Hotel Galactic is a cozy management game where players try to bring back the run-down hotel to its former glory. Read our review of its early-access build to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Everything We Know About Hotel Galactic
Hotel Galactic Story Plot
Players take on the role of a whimsical spirit with the drive for adventure, called a Pilgrim, and they come across a run-down intergalactic hotel owned by the ghostly Grandpa Gustav. As the hotel gradually grows and thrives under your care, the story of Gustav and the initial downfall of Hotel Galactic will slowly be uncovered, as well as the mysteries behind the Galactic Peace Corps.
Hotel Galactic Gameplay
Hotel Galactic is a cozy narrative-driven management game where players, as a wandering Pilgrim, are tasked to bring the titular intergalactic hotel back to its former glory—a wonderful tourist destination in the stars. Guided by Gustav and his staff, your job as the manager is to oversee the operations to ensure that everything runs smoothly.
As a spirit, you are able to see the hotel in its entirety at a glance, allowing for quick commands and assignments. You’re not able to directly work on things, but you are able to have your handy-dandy staff do the work for you. Not only are you in charge of the workers, but also the layout, the construction, and the managing of resources. Make the Hotel Galactic as dazzling as it was before with a variety of furniture, decorations, and amenities to place, making sure that guests leave the establishment wholly satisfied.
Everything starts off in its most basic form, but through the smiles of happy customers and the Research Table, the possibilities are endless. Flourish and expand your cozy home away from home!
Hotel Galactic Release Date
Released on July 24, 2025, Hotel Galactic is now available to be purchased in Early Access on Steam for $34.99. According to their Steam page, developer Ancient Forge projects the Early Access phase to last for one to two years.
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| $34.99 |
Hotel Galactic Review [Early Access]
Still Under Construction
Hotel Galactic is a cozy management game that promises chill management simulator gameplay intertwined with a heartfelt tale of redemption, love, and vengeance on the side, made even better with a brilliant cast of characters. From the get go, it kind of reminds me of another well-known cozy management game, Spiritfarer. Unfortunately, I was not able to play that game (yet), but the fantasy visuals and the cutaway view of the ferry or hotel did echo a few similarities.
The trailer intrigued me as soon as I saw it, with its Studio Ghibli-esque visuals and fun premise—it felt so much like that bathhouse from Spirited Away that it roped me in immediately. Hence, getting to play the game was a dream come true—well, for most part, anyway.
Cozy, Cute, What’s Not To Love
As it says right on the tin, it’s definitely cozy, and most of the gameplay is actually idle time—in fact, my staff are hauling Wooden Logs to the storage room and building a bathroom as I speak. You can definitely be doing something else when you’re not actively micromanaging your employees and the hotel, which gives a little more breathing room to be doing other activities also. The game’s background music also provides a nice track to unwind yourself with.
It’s not fast-paced or action-packed even if you turn up the time to 2x, but that’s the charm in it. Everything takes time in Hotel Galactic, from crafting, cooking, doing actions, and even placing down furniture and items. Despite its fantasy setting, there doesn’t seem to be any type of crazy magic that can instantly make things appear and disappear on whim, or to speed up the processes—it’s just a quaint and humble hotel full of whimsical characters, and sometimes, that’s all you need.
One of my favorite aspects is the recipe making, where players can make their own delectable dishes from scratch right in the hotel’s kitchen. Drag and drop ingredients to their respective cooking machines (chopping board, cauldron, etc.) and make your own signature dish! Of course, there are still the actual recipes given by the game, but it puts a little bit of personal touch to the menu if you made one yourself. My specialty? Um, Pepper Peach Pasta.
The Lovable Cast of Characters
While you may have started off on the wrong foot (especially with the guarded Gustav, who is wary of your kind), the initial cast and everyone else you get to meet afterwards are one colorful bunch who end up being very endearing. Gustav, Maklo, Sparn, and Tukyuk—with their very unique names, which is cool—are with you every step of the way into fulfilling their dream of reviving the Hotel Galactic. I kind of even teared up when Maklo commended me for my efforts, and that even if the Galactic Peace Corps were threatening to shut down the entire operation, they wouldn’t stop—not when Gustav was finally starting to believe in himself. Agh, my heart. It gave me that spark of motivation to keep going, and also to discover why the hotel shut down way back when in the first place.
You’ll also get to meet other individuals that help you out by soaring through the skies, like Pouncy Paws, Silver, Knuckle, Captain Mogumo, and Gulliver too. They’ve all got their special charm to them, and their personalities shine through their dialogue. Not one of the characters is boring to talk to, and it adds more liveliness to the whole thing.
Aside from their amicable and playful personalities once you get to know them, their appearances are fun to look at too, really playing into the fantasy genre here. Besides Gustav who looks like your typical loving grandfather, the different types of species in this game are unique in their own ways. Pingtons are adorable anteater-capybara-like creatures with trumpets for noses (or mouths? I can’t really tell), and they look like they’re just a foot tall, adding to their cuteness. Derrets like the father-son duo Tukyuk and Sparn are a delicate-looking ferret species, while the four-legged Maklovians like Maklo seem inspired by the Japanese kappa somehow. And that’s only a handful of them—there’s lots more to meet as guests and VIPs, really bringing you into their fantasy world.
Also, a random tidbit I’d like to share—shorter species need a stool to use the sink or anything bigger than they are. That is such a minor, but adorable detail. It makes me smile to see Maklo making a wooden stool poof out of thin air so that he can reach his beloved cauldron in the kitchen.
Progression Can Be Slow
I get that this is supposed to be a cozy management game where you can relax and slowly work your way up to better upgrades and things, but it can be a little frustrating to have many basic things locked behind a number of time-consuming quests. For example, shovels and sickles are locked behind several other nodes, and you can’t expand your little hotel further without clearing out a few Stargrass, trees, and rocks in the way.
However, perhaps that’s the way it’s supposed to be—good things take time, after all, and there’s a sense of accomplishment from achieving all these through hard work.
The Workers Can Be Hard To Manage
For one thing, it seems that they can’t automatically do most hotel tasks without you guiding them towards it. A set of processes will carry on as usual (like changing guest room bedsheets, cooking dishes), but you usually have to make them start anything first. Of course, micromanaging everything adds more engagement to the whole game than just having them work like efficient robots, but once your hotel starts growing massively in size…that seems like a tedious task to do. Even with only five rooms, I’m already missing some things like rubbish and food litter to be cleaned up—how much more when you have over 10?
The worker priorities are somehow a mess—what do you mean placing ingredients onto the chopping board or cauldron is not part of cooking? It’s literally the preparation stage you do so you start cooking. Yet, the game classifies it as a different type of action, so even when you assign the resident chef, Maklo, to cook the dish, sometimes he’ll be off doing something else instead of prepping his ingredients even if you set the priority to High.
Staff will also somehow "fight" over tasks—if one of them takes dibs in preparing an ingredient for a recipe (even if they’re like three rooms away), they will march towards that task despite having someone else much nearer to do it. You can fix it a little by making them skip some tasks in the worker menu, but what classifies as what kind of action is a little confusing.
Unpolished Bugs, Glitches
Again, I’d like to reiterate that the game is in Early Access and will definitely be improved over the next few patches, but just giving a heads up to whoever may be buying it early on to manage their expectations. In my playthrough, I’ve encountered quite a few frustrating bugs that did put me off with how many times I had to reload my save just to get it working again.
For starters, I’ve had a bit of trouble with the side quest called The Hunger Strike, where you’re tasked to make Makeshift Bentos for your hardworking employees. I’ve made over five darn rations before the quest finally acknowledged it…and you only really had to make two to finish the quest. I believe the Ration Prepper itself is bugged, as it keeps saying that there’s no space to add anything in the crafting queue for making Bentos—but it also says there’s nothing currently being worked on in the crafting queue anyway. So which is it!? My workers need their snacks!
I found a workaround, but it required me to…throw out the Satori Peaches I supposedly used for making the Bentos and putting them back in. No wonder the stored items list wasn’t depleting…good for resources, sure, but it definitely is a tedious way to do things.
Next, 1/3rd of my hotel just glitched all of a sudden, rendering me unable to do anything in my first Guest Room and the Storage Room. The Small Tools Rack was suddenly put into a crate, and I am unable to unpack it for some reason. Luckily, it was remedied by reloading the game, but still an annoyance nonetheless.
Workers also randomly stopped following ordered commands even if they weren’t doing anything. I tried to get one of them to start mining the Stone Ore, and it still didn’t work despite reloading. I also attempted to unequip the pickaxe to give to someone else, but he just placed it on the floor and was unable to interact with it. So…I guess no Stone first until I can start crafting the necessary tools.
There’s also a few other minor mishaps, like the Start Research button in the Research Machine not appearing immediately—so you have to exit, go back in, then click on the node to get it working—or sprites not working properly as they should, instead appearing as a white square.
Random and Evident FPS Drops
Given that it's in Early Access, there’s still quite a bit of polish to be done—but the game’s still janky at most places. My specs should be able to handle the game just fine even at high settings, but I started playing in lower graphics settings to see if the jank would fix itself—it did fare a little better, but the lag and FPS drops are still evident especially when you’re moving from place to place using the WASD keys. The island is quite large, so getting to and fro with the random stuttering threw me off a little.
Soon-To-Become a 5-Star Hotel (Maybe)
Hotel Galactic is a lovely and cozy management game in its own right, made even better by an intriguing narrative, a colorful cast of characters, tons of content to go through, and a fun premise. However, at its current state, the good points of the game are overshadowed by its clunk, jank, and frustrating bugs and glitches. Nevertheless, if you can look past that for a few hours, it might just be right up your alley even at launch.
I was honestly so excited for this game when I first saw its trailer, but as you can see, the game is still marred with a few issues. However, I have high hopes that the developers over at Ancient Forge will deliver, as the story itself and the characters are a lovable bunch that I have already grown attached to somehow. I’m looking forward to a much better launch and post-launch, but for now, perhaps I’ll let it update a little more. I’m still attached to the characters though, so I might peek in ever so often.
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Hotel Galactic Product Information
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| Title | Hotel Galactic |
|---|---|
| Release Date | July 24, 2025 (Early Access) |
| Developer | Ancient Forge |
| Publisher | Ancient Forge |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam) |
| Genre | Casual, Simulation |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Hotel Galactic Official Website |
