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Environmental Station Alpha on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Explore an abandoned space station in this retro-themed explorative action platformer.
Environmental Station Alpha is a metroidvania, pixel graphics and adventure game
developed by Arvi Teikari and Roope Mäkinen
and published by Hempuli Oy.
Released on April 22nd 2015 is available in English on Windows, MacOS and Linux.
It has received 1,470 reviews of which 1,228 were positive and 242 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.0 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 7.99€ on Steam, but you can find it for 4.10€ on Gamivo.
The Steam community has classified Environmental Station Alpha into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows 7
- Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU
- Memory: 512 MB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 310M
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Storage: 30 MB available space
- Sound Card: Realtek High Definition Audio
- Additional Notes: May vary from computer to computer
MacOS
- OS: Snow Leopard 10.6
- Processor: 2.0 GHz+, 64-bit
- Memory: 512 MB RAM
- Graphics: ATI Radeon X1300/NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT/Intel HD 3000 or better
- Storage: 150 MB available space
- Sound Card: Intel High Definition Audio
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 16.04
- Processor: 2.0 GHz+, 32- or 64-bit
- Graphics: ATI Radeon X1300/NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT/Intel HD 3000 or better
- Sound Card: Intel High Definition Audio
Steam Price & Best Deals
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Be prepared: This game is difficult , but one of the greatest metroidvania games, even compared to recent masterpieces. Control is difficult but solid and reliable. Nothing is unfair. What's difficult but possible is possible (and often really difficult ! ) and you often have to do it. Then it rewards you. The developer understands incredibly well what makes games fun. # One review says grappling is unreliable, but no, it's the reviewer's fault. I confess it took me 10 min or so to understand its use.
I give Environmental Station Alpha a lukewarm thumbs-up. If you like difficult metroidvania games, then you may like this one. The game starts off simple. You have a character who can walk, jump, and shoot a short laser to all four cardinal directions. While the enemies aren't that bad in the beginning, you may notice a pattern: Very often they attack you from directions you can't shoot at. These enemies start appearing right from the start. So you can imagine what will happen when the game progresses and becomes more difficult. There will be more of them, they will move faster than you can run, there will be difficult platforming to do at the same time, there will be enemy spawners somewhere else in the map that are hard to reach and hard to kill, there will be environmental hazards to dodge all the while, so on and so forth. It doesn't get any easier at any point. Environmental Station Alpha is a metroidvania, so of course there are a bunch of upgrades to get. Surely they help you dealing with all these difficult enemies, right? Maybe help you traverse the environment a little easier? Sure, but they are introduced in a manner that never gives you that feeling of power. Usually the only relevant thing they do is help you get to a new location, but sometimes they add an element to the gameplay that makes it more frustrating to play. For example, for quite a while you have to deal with your basic, very short laser for damage. Eventually you get charge beam, which both deals more damage and has a bit longer reach, but you have to charge it for a second. After getting it, every new enemy is either tankier or can only be damaged with the charge beam. You can still only shoot cardinally. In other words, all the charge beam added to the game was you having to charge your attack while dodging the ever-increasingly difficult enemies and stage hazards instead of just firing at will. Traversing the earlier areas barely gets any easier because the flies will still come at you from diagonal angles. And charge beam isn't the only upgrade that has a similar effect to the gameplay. I quit playing the game after getting about half of the upgrades. I don't know how deep that is into the game, but the game just became too much for me. I tried to explore for any kind of upgrades that could make the game easier, but every time I got to a new area with a sick trick, instead of it being a secret with a health upgrade or something it was just a blocked road where you had to come back later with some other upgrade. The graphics also made it hard to see which tile is traversable and which is not, which tile is destructible and which isn't. Environmental Station Alpha features boss fights. They are quite simple, each boss having something like three different attacks they do, but I think they were still generally pretty enjoyable. Despite the simplicity the attack patterns themselves can be difficult to dodge, so don't expect to just blaze through the bosses like in Metroid games. I also like the atmosphere in the game. You are alone on a space station, and you are told something has gone terribly wrong but you don't know what. You find messages left by the staff that give you information of what happened bit by bit. You see monsters having taken over, but you also hear there may be survivors. From what little I've seen of the various endings the game has, it seems the story takes some rather wild turns and I'd really love to find out what's going on, but alas. In addition to these two reason for my thumbs-up, I also really want to support game developers from my home country, Finland. I genuinely believe this game has potential, but man, it's just too much for me. I like to think metroidvanias are close to my heart, but somehow this game still managed to miss.
I'm going to start the review with a "spoiler" and I don't care, you just need to know this: Environmental Station Alpha has probably the best hookshot implementation of all time. The game would already be a must play just because of that but no, the creator also decided to craft an incredible isolated world filled with so many secrets he probably doesn't even remember them all himself. While this is all very reminiscent of old 2D Metroid games, ESA has this peculiar distinct style, a simple but cleverly implemented gameplay and absolute eerie vibe that ultimately put it aside from that series by quite a bit. As far as I'm concerned ESA has become an instant classic for me.
So I'm currently at 18,7 hours into the game, I like to do mostly everything possible before continuing into a boss or possibly an ending in a game generally speaking. In this one, I just have no idea what I'm supposed to do, I'm mostly lost and I keep finding stuff in every possible places that this game has to offer. The worst part about this, is that I never stop finding stuff. There is just so much everywhere. In case you were hesitant because of the visuals or something else, that is understandable. However, if you do like games with tons of hidden stuff like Animal Well, Fez, Outer Wilds, look no further and try Environmental Station Alpha. I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere close to the end of the game but I still feel that there is so much hidden near me. I will update this review once I got 100% on it. Until then you should have tried this game.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Environmental Station Alpha is currently priced at 7.99€ on Steam.
No, Environmental Station Alpha is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 7.99€ on Steam.
Yes, Environmental Station Alpha received 1,228 positive votes out of a total of 1,470 achieving a rating of 7.98.
😊
Environmental Station Alpha was developed by Arvi Teikari and Roope Mäkinen and published by Hempuli Oy.
Yes, Environmental Station Alpha is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Yes, Environmental Station Alpha is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
Yes, Environmental Station Alpha is playable and fully supported on Linux.
This information about Environmental Station Alpha is not available yet.
This information about Environmental Station Alpha is not available yet.
No, Environmental Station Alpha does not support VR.
Environmental Station Alpha is a single-player game.
Yes, there is a DLC available for Environmental Station Alpha. Explore additional content available for Environmental Station Alpha on Steam.
No, Environmental Station Alpha does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
No, Environmental Station Alpha does not support Steam Remote Play.
Yes, Environmental Station Alpha is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Environmental Station Alpha.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 25 August 2026 01:20 UTC |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 06 September 2026 06:41 UTC |
| Steam price | 13 September 2026 02:45 UTC |
| Steam reviews | 11 September 2026 21:53 UTC |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Environmental Station Alpha, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Environmental Station Alpha
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Environmental Station Alpha concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Environmental Station Alpha compatibility
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Game modes
Features
Online players
8
Developer
Arvi Teikari,
Roope Mäkinen
Publisher
Hempuli Oy
Release
22 Apr 2015
Platforms
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