The cold emptiness of space has long beckoned to science fiction authors. After all, unlike fantasy worlds, which, for all their diversity, still live by the general canons of the genre, the infinity of space gives room for the most daring fantasies and allows the fulfillment of the author’s ideas without compromising the suspense of disbelief in readers.
There are as many games about traveling across the universe, extraterrestrial civilizations, and spaceship battles as there are stars in the night sky. It took us a fair amount of time to sort and select the single-player and online space-themed games that beginners could enjoy the most. For your convenience, we have categorized our several top-three lists by genre. Enjoy the ride!
Action
Entropia Universe. The game offers players an amazing world of a distant star system and discourages freedom of choice: here, you can visit the thematic planets, buy real estate, trade with your own objects, and personally participate in the political life of the game universe. At the same time, the project is available for free and boasts the ability to convert in-game currency into real dollars. The latest updates hint at future expansion, allowing for more integration with the real world, including various purchases, in-game trading, and even a gambling site that accepts credit cards.
EVE Online. It is a monstrous role-playing game that allows its players to take part in super-epic battles on spaceships. Since it also supports in-game purchases, someone’s downed spaceship can sometimes cost the player tangible financial losses, but that only incites the thrill. The game is designed for active participation in the life of clans and alliances – without an alliance, your progress becomes a dire task.
Mass Effect. From 2007 to 2017, the masters from BioWare supplied the gamer community with some of the best space-themed adventures on PC. A grandiose space opera where relatable pathos intertwines with complex moral dilemmas, trademark humor, and romantic digressions certainly deserves a place on the list. The series’ killer feature is how your choices in the previous franchise installments influence the unraveling story.
Simulator
Mars Horizon. An educational strategy in which you head one of the leading space agencies and engage in the conquest of the solar system. The project is based on modern scientific research and offers an insight into the realities of space exploration. It is a complex but fascinating strategy manager that lets you assume the role of an agency director and manage the construction of the base, flight control, and much more.
Interstellar Rift. An open-world space sim with an emphasis on ship construction and teamwork. Build your own starship and set out to explore the galaxy, take on your friends and face the challenges of deep space together – you’ll discover new worlds, mine resources, and fight hostile alien life forms. Apart from the modest graphics, Interstellar Rift is an adorable and addictive experience.
Faster Than Light. Here the players are given a ship that must traverse several sectors of the galaxy. To solve problems arising in the course of the journey, one has to manage different systems of the ship and give orders to the crew members. The game’s gimmick is its simplified graphics in the style of a roguelike (an archetypal game genre born in the 80s).
Open World Single-Player Games
Starbound. At the very beginning of the game, our character escapes from the imploding Earth and tries to survive in the vast and hostile expanses of space. The game features procedural generation of planets and items, which allows for an infinite variety of content. There can be up to a million different types of weapons alone. You will explore the surface of the planets, build colonies, and extract resources. Despite the simple graphics, Starbound provides the player with a huge amount of content and impressive freedom, even by the standards of sandboxes.
Outer Wilds. A small game about a time loop somewhere in the confines of a solar system harboring the secrets of forgotten civilizations. The hero has only twenty minutes to explore and uncover the secrets of the new world, after which the world ends and everything starts all over again. This indie masterpiece is capable of giving more emotions than many top-budget games.
Endless Sky. Even though the main story of this sandbox title only takes up to 16 hours to complete, the additional possibilities of Endless Sky are endless indeed – in addition to the vast open world, the game comes with a galaxy editor, which allows the fandom to create many mods for it. Simple graphics allows you to run the game even on a low-end PC. Another feature is its awesome cross-platforming optimization allowing friends to play on a PC and a console simultaneously.