On August 28, Once Human is rolling out its next event, Stellar Resonance, which runs through September 25. The event was announced at Gamescom 2025 and marketed as a major feature for the Starfall Inversion Visional Wheel. In reality, it is a stopgap. It gives players something to do during a dry stretch, but it is not going to redefine the game.
Gravity Integrators
The centerpiece of the update is the Gravity Integrator. You unlock the blueprint the first time you open a Star Advent Loot Crate, then craft it at an Intermediate or Advanced Supplies Workbench. Once deployed, the device ascends into the sky and begins collecting Stellar Core Gravity Samples. This is not something that happens at your base, so you do not have to worry about your home being destroyed.
Each activation lasts for 10 minutes. During that time, the device slowly climbs, and every 50 meters unlocks another tier of rewards, up to five tiers total. Deviants are drawn to it, which forces players to defend the device while it operates. If it is destroyed before max altitude, rewards are calculated based on how high it managed to climb. The mechanic is short bursts of farming combined with timed defense.
Global Research
The Global Research system is designed to add a layer of shared progress. Instead of progress being locked to one player, all servers in a region contribute to moving research phases forward. If no new phase is completed within five days, the bonuses vanish and Deviants grow stronger. Inactive regions will drag down everyone who plays there.
Players still get individual rewards through contribution points. These points can be redeemed in a shop for items, and advancing research phases can also raise the weekly cap on Stellar Resonance rewards. On paper this creates urgency and cooperation, but in practice it will test how much your region actually works together.
Quality-of-Life Fixes
Starry Studio is shipping a handful of quality-of-life improvements alongside the event.
- Faster gliding and descending - Cleaner airborne aiming, with hover support when aiming from altitude
- Cancel aiming during plunging melee attacks
- Terrain and climbing fixes
These are not headline features, but they do address long-standing complaints and make traversal and combat smoother.
The Reality Check
Stellar Resonance is not the sweeping update it is being advertised as. It is filler content. The mechanics are serviceable, but they are not transformative. Events like this are supposed to tie into the core survival loop, and that is where Once Human continues to fall short.
Other survival games lean heavily on base defense. 7 Days to Die has Blood Moon horde nights, which force players to invest in defenses and repair systems. Once Human has turrets, sandbags, and barriers, but very few reasons to use them. Stellar Resonance adds pressure defense, but it does not happen at your base. That makes the mechanic feel disconnected from the survival loop, because your home is never at risk.
What this should lead to
By itself, this new content is hardly amazing. Distracting? Maybe. But it has the potential to be much more. At its core, Once Human is a survival game, and survival games live or die on base defense, repair, and enhancement. That gameplay loop has been ignored for too long.
There is already a system in place that could mimic something like the Blood Moon horde nights in 7 Days to Die. Because of the Stellar Stairway changes and the current state of Starcrom rewards, it is not even worth running. Stellar Resonance shows that Starry is at least aware of what pressure defense can add to the game. The next step should be obvious. This kind of event needs to hit player bases. Why bother with turrets, defenses, and sandbags if your base never comes under real attack?
For players who do not want to risk their personal bases, this is the perfect excuse to bring back Hive Bases. With only minor adjustments to the Stellar Stairway system, Starry could turn weekly base defense into meaningful Starcrom rewards. If they make that move, Stellar Resonance would not just be content filler. It could evolve into one of the best loops in the game. The framework is already there. It just needs to be used.
Stellar Resonance is not the breakthrough some headlines are pushing. It is a limited-time event with enough mechanics to keep players busy for a few weeks. On its own it will not shift the perception of Once Human. If Starry builds on it and connects it to the survival loop of base defense, it could be remembered as the start of something bigger. If they leave it as is, it will be forgotten as quickly as it ends.