SpaceChem
Zachtronics is back with an ambitious new design-based puzzle game. Take on the role of a Reactor Engineer working for SpaceChem, the leading chemical synthesizer for frontier colonies. Construct elaborate factories to transform raw materials into valuable chemical products!
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- Released
- 2011
- Developer
- Zachtronics
- Platforms
- 1 systems
- Critics
- 84
- Steam Deck
- playable
- Download
- Not stated
What is SpaceChem?
Zachtronics is back with an ambitious new design-based puzzle game. Take on the role of a Reactor Engineer working for SpaceChem, the leading chemical synthesizer for frontier colonies. Construct elaborate factories to transform raw materials into valuable chemical products!
Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.
The record
| First released | 1 March 2011 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Zachtronics |
| Publisher | Zachtronics |
| Platforms | PC |
| Genres | Puzzle, Simulation, Strategy |
| Languages | 8 supported |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata , seeded TBA. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.
How was SpaceChem received?
Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Metacritic page. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.
What does it support?
| Capability | Support |
|---|---|
| Controller | Not stated |
| Cloud saves | Yes |
| Cross-platform play | No |
| Mod support | No official workshop |
| Online play | Single-player only |
| In-game purchases | No |
| Steam Deck | playable |
| Download size | Not stated |
| Add-on content | 1 DLC listed |
| Age gate | None |
Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.
What does it cost?
Steam price in US dollars, read 30 August 2026. Prices move hourly and vary by region. Check the current price.
Is SpaceChem worth it?
92% of 5,085 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. It costs $9.99 on Steam, and critics score it 84/100. About 11 people were playing at once when we last checked, so it is still active.
That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. We have not published our own review of this game.
How long is SpaceChem? How long to beat it
Total play time for SpaceChem is about 64 hours to do everything, and around 41.5 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 41.5h | 17 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 57.1h | 13 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 64h | 20 |
At its current price of $9.99, beating the main story works out to about $0.24 per hour. That is the price divided by the hours, a value read and not a verdict: a longer game costs less per hour, which is not the same as being the better game.
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Where SpaceChem sits on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueSpaceChem plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.
1 games have both
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- PC
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
Is SpaceChem still active? Players right now
SpaceChem has a small, niche following: 11 people were playing at once when we last read Steam on 19 October 2026. This is a snapshot, not a live counter, and it is a recent concurrent reading rather than an all-time record. For what is trending across the catalogue right now, see the pulse.
How many people own SpaceChem
This is an estimate, not a sales figure, and the two are not interchangeable. SteamSpy samples public profiles and publishes a range; the range here spans a factor of 2.0, and that width is the honest part of it. We show both ends rather than a midpoint, because a midpoint would look like a measurement.
Steam only. Console and storefront sales are not counted, so a game that sold heavily elsewhere reads low here. Read on 19 October 2026. Where a publisher has announced a real unit figure, that appears separately and carries its source.
Estimated sales for SpaceChem
These are estimates, not reported figures. Zachtronics has not published unit sales for SpaceChem, and nobody outside the company can measure them. What follows is arithmetic on the review count, with the method printed below so you can check it or reject it.
How this was calculated
Steam sales track review counts closely enough that dividing one by the other across games with published figures gives a usable multiplier. This is the standard method for estimating sales from outside a publisher.
| Reviews on Steam | 5,085 |
|---|---|
| Sales per review | 30 to 60 |
| List price | $9.99 |
| Assumed average selling price | 33% to 66% of list |
| SteamSpy owner estimate | 1.0M–2.0M, a different measure, see below |
What this cannot tell you
Steam only. Console, Epic, GOG and retail sales are not in here. For a game that sold heavily on PlayStation this is a fraction of the real number.
The band is wide because the method is imprecise. Review rates vary with price, genre, launch era and how insistently a game asks. Published analyses put the ratio between 30 and 60 for paid games, and we show the whole range rather than picking a point in it.
The owner estimate above measures something else. SteamSpy counts accounts that have the game, which includes free weekends, bundles, giveaways and gifts. It sits higher than a sales figure for that reason, and the two are not alternative answers to the same question.
Revenue is the shakiest line. It assumes an average selling price well below list because most copies move in sales, and it ignores regional pricing, refunds, key resellers and whatever deal the publisher actually has with Valve. Treat it as an order of magnitude, not a figure.
If Zachtronics publishes a real number we will use that instead and say where it came from. Our editorial policy covers how we handle figures we cannot verify.
SpaceChem price & deals: is it on sale?
We have one reading so far: $9.99 on 30 August 2026. Prices are checked daily from here, and this becomes a chart once there is more than one point to join. A single observation is a price, not a history.
Latest SpaceChem updates & patch notes
Pulled from SpaceChem's own Steam feed on 5 September 2026. Posts marked as from the studio were written by the developer; the rest are articles Steam syndicated from elsewhere. Every one links to its source.
What readers say about SpaceChem
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
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Where SpaceChem appears
The ranked lists and finder pages SpaceChem qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Games like SpaceChem
24 games overlap with SpaceChem on the tags Steam players applied to it, on genre, and on theme. The closest are Mini Metro, Papers, Please and World of Goo.
SpaceChem head to head
See SpaceChem compared side by side, on score, price, specs and more:
More SpaceChem comparisons: vs Mini Motorways, vs Rocksmith 2014 Edition REMASTERED LEARN & PLAY, vs RADical ROACH Remastered, vs Stellar 2D, vs Prismata, vs LOCKDOWN Protocol
Common questions about SpaceChem
What platforms is SpaceChem on?
SpaceChem is available on PC. It first released in 2011.
How much does SpaceChem cost?
$9.99 on Steam in the United States, read on 30 August 2026. Prices move often and vary by region, so check the store before buying.
Do players recommend SpaceChem?
92% of 5,085 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.
What is the Metacritic score for SpaceChem?
84 out of 100 for the PC version, as published on the game's own Steam store page. Steam can lag Metacritic by a few points.
Does SpaceChem work on Steam Deck?
Valve rates SpaceChem as playable on the Steam Deck, from its own testing.
Who made SpaceChem?
SpaceChem was developed by Zachtronics and published by Zachtronics.
Is SpaceChem worth it in 2026?
92% of 5,085 Steam reviews are positive (Very Positive), and it is $9.99 on steam. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.
Is SpaceChem dead?
No. About 11 people were in-game at once when we last read Steam's concurrent-player figure. Peak activity is higher; this is a recent snapshot, not the all-time peak.
Is SpaceChem on sale?
Not at the moment. SpaceChem is at its $9.99 list price on Steam, read on 30 August 2026. It has been cheaper before; the price history above shows when.
How long does it take to beat SpaceChem?
about 41.5 hours for the main story, 57.1 hours with the main extras, 64 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.