrible ui. Trying to plan a jumps for more than one mission is clunky back and forth. When you do get to combat, ship combat is fine, but in no way good, but crew combat is absolutely trash. We either dominate the other team, or you get wrecked. We had a combat that one crew member got one turn, and then couldnt act for the next four turns while they were murdered. In that same combat, we had the ship doctor, but they couldnt do anything to heal. What is the point of a doctor that cant do their only job.
This game is amazing, addicting, and truly one of a kind. It has the feel of an old school RPG where the graphics are immaterial and 2nd to the gameplay and storyline. We love the endless varieties of gameplay, stories, and paths you can take. Highly recommended, and the best part is you dont need a network to play! Completely self-sufficient and no intrusive ads or shameless plugs. Thank you Trese Brothers.
We like this kinda game. It reminds us of many of the kinds of games we played way back when. There is lots of customization and play but the worst part of this game is all of the random ship encounters. You want to do the missions but trying to get anywhere on the map and you get random ship encounters. Combat is fine but it gets old when it leads to nothing.
Deserves 6 stars! The crew sorting feature is currently bugged on iPad. Sorting by either health or moral both fail.
Ive been playing this game for years, like a lot of years. It is endlessly interesting with so many different ways to play and the developers are superstars who keep updating and enhancing play. We are a devoted fan.
The latest update to the IOS app eliminated passenger and prison compartments for medium and large ship components. The esteemed guest component was supposed to be added in this update but is missing also. Please fix this.
Can barely read the text and a lot of text to read.
Been playing this game on and off for four years. We ended gamed five captains, and they keep updating! Would love some more end game content, skins, ships, and enemy types. Would love an expansion. Take our money already.
But the first time was on steam. Either way. Great game that takes us back to the old days of smugglers run and other turn base game of this genre. Glad they are still working on it after all this time.
Ive put more hours into this than any other non-mindless game on our phone.
Ive bought this game here and on PC and we love it on both. Highly recommend.
Really fun game, lots of complexity, challenge, and replay-ability. Our main gripe with these kinds of games is that to play optimally, it requires some very tedious save/reloading to roll good crew, missions, etc. Id give this a 4, maybe 5 star review if it werent for the User Interface (UI), which was clearly made for a PC with a keyboard+mouse and a large screen. Many buttons are super small and hard to click on, font sizes are super small, and accidentally selecting the wrong item due to an errant finger swipe, getting a phone call, etc. Is a very real possibility. This last point can be especially brutal considering the permanent and brutal consequences of single actions in-game. Would have been nice if the developers had made more optimizations for the mobile app UI when they ported this over, but we get it, time is money and this a way for them to make some bonus cash from a game they already developedI just wish it didnt few that way.
So before the recent update the game was running perfectly. However the recent update have made the UI Scaling a bit smaller and cropped out. There is not UI Settings so we cannot adjust that. The game play and story is fantastic.
Have you ever played an in the game and thought to yourself wow, that was a horrible design choice that youd never see in a AAA game? Well, this is the kind of game that features a myriad of those. Theyre not the kind of mistakes that are borne of creativity, but instead the kind that a seasoned game dev team lead would say actually, that would prevent X type of player from doing X type of thing the way they want. Weve found thats its better to do Y literally basic, first year game design school stuff. For example: we have always been someone who plays games and the hardest difficulty, so this complaint is not necessarily about our experience, but it could affect yours. About 2/3 of all ships in the game, as well as half of the starting classes are locked behind achievements that you must play the game on progressively herder difficulties to unlock. Not only that, but often times the requirements for the achievement require you to build your captain and crew in such a way that you will not even be able to use the thing you unlocked in that play through, requiring you to do a full restart solely to use the thing that you spent all that time getting. Most of the ships and classes are unlocked in this bafflingly tedious manner. This is not much more than an annoyance for us, but a system that locks half its content behind stuff that not every player will be able to achieve is bad game design. Save your money.
The dynamic island on new iPhones interfere with the main in-game menu. Its frustrating. Great game though. :-).
Its pretty good for what it is, could maybe do with more customization in terms of faces/hair. But other than that its a pretty in depth game with great lore.
Its pretty good for what it is, could maybe do with more customization in terms of faces/hair. But other than that its a pretty in depth game with great lore Update:Recently got back into again, pulled us in, truly a great game, worth the buy.
Could you guys please make this game full screen on the promax.
Instant classic that we only recently discovered. Some of the deepest gameplay around. We endlessly discover new ways to play. We play on Steam mostly but bought it here also in hopes that someday we will get cross platform cloud saves. Features arent free.
We learned the game on the easier difficulties, decided to start trying out the harder difficulties so its not as boring and the arbitrary nature of the RNG system ruined it for us. Hyperspace jump nav check fails (causing massive fuel loss), losing in combat (despite being twice the level and outclassing other ship), being given missions we couldnt complete, being constantly attacked by ships (despite investing in stealth) the list goes on. We like a challenging game, not being game overed repeatedly by things outside of our control. The game is ok otherwise, lots of variety, things to do, customization, and more. Story is flat, art is sub-par.
We have this game on PC. Such a wonderful game and wanted a way to play it mobile. Well, this is the app! Its awesome and you dont lose any features. Gameplay is flawless and we forget Im even playing on iPad lol. Devs are very involved and care a lot about their product. Do yourself a favor and get this game, NOW.
This was the very first KS project of the Trese Brothers that we ever backed, and hundreds of updates later it has grown by many leaps and bounds into a near perfect strategy and trade game. On the PC they have added mod support, while everything else has feature parity between PC, Android, and iOS. Captain a ship across the known colonized stars and play however you desire. Want a simple trade game to master economics? You may! Want to be a bounty hunter, smuggler, or even a pirate? Have fun! Want to hunt vile Xenos and ensure their threat to humanity is blunted? Please do so! If you want to dabble with politics to unlock contacts and more sensitive missions, the game will allow you to do so. All the while time moves forward and events unfold across the game. Choose to participate to influence or take advantage of the game's current events, or feel free to avoid and ignore them. Your the Captain, and your crew is here to support you. You may fly large or small ships, utilize small craft as a carrier or expand cargo, bristle with guns and launchers or gear for stealth, or however you desire to play. This is a game that just wants you to have a good time and enjoy it. Consider playing to unlock ships, contacts, and starting careers. If delving in criminal matters excites you, you may. This is a game that respects your time and is hard to master. We love it.
This is an amazing game that we play on here and Steam. Do yourself a favor and pick up Star Traders and immerse yourself. We hope the team never stops adding to and updating this gem.
When you get to mid game there is no mechanism for purchasing bombers or interdictors on the mobile platform. Guides are all for pc platform. Please fix.
This is one of those games that you have to slowly settle into and take your time learning. We dont know how many captains Ive been through. We dont know how many character templates Ive tried and discarded. There are a huge number of options, and not a lot of help. We dont have a lot of time to be researching game mechanics, so over the last two months we finally found a website that taught us how to get a playable character started. We gave this five stars because once you get your head around it, it is really fun. There are so many nuances that starting over is fun. But if you dont have the patience to dig deep into a game like this, it may not be for you. Also, the story doesnt seem, to us, to be highly replayable. Maybe we could pick different options on our playthroughs, but the other options mostly seem repugnant. For this particular new captain, we are going to try ignoring the main quest, at least until we cant ignore it anymore. All we really want to do is the trading and random missions. There are so many ship options that it is bewildering. Concepts arent at all clear, like the difference between ship armor and ship shields. Theres also a slew of unlocks, but many of them only affect new games, when what you really want is to unlock something in your current game. But take your time, nurture your crew, pick a strategy for your ship and outfitted accordingly, and do web searches for the helpful wikis and reviews that are out there. And you will have a blast.
This game is truly a piece of art. We have yet, in all of our years of gaming (PC, Console, Mobile) to find a mobile game with as much immersion, depth, and developer passion as this. It is fun, engaging, and challenging. It has more in it that most triple A titles released today. We urge you to look past the price because it is genuinely one of our greatest iPhone game enjoyments to date.
Folks we love the game. Everything about it. Except that there is no cloud save. Id like to be able to go from iPad to iPhone with our save games and we cant believe thats not possible. Everything else is awesome.
Backed the game on KS years ago and still loving it. However, when rolling a new captain, we often spend an hour or so rerolling until we get an initial crew which Im comfortable playing with. We would be really interested to see a complete custom crew feature, where at a minimum, the attributes or other starting features (traits, jobs) of our officers could be determined. Personally, Id rather start with a Commander than a Quartermaster, a starting Nav officer always gets dumped, as will anyone Ill Tempered, Rigidly Lawful, and 2/4 starting fighter crew (soldier/swords/pistoleer), and our starting Doc is one of our primary fighters, so we usually reroll until Im certain theyd eventually survive the Jyeeta. Again, great game, love it, but after so many playthroughs, this would be interesting (even as a post Jyeeta unlock).
This is a gem that is more than worth its weight. Challenging and complex but immensely fun and satisfying once you get into its swing.
The Dry Dock Menu is not properly optimized and about half of the information is cut off. Please fix. We are using iPhone 7 Plus. Also there is a glitch with the sound effects. The music still plays but the sound effects cut out completely if you go to a different app, take a phone call, hit the home button and come back to the game etc. Lastly on the map preview screen in the new map generator, the game crashes when you long press on a quadrant. Pls fix all of this.
Put save button in better place, please allow to be able to go back one screen from Load/Resume. Accidental misclick lost us 3 hours of play time and many levels and upgrades. What is up with ship battles, we board enemy ship kill the 4 crew members and demoralized their crew yet they continue to fight on. There should be a surrender option for them….it makes no sense, if you demoralized there crew they should surrender. Sorry got sick of these 2 bugs and ended up rage deleting the app.
Been playing crpgs since the 80s . This is a confusing mess with too many unnecessary complex systems that serve little purpose. Unless you love looking at spreadsheets in you spare time pass.
This game is overly complicated and glitchy! It has no instructions and no help. After three hours of trying to figure it out we decided that our frustration level was worth more than the seven dollars so we deleted it. Best decision we ever made.
You guys (devs) rock. Keep the updates coming.
One of the best games we've ever played, on any platform, in 20 years.
Just purchased this game and its unplayable. The notch on our 12pro max blocks literally a quarter of the UI.
Every time we click on the galaxy tap the game crashes. Tried reinstalling but the problem persists. The game deserves to be played though. Hopefully this gets addressed.
Fun dynamic civilizations with good lore and combat is fun.
Great game with active developers. We cant wait to see what future updates bring.
1) Amazing game 2) In Crew Combat, theres a size glitch for any crew member you customize w/ unlocked costumes. They are smaller than players and combatants wearing locked costumes. 3) PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE add an option to change colors of the crew costumes (like black everything) and maybe even the spaceships and even story characters that join your crew. It would make a world of difference in customizing play through and replay value.
Have it on PC because it is so good. If you enjoy having control of your whole crew with deep rpg mechanics this is the game for you.
Ive had this game for over a year, and its a lot of fun and a good way to spend your time. Probably one of the best space games because of all the cool aspects, theres something for everyone.
This game is magnificent. It is a turn-based RPG that combines two of our favorite things- the Wild West and the Millennium Falcon. Many moons ago, we downloaded a free demo of the original star traders RPG. It was an unassuming game with very simple graphics, and we enjoyed it enough that we downloaded it again each time we got a new phone for over a decade. Recently we upgraded our phone again, and discovered the long-awaited sequel (which, after a decade, we had written off) to the old indie game we loved. It is everything we hoped for and more. All the elements we loved from the old game are on steroids- the hokey charm, the feeling of desperation as we hold our ship together, zipping around the galaxy looking for work that isnt TOO unsavory, staying one step ahead of the authorities and a few centimeters from a frozen death in the void of space. Let us tell you about permadeath. On the higher difficulties, there is only one save file, and when your captain dies that file is deleted. Permanently. That mechanic makes this game feel absolutely real. You will get more invested in your captain and your crew than you ever did for Master Chief or Laura Croft, and when one of your people dies, they die forever. Its sad. Legit. You could turn permadeath off, but IMO you would be doing yourself a disservice, because that pulls you into the immersive experience. Each of your crew had personality traits that affect their stats and their gameplay. Often its very minor, and it seldom feels burdensome, but we have had to fire experienced crewmen because they got addicted and mean- one too many weeks in the void. Some traits can be fixed by doctors- it is the future, after all- but thats pricy, doctors that do it arent everywhere, and there isnt always enough coin to do what you want. Sometimes you will have to make hard choices. One last thing that we appreciate is that this is turn based and solo. If Im on airplane mode, thats fine. If we have to put our phone down because something comes up, no big deal. There is no penalty for having a life and not saving because it effectively saves every time you give an order.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 3.4.47
- Size: 315.66 MB
- iOS: 12.1 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References, Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: Trese Brothers LLC
Last updated: 3rd December 2025 | Genre: Strategy, Entertainment | Developer: Trese Brothers LLC