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Thrive
An evolution simulation game. Take control of your species in the environment and edit your species as a whole. Compete with other evolving species for resources on an alien planet.
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-02 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-13.
What reviewers agree on
62 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“[h1] Pick it up before it's cool [/h1] This game doesn't currently have a ton going on, but that's to be expected. What it does have right now is, imo, pretty promising and I strongly suspect we're going to finally have…”
“for years i always hated this game for being to comples. but since i started playing this after a while and i learned more for it i can say its better than spore it has prototypes of everything can you belive that!? i…”
“kind of a tougher game, but a really fun more biology based evolution game. i really love the detail pages where you can read more background about the different organells”
14 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“This is a fantastic game, and I've been following its development on the forums for years. I congratulate you all on single-celled gameplay being feature complete, and wish you luck on the rest of development. The…”
“Nicely done, and holds you pinned to your seat. Unfortunately leaves you wanting for more. Hopefully it will get some more updates, and some more achievements.”
7 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“An amazing game, the true successor to spore and general evolution simulator games. I purchased this on steam despite it being free on their official website due to how much I love not only the vision but the execution…”
“You can try Thrive for free on GitHub.”
4 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“I loved Spore, so I've been tracking several Spore-likes ever since. Most struggle with crossing from Simulation into Game. So did Thrive until the recent update. Today, Single-Cell mode is FUN. More fun than I ever had…”
3 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“for years i always hated this game for being to comples. but since i started playing this after a while and i learned more for it i can say its better than spore it has prototypes of everything can you belive that!? i…”
“A truly gorgeous game, the complexity of which is unrivaled by any other I've played. It shows so much promise for the future, and I hope then it can fill the Spore 2 shaped void in my heart.”
16 of the 104 reviews raise this · 12 of them still recommend the game.
“believe the game needs a feature to switch to ANY existing species after the player's current species goes extinct. Currently, once you evolve at some point you specialize so much , you hit a "point of no return." If…”
“[h1] Pick it up before it's cool [/h1] This game doesn't currently have a ton going on, but that's to be expected. What it does have right now is, imo, pretty promising and I strongly suspect we're going to finally have…”
“Not really much to do, when you try to evolve your cell to make it bigger, you just end up using too much energy and dying. And the way you get resources to produce energy is really dumb. All you do is find a big cloud…”
11 of the 104 reviews raise this · 7 of them still recommend the game.
“for years i always hated this game for being to comples. but since i started playing this after a while and i learned more for it i can say its better than spore it has prototypes of everything can you belive that!? i…”
“kind of a tougher game, but a really fun more biology based evolution game. i really love the detail pages where you can read more background about the different organells”
“Not really much to do, when you try to evolve your cell to make it bigger, you just end up using too much energy and dying. And the way you get resources to produce energy is really dumb. All you do is find a big cloud…”
10 of the 104 reviews raise this · 4 of them still recommend the game.
“believe the game needs a feature to switch to ANY existing species after the player's current species goes extinct. Currently, once you evolve at some point you specialize so much , you hit a "point of no return." If…”
“Not really much to do, when you try to evolve your cell to make it bigger, you just end up using too much energy and dying. And the way you get resources to produce energy is really dumb. All you do is find a big cloud…”
“I fully understand the game is complex, but that isn't simly the issue. It is utterly inaccessible in terms of difficulty, even to a cautious player that tries to learn everything. It seems even the early game is meant…”
5 of the 104 reviews raise this · 2 of them still recommend the game.
“I fully understand the game is complex, but that isn't simly the issue. It is utterly inaccessible in terms of difficulty, even to a cautious player that tries to learn everything. It seems even the early game is meant…”
“the ai don't get big the underwater current system is forgiving to small creatures but not to big ones even though there all micro organisms idk how like 10+nano meters effects the movement that much its not a spore 2.0…”
“REALLY early in development, and it crashes without warning.”
4 of the 104 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“This game is a fantastic recreation of Spore's cell stage if EA games took cell bio in undergrad. It's pretty accurate for a video game. Extremely frustrating at times but rewarding. When every species simultaneously…”
“Absolutely fantastic game with a ton of promise. Still in early stages, with a very active and engaged development team. There are times when the game feels clunky, and learning the game isn't the easiest, but starting…”
“the ai don't get big the underwater current system is forgiving to small creatures but not to big ones even though there all micro organisms idk how like 10+nano meters effects the movement that much its not a spore 2.0…”
Counted across 104 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 92.2% positive rating · as of 2026-05-13
“The game is neat, I can see the direction its going it could mean some funny stuff. However, currently its somewhat hard to know how to evolve for anyone that isn't too familiar with evolution or just planning about 3 steps ahead to become what they want. Currently the easiest…”
— a player, Steam review · 17 hrs played“maybe my great grandchildren will be able to play the full game”
— a player, Steam review · 14 hrs played“Absolutely massive potential. Played it for free, then decided to give 5 bucks down the line. This is like Spore but on steroids, you get it?”
— a player, Steam review · 6 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-06 via SteamCharts.
Achievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-09-05.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-11. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-09-04). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Devblog #53: The Birds and the Bees Update
The time has finally come for Thrive 1.6, the third major update to the Multicellular Stage! So how come it's called 1.6? Three months have passed since the last major update, and a lot has been added
Thrive 1.6.0 Public Beta is now Available
Some time has passed once again and it is time for a new Thrive release seen. As usual we have a public test build available today and the release is in one week so that we can fix all the problems ev
Thrive Soundtrack Expanded
News in the land of Thrive music! Recently we compiled a new full soundtrack containing music for every Thrive Stage, so we decided to update the soundtrack on Steam accordingly. Previously, it only c
Devblog #52: More Specialized
It's already time for the second major update of the Multicellular Stage! In the last update, we first introduced the Cell Specialization system. This has now been greatly improved upon by refinement
Thrive 1.1.0 Public Beta is now Available
The next Thrive release is almost here, so it is time to do the usual early public testing to catch issues before they reach the stable release. The major features in this release is the greatly expan
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Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-13.
| Genres | Casual, Indie, Simulation, Early Access |
| Player tags | Simulation · Science · Sandbox · Character Customization · Education · Procedural Generation · Nature · Tutorial · Casual · Artificial Intelligence · 3D · 2D (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Steam Achievements · Steam Workshop · Custom Volume Controls · Adjustable Difficulty · Playable without Timed Input · Save Anytime · Stereo Sound |
| Languages | English |
| Achievements | 12 |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 10 Processor: Intel Core i5-4570 or AMD Ryzen 3 3300U Memory: 4 GB RAM Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 530 Storage: 5 GB available space Additional Notes: OpenGL 3.0 capable GPU and drivers required