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GamingPCPC GamesSpace simulation

What are the best games on the PC for space nerds?

15

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Considered

28

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Recs.

Oct 24, 2023

Last
Updated

15 Games Considered

Best games on the PC for space nerds	Price	Steam Rating	RECOMMENDED
-- Kerbal Space Program	$39.99	Overwhelmingly Positive	Processor:Core i5 Memory:4 GB RAM Graphics:SM4 1GB VRAM Hard Drive:6 GB HD space
-- FTL: Faster Than Light	-	-	-
-- Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion	$39.99	-	-
-- Space Engineers (Early Access)	-	Very Positive	-
-- Elite: Dangerous	-	Mostly Positive	-

Kerbal Space Program

Top Pro

Huge modding scene

There's a plethora of mods available that can change every single aspect of the game. See More

Top Con

Graphics are not the most detailed

The graphics of KSP are not the most detailed but they work non the less. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Overwhelmingly Positive

Top Pro

Teaches orbital dynamics & rocket design fundamentals in an accessible manner

The physics engine does a reasonably accurate job of replicating the fundamentals behind both orbital dynamics and rocket design, so by going through the tutorials and experimenting, you're actually learning some real rocket science. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Kerbal Space Program is not really a pic up and play title. There is much to learn before grasping the core concepts f the game, See More

Top Pro

Fun sandbox mode to experiment with rocket designs

The rocket designer lets you experiment with as many different rocket designs as you can think up. The designer is based on components such as engines, fuel cells, structural elements and various other items such as parachutes. See More

Top Pro

Tons of stuff to do

Build rockets, space planes, space stations, rovers, landers, probes. Explore planets, moons, capture asteroids, set up a communications network, colonize a planet, mine for resources and much more. It can even simulate our solar system. See More

Top Pro

In constant development

KSP is a shinning example of early release done right. The currently available game is fun to play, and the developers are constantly adding new major additions. See More

Top Pro

NASA working on a mission pack for the game

While not released yet NASA is working on a mission pack for the game. See More

Top Pro

Great way to relieve stress.

Who doesn't like explosions, or launching things into the sun. For real, the thinking required to achieve certain things can really calm you down. See More

Top Pro

You just can't get bored with it. And you will learn a lot.

A "physics" game about space. Build rockets, space planes, space stations, rovers, landers, probes. Explore planets, moons, capture asteroids. With the addition of mods you can even test warp drive, set up a communications network, colonize a planet, mine for resources and much much more. It can even simulate our solar system (the in-game one is very similiar, although smaller to encourage new players. Learn orbital mechanics. Inspire yourself to learn about space and space travel history of human. This game is not only fun - it is inspiring. The game is under heavy development but is already playable (and gives a ton of fun!). Works very well under Linux (64bit as well). See More

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

Top Pro

Diplomacy used in a smart way

Factions you play against can send you quests that may affect your relationship with others in the match. By taking on these quests, or even downright refusing them, your standing with the respective faction will change, causing a rippling effect that will increase or degrade your relations with others. Thus you must choose whom to aid and who to shun in an effort to create a strong alliance. This diplomatic depth of strategy can greatly change the outcome of a game depending on the strength of your alliance and military, as it is only as strong as your opponent is weak. And there is nothing stopping them from forming an alliance of their own. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve can deter casual players

While the game is one of the slower Real-Time Strategy titles, there is a huge learning curve that can wreak havoc on fledgling players. With some research required in order to colonize certain planets, researching use of larger fleet and capital ship sizes, to maintaining a thriving economic civilization, it will take many, many matches before players feel knowledgeable and skilled enough to play on larger maps or even against more difficult AI. With no true Single Player to speak of and little way of help in terms of tutorials, you must play in order to learn, sometimes using trial and error as a way of making progress. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Leisurely real time combat

With the large scale of the game, you can control many fleets in several solar systems, which, on easier difficulties, allows for a leisurely pace to play. This makes the game a worthwhile, relaxing and semi-stress-free strategy title played on a grand scale. See More

Top Con

Slow-paced logistics and combat necessitates situational awareness

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is a strategy title on a massive scale, with players able to colonize multiple solar systems in any given match. Due in part to this scale, there is a perceived slowdown in gameplay; lengthy building construction, minutes-long research and slow unit movement. While the game, at its heart, does appear to be slow (and sometimes is), awareness of your surroundings is paramount. With fleets sometimes taking minutes to arrive at a destination, and defensive structures quickly falling to a massive fleet, it is easy for players to move out of position allowing key worlds to become targeted and lost in enemy incursions if they expand too quickly. However, not expanding quickly enough can halt the player from building up a fleet capable of taking on an enemy, or pirates head-on. In essence, you must learn to balance fleet needs, knowing the right time to expand, while keeping large groups of your ships scattered in key positions to await reinforcements should the need arise. See More

Space Engineers (Early Access)

Top Pro

Destructible ships

Players are able to smash ships into each other with satisfying destruction physics. See More

Top Con

Servers are a "lag hell"

Due to the nature of physics simulation of custom built ships, the game requires top hardware to host the game, still making it a "lag hell" if there are more than 10 players. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Pro

Prefabricated ships available in game that are modifiable

For those that do not want to build a whole ship from scratch there are prefabricated ships available upon start that are also modifiable so users can customize to their liking. See More

Top Con

Still not a whole lot to do

Being an early access game there is still a lot of missing features such as missions, thus leaving no much to do other than the free building mode. See More

Top Pro

Easy to build

Space Engineers makes it easy to build any items or objects making sure any skill level can easily have fun in game. See More

Top Pro

Plenty of helpful Mods

There are tons of great mods that help add to the game. Both from a PVE and ship construction perspective. See More

Elite: Dangerous

Top Pro

Exploration at every level of detail

Full exploration of the galaxy is planned, allowing you to be able to jump from star system to star system, and fly around within a solar system from planet to planet, eventually going all the way down to a planet's surface at a 1:1 scale in a later update. Planetary landings will require a lot of details to be developed and designed, but you can still see the level of detail shift in action when flying into a planet's rings, where getting close enough show the individual asteroids within, which you can then interact with through mining, or by having a battle among them. See More

Top Con

"Mile Wide and an Inch Deep"

The game has a serious problem with depth and requires the user to repeat the same few fun actions over and over again. The world is massive and beautiful but feels empty. The game gets stale quickly despite being visually stunning. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Genre:Space trading and combat game

Co-Op:Multiplayer

Controller Support:Full

Top Pro

Built with future expansion in mind

When Elite Dangerous come out, development wont stop. To build a game with the huge scope of Elite Dangerous, not all of it can be done at once, so the developers have adopted an approach of incremental improvement. Various game play elements are being designed as a foundation for later features. For example, although planetary landings aren't going to be available until a later update, the engine has been designed to be able to support going from lightyears away to meters away. See More

Top Con

Really complicated to learn

Looking up faqs and trade routes from first hand users will be the norm for figuring out many aspects of Elite: Dangerous. On top of this notes will have to be taken, which is made more difficult by the fact the game does not support in game not taking. So a pad and paper is recommended to remember all of the minutia of the game. See More

Top Pro

Very realistic representation of space & star systems

Elite Dangerous uses publicly available real world star maps that we have of the Milky Way consisting of 150,000 star systems. Although in the current beta, full access to the entire galaxy is limited, in the final game, you will be able to visit any of the 400 billion stars in our galaxy on a 1:1 scale. Stars that we do know of are properly mapped in place and are of the correct type given the information we have about them. Stars we haven't collected data on are procedurally generated which allows you to explore any of the 400 billion of them. Star systems are intelligently simulated using the "Star Forge", a generator that simulates the creation of a star system forming from its nebular cloud to determine what celestial bodies appear and what orbits they have. This feature leads to many varied and unique star systems possibly with planets that can co-orbit around each other, or with binary star systems, and infinitely more possibilities. See More

Top Pro

Great Oculus Rift integration

Elite Dangerous has very good integration with the Oculus Rift thanks to its cockpit view only gameplay philosophy. All ship UIs are part of displays that appear on each side of you that appear when you turn your head, so accessing the navigation or ship menus happens seamlessly just by looking in their direction. The game also uses the direction you are looking in for targeting, so your lock on target is whatever you're head is pointing at. By sitting in the cockpit of a ship, you are given a stationary frame of reference that helps prevent motion sickness associated with movement in game when you aren't actually moving. See More

Prosperous Universe

Top Pro

Opt-in to military conflict

You don't have to set your alarm to 4 in the morning because an enemy fleet is inbound and you never have to worry about your hard-earned property to be destroyed. See More

Top Con

Currently missing mid & end game content

As the game is currently at its alpha stage, it's still missing content that makes it fun to play for a prolonged period of time. See More

Mjeno's Experience

Full disclosure: I am now on the team of the development studio myself, but I first followed this game as a fan for several months. I was initially drawn in by the realistic sci-fi setting and the promise of a grind-free experience. I loved Eve Online and Elite Dangerous, but dropped out of both because of the in-game waiting times for which I simply don't have the time anymore. I don't play (or even look at) other browser-based games, but this one really sticks out from the crowd. See More

Specs

Genre:Space economy sim

Controller Support:No

Top Pro

Runs in any browser

The game runs in any browser. There's no flying around in space, which would require a heavy 3D client without adding any actual depth in terms of gameplay. See More

Top Pro

Completely player-driven economy

Top Pro

Highly realistic space flight

Star Citizen (still in development)

Top Pro

Vast, detailed sci-fi world

A long term goal is to have more than 1 star system in game, which may have a planet within it. See More

Top Con

Looks like an XBOX 360 game

Top Pro

Includes a singleplayer mode, called "Squadron 42"

Squadron 42 is a single player campaign that takes place in the in game universe that allows players to play offline. See More

Top Con

Will not be released

Top Pro

Promised ability to command persistent ships and stations

Players have been promised they will be able to command multi-person ships with other users who will be able to command their own stations on said ships. See More

Top Con

Commercial launch is still a year away (2016)

The commercial launch of the persistent universe game will be sometime in 2016. See More

Top Pro

A true PC game

It's been stated that the game will take full advantage of PC's capabilities and will not be held back by a need to accommodate a console port. See More

Top Pro

Dynamic economy system

The economy of the game and the actions to keep it moving are constantly going on in the background but allows for players to step in and out of it at their leisure in order to take part. See More

Top Pro

Over $73million in funding

A game with the huge scope of Star Citizen will cost a lot of money to develop, and through multiple campaigns, Star Citizen has raised a huge amount of money to make that happen. See More

STAR WARS: Rogue Squadron 3D

Top Pro

GIve a great sense of taking part in the StarWars universe

From the fantastic voice acting, the cinematic sequences to the licensed music and sound effects, this game gives off a great feeling of taking part in the universe of Star Wars. While there has been many games that have held the license, this has been regarded as one of the better titles for some time, which shows with the care they took in presentation. See More

Top Con

No graphical options

The game is basically a straight port of the N64 title, meaning there is zero graphical settings to be found other than resolution (which is broken). So for those looking for a more polished title that would allow them to take advantage of PC centric graphical settings, this may not be the game for you. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Genre:Space combat game

Top Pro

Medal system allows for plenty of replayability

Each missions has a bronze, silver or gold medal that can be earned by completing the stage and certain tasks contained withing under a certain time limit. With gold being the toughest to earn, there is plenty of reason to revisit stages in order to earn the gold medal. This means hours of extra time spent with the game. See More

Top Con

Mouse and keyboard controls are very poor

This game was originally designed for a controller, which shows when trying to play with a keyboard and mouse. While this port does offer keyboard controls, they work so poorly that it makes the game almost unplayable when using this control scheme. See More

Top Pro

Expansive content

Even though this is an older game originally released for the Nintendo 64 back in 98, the amount of content is quite good as there is a plethora of missions available. Escort/rescue missions, dogfights and bombing runs make up some of this content, all of which take place on many different worlds or space set pieces, all of which take place in the cannon universe of Star Wars. See More

Top Con

In game resolution settings may crash the game

While there is a setting in the game to adjust the resolution the game is played in, changing this setting may make the game crash when a mission is launched. While this setting can be changed in an ini file which will not make the game crash, having a broken option in the game shows a lack of polish. See More

Top Pro

Easy to learn and play

Rogue Squadron has very accessible controls that allows for the game to have a bunch of differing missions due to how easy it is to fly the ships. More akin to Starfox over Star Wars flight sim titles such as X-Wing, allows for arcadey controls that is no where near as punishing as other sims. This means the game can be more accessible for any type of player. See More

Top Con

Controller settings need to be tweaked

In order to get a controller working properly with the game, one will need to go into the settings of the game in order to change some options. Basically out of the box controller support is pretty poor, though once tweaked the controller will work fine. See More

STAR WARS - Knights of the Old Republic II

Specs

Steam Rating:Overwhelmingly Positive

No Man's Sky

Top Pro

Seamless space to planetary flight

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Action-Adventure, Survival

Top Pro

Massive galaxy to explore

Thanks to the fact that the entire galaxy of No Man's Sky is procedurally generated, the amount of planets to explore is almost endless. The number of planets would be 18,446,744,073,709,551,616. However, the fact that 2 players managed to find each other in game on the first day, seems to make this number quite questionable. See More

Top Pro

Good graphics

The art style of this game is very colorful and saturated and uses hues in a way that it gives you an otherworldly feel. Graphics like these tend to remain good for a much longer time than classic 3D graphics. See More

Top Pro

Freedom to choose how you want to play

Ally with factions, trade or just be a pirate. When trading with NPC aliens, you build up a positive reputation with the faction they belong to. Alternatively you can also be hostile and attack trade ships, or even be attacked by NPC pirate spaceships. Both can be ways to get what you need, so do whatever suits your play style. See More

Top Pro

Endless procedural generation

This game procedurally generates almost everything. Your spaceships are procedurally generated, so are the planets, moons, every animal on these planets, the resource nodes, trade routes, languages, etc. When discovering new species or planets, players get to rename these and leave their mark on the galaxy. See More

Out There: Ω Edition

Top Pro

Non complicated resource management

Out There's gameplay revolves around resource management, what the player can find and how they utilize it. It is quite a tight rope of choices that makes for a many "biting your nails" scenarios. Should one venture down to a planet for resources to craft new alien technologies or repair equipment and the ship, risking their fuel and air, or should the venture forward to a new system to try and find more fuel rich planets? Thee great aspect about all of this resource management is that it is a pretty streamlined system, no weapons or crew to worry about, just fuel air and equipment/ship. See More

Top Con

Completely random

Being that the whole game is completely random, some sessions will not turn out that great. Many times there is the unavoidable bad luck that will make the player run out of fuel or air. Sure there may have been a choice the player should not have made, but really, there is no way to really know. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Top Pro

Fantastic music

The music in game fits so well with the atmosphere, giving a very lonely yet somewhat hopeful feel. Created by composer Siddhartha Barnhoorn (The Stanley Parable) one knows quality is rightfully behind the whole score. See More

Top Pro

Choose your own adventure aspects

Out There has many similarities to a choose your own adventure book where many choices end with a story and particular situation to each that can not be guessed or assumed before the choice is taken. So no game ever has the same outcomes to any particular choice within, which makes for a new adventure each playthrough. The Omega edition has new voicework to go along with these stories behind each choice, which ads another level of immersion, which is nice. With over 350 unique texts, there is quite a bit to see before they become too repetitive. See More

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