Welcome, Reader. Today I’d like to write to you about space games. I previously wrote about a certain game called ‘Elite Dangerous’ and its awesome space dogfights, exploration, and the living, breathing galaxy it presented us with. Now I would like to look through several different games of this same ‘space simulation game’ genre, similar to elite dangerous.
Let’s start with one of the older ones, one that is also already out and has been around for quite a bit.
1) Eve Online
“Explore. Build. Conquer” The Story of Eve is what you make of it, by what you decide to do. Interact with the thousands of players wage great PvP wars, with fleets of hundreds and even thousands of players on each side. Or immerse yourself in the economics of space. It's all up to you.
Eve is basically a roleplaying space game with a big learning curve. In the beginning, it's tutorial, after tutorial, after tutorial that often turns away many players that don’t have the patience to become an expert on this game and its mechanics. The game requires a great amount of skill and knowledge to come up on top. You are usually competing against other players for supremacy. Besides dealing with the AI for receiving missions or fighting them off as they fly through the universe. There is no final goal in the game like many here, except for the goals the player makes for themselves.
2) No Man’s Sky
No Man’s Sky is set in a massive universe that could never be fully explored in anyone’s lifetime. It does have sort of a goal - players are encouraged to make it to the center of the Universe, gathering and buying resources and technologies to aid in their travels, and you can discover and learn the tongues of different alien species and learn some of their history and lore of their peoples. You can do whatever you want to do though really.
Here we can see an example of the vibrant art and visually interesting variety and views this game has to offer.
You fly around discovering new solar systems, planets, plants, and animals, all of which you can name as the first time discoverer of them, and then upload this so all other players that encounter them end up seeing the name you have given these things.
To fuel your travels, you farm resources from the planets you land on, and from asteroids that float around in the star systems. Gaining resources not only allows you to fuel your ship but also upgrade it by crafting modules. You can also upgrade your mining laser/gun which you use to mine resources and kill the bots that attack you for disrupting the natural balance of planets by mining a lot from a particular planet.
3) Star Citizen
“An unprecedented chance to live your own deep space adventure! Star Citizen places you in the middle of a living, breathing science fiction universe populated with friends, enemies and the unknown.
You decide how to make your way in the galaxy, whether you’re a simple merchant trader, a fearsome pirate or a badass mercenary… and anything in-between.” – Robert Space Industries
Star Citizen is a Lot like Eve online, except with more exploration, a very different ship and flight system, and a more skill based combat system more like Elite Dangerous. Actually, it is a lot more like Elite except with the freedom for the pilot to walk around and do all sorts of thing outside of the ship, and in a much smaller universe of 100 star systems.
Yet these are all hand crafted to be interesting and unique to explore. And Star Citizen also has many, many more ships promised, and several already existing in the game. Also, instead of focusing on having a lot computer made Universe, Star Citizen ensures that the Universe it does have is very high quality with a lot of detail and thought in it, completely hand made.
4) Rebel Galaxy
“The edge of everything is dangerous territory. Are you a cunning pirate? A cold-hearted mercenary? A shrewd trader? A scoundrel with a heart of gold?
Maybe all of the above? One thing’s for damn sure. You’re going to find out.”
What separates Rebel Galaxy from the other games I’ve mentioned so far, is that you aren’t flying around in a small fighter ship. Here you fly large dreadnoughts that don’t swerve and fly around but instead focus on firing a rain of fire upon your enemies.
It controls differently as here the battles are more like naval battles. You can align with different groups as their ally often ending up making enemies with the other factions. You mainly keep upgrading and grinding to get bigger better ships to complete missions with and get more money for upgrading your ship, which is essential to survive in the edge of inhabited space.
5) Fractured Space
One of the great Capital ships that players command. The Pioneer
Fractured space is similar to Rebel Galaxy in the approach they have taken to space games. Except Fractured space is all about PVP. Here each player commands a huge capital ship in teams of five to try and fight for control, resources and eventually, to destroy the enemy base. It is more simple than most of the other games of its genre with the entirety of the idea explained in just that. But on my personal list, this game ranks higher than Rebel Galaxy because though the movement is similar, this has more variety of classes and they fight more like large spaceships than like boats in space. Plus, it's free.
6) Everspace
Bringing it back to the smaller fighter experience we have Everspace, a single player experience of high action space dogfights.
This game actually has a story for players to follow instead of just throwing you out into the galaxy. The Goal and challenges are reminiscent of FTL’s. Get to the destination through a dangerous universe. And each time you replay it, the routes and obstacles differ.
It promises that no two runs will ever be the same. Heck dying is progressing, as each time you die the story progresses and you get to keep your credits, and any schematics to better your ship that you had acquired before. There are several Enemies after you that you will encounter in your dangerous run through space as capital ships and other enemy vessels often like to warp directly in front of you, which looks awesome.
7) Angels Fall First
“From commanding the battle standing on the bridge of your flagship all the way down to tactical infantry firefights”
Angels Fall First does something like what Star Citizen is trying to do. It brings together first-person shooting with space sims. It seems like they’ve done a great job. They keep improving the game and you can play it now for 17 bucks.
Although Angels Fall First provides a less expansive experience than what Star Citizen promises it is a game that already exists and provides solid gameplay that’s already off the drawing board and actually implemented already. Fight in a war between humans, in a multiplayer match, or in the offline campaign.
8) Into the Stars
You’re a captain trying to survive as you search the star system for a new place to take what is left of human civilization can settle down and prosper.
This game focuses more on survival as you explore the 90 zones of the large star system, trying to escape and defend yourself from the threat of alien civilizations some of which have been particularly hostile. You pick who to become your crewmembers from what’s left of the population as they gain experience through your travels. I cannot say this game is for everyone, its mixed reviews make that apparent. But if you are into hardcore roguelike survival space games then you will likely enjoy this one.
9) Eve Valkyrie
Set in the Eve: Online universe. It looks great and is fun to play, as you fly around blowing up enemy ships as you dogfight them your fighter ships.
This is mainly a multiplayer game where you zip around with your team trying to take down the enemy team. The controls are easy and intuitive. Leaving you fumbling for only a little while before you can fly around with a pretty good idea of what you’re doing. The biggest thing this game offers and has been hyped most about it is the VR experience. Which I can vouch for. It easily gets your heart pounding with the action of the game. Really being like you are there in that cockpit.
Now let’s go back in time to simpler older games. To the precursors of all the games listed above. So let’s pay some homage to them.
10) Starsector
Starsector is a 2D top down open world space sim roleplay game, where you explore the universe, trade, and fight against other ships.
Set in a dystopian future where because of a failure in a network between civilizations, those civilizations have started to crumble away. What remains are pockets of humanity strewn about space. You fly about doing missions, fighting off pirates and collecting enough credits to get better ships along the way.
11) Freelancer (2003)
Take a seat as pilot of a spacecraft to fly around the 48 known star systems and their space stations. As usual fighting and trading.
Playing the single player campaign puts you in the shoes of Edison Trent, doing missions to fight off an alien threat. There is also a multiplayer mode in which you can dogfight against other players, pitting your skills as a pilot against each other. You can take on jobs to earn wealth, new ones in each new system the player explores. Being a bodyguard for goods, bounty-hunting, or trading, even piracy. All to get more money, and the more money the more you can upgrade your ship and the better the guns and other equipment on your ship.
All of these games are great to play, even the oldies. But of course money is limited, so I hope I’ve helped all you dear readers, not only with finding a great game you had not known about before but also helped you decide which of these games is the one that sounds most like what you would like to buy among the space sims that have cropped up recently.
I would also like to recommend these articles for further investigation on some of the games on this list that I recommend.
Star Citizen Gameplay - Experience FPS Spaceship Combat at Its Finest. Here are 5 Things You'll Love
No Man's Sky: The PR Disaster and Rumors of the First New Content Update
And, if you didn’t know about Elite Dangerous before, check this review out:
