Idle Expanse

Idle Expanse

Lyrical Games LLC · September 7, 2020 · Casual, RPG, Strategy, Free to Play, Indie

Idle Expanse is free to play — no purchase needed. We track it so you know if that ever changes.

PC
Mixed55% · 1521playing now
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →

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Idle Expanse price

Idle Expanse is free to play — there is no purchase price, on Steam or anywhere else we track. We keep watching it, so if it ever stops being free the price history on this page will show when that happened and what it changed to.

About Idle Expanse

Idle Expanse is a sci-fi themed incremental game where you play the role of the planet's most successful industrialist, whose greed knows no bounds. Your objective is to grow your wealth beyond what anyone has ever imagined, but why do it yourself when you can hire others to do it for you?

Core gameplay revolves around hiring mercenaries, equipping them with the most "state of the bada** art" weaponry and gear, then sending them to remote planets to collect resources.

Unlike most other incremental games where you send teams heroes out and just wait for their return, Idle Expanse allows you to have (in)direct control over what your mercenaries do and how they achieve it. Prior to deploying a squad of mercenaries to a planet, you get to decide what tactics they'll use: Will they all stay together or will they split up? Will they seek out and engage enemy aliens or will they focus on gathering resources?

As your squads of mercenaries explore the galaxy, they'll uncover new technologies, which in-turn will unlock new features. One such feature is the ability to skip forward in time - why sit around waiting for your squads to return from their deployments when you, with the simple press of a button, can jump into the near future?

Despite the galaxy being expansive (64 planets to be exact) it is still finite. Once you've explored the entire galaxy and grown bored with what it has to offer, you'll be able to reset the clock and do it all over again... this time with some impressive perks!

Not in the mood to start over? That’s fine… you can also choose to up the difficulty (and the rewards) of the enemy aliens in the galaxy.

Oh, and did I forget to mention the ability to explore alternate realities? You can explore alternate realities.

In short, the challenge of this game is how to best optimize your use of 4 different mercenary classes, squad tactics, virtually unlimited combinations of weapons, gear, ships, technologies, and other resources to grow your wealth as quickly as possible.

Features

  • Manage up to 6 teams of 5 AI controlled mercenaries - that’s... um... carry the two... 30 mercenaries!
  • 4 different classes of mercenaries to hire - with gender variations!
  • A mix of idle and active play - enough of each to annoy players of all walks of life!
  • 64 planets to explore - rover not included.
  • Over 22 unique enemies to battle - I hope you love the smell of burning pixels in the morning.
  • Hundreds of alternate realities - slight variations in the fabric of spacetime can result in dramatically different outcomes!
  • Multiple tiers of weapons and gear to equip to your mercenaries - “procedurally” generated.
  • Dozens of upgrades - what’s an incremental game without the upgrades?
  • A prestige system with 28 skills to invest in - with more to come... probably!
  • Arena mode - fight against wave after wave of mindless enemies!
  • Time advance - why wait when you can fast forward?
  • One-time-purchase DLCs - nice-to-haves, not need-to-haves.
  • Minigames - one of which lets you earn premium currency, see?
  • An original soundtrack composed of 16 atmospheric, sci-fi tracks - it’s pretty sweet.
  • Offline progress - sometimes the only way to win is not to play.

Idle Expanse — game info

Platforms
Windows
Player modes
Single-player
Controller
Full controller support
PC Game Pass
Not included

DLC & expansions

What Steam players say

Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.

Recommended Aug 6, 2024
⠀
7 found this helpful
Recommended Oct 3, 2024
I'll temper my thumbs up with the caveat that this game appears to be abandoned. All of the game loops feel pretty solid and the speed feels just about right. Feels a little slow to start but that fits with this style of game so it's not a real complaint. Word of Caution: don't leave this on if you think the power will go out, unless you have a solid backup routine. I corrupted a session after an outage and had to restart.
1 found this helpful
Not recommended May 3, 2026
Meh... Very user-unfriendly. As if it were the first game the developer had ever made. Long before he knew how to do it right. It feels like user-friendliness was never considered.
Recommended Apr 19, 2026
this works
Recommended Nov 1, 2025
Игра «Idle Expanse» — это увлекательный жанр idle с элементами стратегии и управления ресурсами. Механика проста: строишь базу, развивая технологии и исследуя новые земли. Графика приятная, но не шедевр. Главное — это глубокая система развития, где каждый шаг влияет на будущее. Однако, для любителей динамики может показаться скучной. Подходит для тех, кто ценит медленное, но увлекательное строительство империи. Минус — отсутствие соревновательных элементов. В целом, рекомендую для досуга в перерывах.
Not recommended Dec 4, 2024
Lame and stupid...

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