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The best space games 2025

From Warframe to Mass Effect, Dune Awakening, and Starfield, we've got tons of great space games we recommend adding to your Steam library.

A character from Elite Dangerous, one of the best space games, outfitted in astronaut-style gear under an orbiting spaceship

What are the best space games on PC in 2025? Featuring the biggest Steam games, like Kerbal Space Program, and some great free titles, such as Eve Online, these are the most sensational space epics around. With so many options, trying to pick out the best intergalactic adventures is a galaxy-sized question.

Setting your sights on the stars is a daunting task, especially when there are so many adventures set amongst the universe. From galaxy-hopping survival games to intense FPS games set on various planets, there's no shortage of must-play titles on PC. So, before you escape Earth's orbit, here's what we recommend playing.

The best space games are:

Best space games: Star Trek Fleet Command. Image shows a bunch of ships in space.

Star Trek Fleet Command

Whether you cling to the Prime Directive or wish to wreak havoc on your enemies, Star Trek Fleet Command lets you live out your spacefaring dreams with its unique blend of base building and tactical combat. Construct a fleet of ships from a host of Star Trek factions, staff them with series legends, and take over the galaxy.

Even if you're not a fan of the iconic sci-fi franchise, Star Trek Fleet Command's brilliant 4X strategy mechanics make it an engaging experience, as you uncover the universe of Star Trek. Despite releasing in 2018, it still gets regular updates, adding more content to the mix and balancing any problems, meaning you've always got fresh things to enjoy.

Play Star Trek: Fleet Command for free.

Best space games: Honkai Star Rail. Image shows characters leaping through the air holding hammers.

Honkai Star Rail

Hop aboard the intergalactic trainline as the enigmatic Trailblazer, and explore worlds facing Stellaron, the Cancer of Worlds. With each world offering a very different feel (ranging from dream-like landscapes to locations based on Chinese history), Honkai Star Rail offers a great deal of variety, while also keeping things fresh with regular updates.

There are loads of characters to unlock as well, each offering a slightly different way to approach battle and exploration. While there are some noticeable similarities with the earlier Genshin Impact, its JRPG mechanics mean that it is able to stand as a separate and distinct experience - one that you'll easily spend countless hours in, even if you've already played Genshin. With mobile crossplay, you can even keep the game going when you're out and about, after starting on PC.

Play Honkai Star Rail for free.

Best space games: Mech Arena. Image shows a bunch of robots on the moon.

Mech Arena

Mech Arena is by no means a high-concept game, but it is definitely a fun game. As you may be able to infer from the title, this is a game that sees you doing battle in mech suits. There are a number of different mechs to choose from, and they all play differently, and each of them has a ton of customization options too.

"Mech suits are cool," you may say, "but what do they have to do with space?" Well, as it happens, one of the game's arenas takes place on the surface of the moon, with a moonbase as a backdrop. It's particularly cool (in more ways than one) and looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie (or maybe 1960s NASA footage).

Play Mech Arena for free.

Best space games: Star Conflict. Image shows someone in a vessel looking out at rocks in space.

Star Conflict

Star Conflict is a free MMO that sees pilots clash amid asteroid belts and above planets in fast-paced scraps. While it's mostly concerned with PvP battles, you can grab a few quests, explore ruins, and dabble in a spot of crafting.

It's the ships that make the game, of course. From nimble fighters to beefy frigates and bulky destroyers, there is a copious number of vessels to unlock and upgrade, determining your role in whatever conflict you find yourself duking it out in. There are over a hundred ships to choose from, but getting access to them all takes some doing.

There's a metagame, too, as you fight for your chosen faction, hunting down foes and getting in pitched battles in an effort to spread your group's influence and net yourself some lovely rewards.

Play Star Conflict for free.

Best space games: Warframe. Image shows a bunch of robotic beings getting ready for battle.

Warframe

Over ten years after its initial release, Warframe is a free game that proves you can have an incredible title that doesn't rely on pay-to-win mechanics. As a Tenno, you're basically a space ninja, wielding a variety of ranged and melee weapons as you save the universe from different threats, slowly expanding your reach across the galaxy.

Plenty of updates and huge changes to the onboarding experience have made Warframe more approachable and accessible than ever, giving you a power fantasy and a great narrative to enjoy. You can buy Platinum and skip the grind, but you don't have to pay a single dollar to enjoy what's on offer here.

Play Warframe for free.

A Sandworm launching out of the ground in front of two characters in Dune Awakening gameplay

Dune Awakening

In space, no one can hear you scream, but on Arrakis, they can hear you, but you'll probably be screaming a lot more. While there are the inevitable Sandworms that pop out of the sand, or the random hostiles you may encounter, most of Dune Awakening's world is barren - a sand-covered world with two suns scorching the ground, but sometimes its the elements themselves that make the perfect backdrop for the best survival games.

A survival game set in one of sci-fi's most iconic franchises, Dune Awakening takes you into a world where Paul Atreides never lived, but Arrakis is still as dangerous as ever. If you can live to tell the tale, you'll be able to scavenge resources and build a base, but make sure you bring plenty of water. Hydration is your friend here. Check out our Dune Awakening base building guide if you want a bit of help getting started in this inhospitable environment.

Check prices at Fanatical.

The best space games: Barrett looks out into the atmosphere with a reflection shining off his space suit helmet in Starfield.

Starfield

Starfield's vast expanse of explorable environments, including over 1,000 Starfield planets, with plenty of houses to buy and sell, resources to gather, and companions to know and love (yes, it has a romance system), is like no other space game you'll ever play. Nat Smith's Starfield review describes the game as "a true behemoth of an RPG, and in many ways it's the logical endpoint of Bethesda Game Studios' well-worn formula."

Since then, the game has only improve too, with quality of life updates, and new DLCs to enjoy. We suspect that it'll be improved and built-upon for years to come, and of course, there are loads of Starfield mods that provide a wealth of unique fan-made experiences and hone the game further.

Check prices at Fanatical.

Best space games: EVE Online. Image shows a spaceship flying near a large space station.

EVE Online

This has been the preeminent space game for so long that you might be forgiven for thinking it's the only space game in existence. Unquestionably, Eve Online is one of the most interesting, partly down to the fact that its half a million online inhabitants play on the same mega-server rather than having to endure the severed realities offered by its many fantasy contemporaries. It certainly charts out unique territory among the best MMO games.

Players join together to form fleets that number in the thousands and alliances in the tens of thousands, all laying siege to entire regions for months on end, supported by an extensive supply chain of miners, traders, researchers, and manufacturers. In terms of scale and substance, there really isn't anything else like it. For example, an Eve ship worth 309 billion ISK - one of just one of three in existence - was destroyed by a spy embedded in the ship's owner's organization. Yes, there's nothing quite like the stories generated by Eve's astonishing community.

Online games of this scale aren't without their downsides. It has a reputation for being bastard-hard to get into, but after updates to the user interface, graphics, and the near-constant streamlining of some of the game's more obscure systems, the Eve of today is no more difficult to approach than its single-player bosom buddies X and Elite.

The new player experience is being continually streamlined, but it can still be challenging, especially if you aim to carve out a small empire for yourself within a few weeks. Check out the Eve Online system requirements if you want to make sure you can run the game.

Play EVE Online for free.

Best space games: Image shows a beautiful alien landscape in No Man's Sky.

No Man's Sky

Space is an unconquered and never-ending vista. That desire to explore the unknown also forms the attraction of No Man's Sky, which uses procedural generation to ensure that you'll never reach the end of its recreation of space, which has over 18 quintillion planets to explore.

Exploration isn't all you'll do in No Man's Sky, however, as you'll need to find ways to survive. Paramount to your success in doing that is mastering the game's trading and combat. No Man's Sky didn't have the smoothest launch, but a heap of updates has steadied the ship since, adding everything from deep sea exploration to base-building, maintaining a dedicated and loving fanbase that notably once bought billboard space outside Hello Games's offices just to say thank you.

In our No Man's Sky review, Fraser Brown said that the game's world offers "a piece of digital tourism[…] it is an impressive and a genuinely pleasant place to escape to when you're craving some quiet solitude in a stunning environment." If you're tempted to dive into this world yourself, make sure you check out the No Man's Sky system requirements before buying.

Check prices at Humble.

Best space games: A spaceship avoiding a large space rock in Stellaris.

Stellaris

Stellaris, Paradox's 4X grand strategy hybrid, makes space surprising again thanks to event chains that are, at first, evocative of Crusader Kings 2 but end up going much further. In Stellaris, you should expect mutant uprisings, robotic rebellions, and the discovery of alien texts that make your citizens question their place in the galaxy.

It's not just a 4X game; it's a galactic role-playing game and empire sim, bestowing a vast array of options upon players, allowing them to create unique, eccentric, space-faring species. You can play as a fundamentalist society built on the backs of slaves or hyper-intelligent lizards that rely on robots, whether they are fighting or farming. The robust species creator and a multitude of meaningful decisions mean that you can create almost any aliens that you can imagine.

And underpinning all of that is the game's focus on exploration. While most space 4X games stick with one method of interstellar travel, Stellaris gives you three to choose from, each with its own strengths and counters. In one game, the galaxy might be a network of hyper-lanes, but in the next, you might find yourself building wormhole stations and blinking across the galaxy.

Stellaris' multiplayer isn't to be overlooked either, transforming decent human beings into Machiavellian alien tyrants at the drop of a hat. Its a large and tempting package, and in our Stellaris review, Fraser Brown said "From the stellar […] soundtrack to that warm feeling I get when I enslave a whole planet full of cute space turtles, Stellaris offers up a galaxy that I can't not immerse myself in."

Check prices on Fanatical.

Best space games: Comical looking astronauts standing near a spaceship on the surface of a moon in Kerbal Space Program.

Kerbal Space Program

The first order of doing anything in space is, of course, to get there. Unfortunately, most games in this otherwise splendid list make the rather wild assumption that rocket science isn't all that important and skip to the business of spreading violence, free-market capitalism, and all manner of other human diseases to all corners of various galaxies. Thankfully, the space program to which the Kerbals fatefully apply is rather more grounded in reality, in the sense that the aim of the game is to avoid crashing into the stuff.

Kerbal Space Program is ostensibly about trial and error, first in building a vessel capable of getting its payload off the ground, which is relatively easy, and second, by actually getting the damn thing launched and steered into some kind of orbit. You soon realize that getting past the Karman Line is one thing, while delivering your payload safely to its destination is another entirely. Thankfully, because your gurning passengers seem quite happy to be sacrificed for the greater good of the basic understanding of astrophysics, the trial and error is every bit as involved and entertaining as any fleeting success.

As Steve Hogarty said in our Kerbal Space Program review, "the goals you set yourself are the most rewarding to complete, and Kerbal Space Program presents a blank canvas for the creative space-brain." Reaching the Mun (née Moon), deploying a modular space station, and mining on distant planets are all attainable, albeit after a great deal of crushing but entertaining failure, made bearable thanks to a combination of hard science unpinning a soft and cute interior. As well as being a bloody good space game, KSP may well be the most entertaining community-enriched sandbox game since Minecraft, massively helped along by its huge modding scene, and as .

Check prices on Humble.

Best space games: a worker plasma cutting the side of a ship in gameplay of Hardspace Shipbreaker

Hardspace: Shipbreaker

After destructive space battles, years of flying around the void of the universe, and dealing with asteroid fields, no one ever wonders where all of those broken, beat-up spaceships go. Well, Hardspace: Shipbreaker answers all of those questions, as you take on employment as a shipyard scrapper in space, cutting open old vehicles and salvaging what's worth keeping.

Armed with a variety of tools that make the process a breeze, you'll have to complete contracts in order to pay back your hefty debts. It's a fairly relaxing game when things go your way, but don't go in expecting your job to be a breeze. At the end of the day, the hard work still needs to be done.

Check prices on CDKeys.

Best space games: Space station orbiting a planet in IXION game key art

IXION

Exploring the empty voids of space looks easy in most games, but IXION proves that it's anything but a simple adventure. As the administrator of the Tiqqun space station, you'll have to put in a lot of work to not only keep your home in the stars safe but also ensure humanity's survival.

IXION combines city-building games with survival and exploration elements, culminating in a challenging simulation game that will show you whether you can survive the most difficult parts of your space-faring journey. Don't expect a walk in the stars, so to speak.

Check prices on Humble.

Best space games: A fleet of ships soaring through the depths of space in Homeworld.

Homeworld Remastered Collection

Homeworld is the sort of game that gets inside your head and just stays there. It originally came out 15 years ago, eventually spawning an expansion, an excellent sequel, and, most recently, the Homeworld Remastered Collection. It's a series that remains unsurpassed. It's also one of those rare strategy games that has a great story, both tragic and hopeful, filled to the brim with tension. It's a voyage of discovery, of learning about the past and desperately struggling to create a future. It's beautiful and a bit sad.

Thanks to Gearbox's Homeworld Remastered Collection, these classic PC games are even more beautiful. Now, the game looks like it does in our memories, even those clouded by nostalgia, with its beautifully detailed ships and its gargantuan space backdrops. And, thanks to its minimalist UI, none of that beauty is obscured.

Watching the game in action is like viewing an epic ballet. Tiny ships fly in formation in all directions; massive, heavily armed capital ships float around the vast mother ship; diligent resource gatherers work away to fuel a massive undertaking. Even the biggest vessels are dwarfed by the size of the 3D maps, and when the camera is zoomed out, they look alone and vulnerable. Which is exactly what they are.

Check prices on Fanatical.

Best space games: A forest in a rock formation that looks like an angler fish in The Outer Wilds.

Outer Wilds

Not to be confused with The Outer Worlds - another awesome space game from 2019 that we'll talk more about in a minute - Outer Wilds casts you as an astronaut anthropologist out in the wilds of space, exploring ruins across your solar system. Your goal is to learn as much about the mysterious alien race, the Nomai, as possible, but it's pretty much up to you how that mystery unravels.

There are several distinct planets to explore and a 20-minute time loop that bookends your adventures neatly, so for each run, you'll aim to discover a little more about the world before your progress partially resets. Soulful and packed with mystery, Outer Wilds goes down a treat whether you gobble it all up in one sitting or treat each 20-minute time loop as a fresh bite.

Check prices on Steam.

Best space games: a view of Saturn from a red-dyed planet in The Outer Worlds

The Outer Worlds

Hey, we just mentioned The Outer Worlds, and now here it is. Obsidian's wacky, satirical space RPG takes you, a freshly defrosted colonial, on an adventure across the cosmos as you seek to de-ice the rest of your compadres. A sort of post-post-capitalist soiree where mega-ultra-giga-corps are in charge of the colony itself, The Outer Worlds eschews the zaniness of Bethesda's Fallout series.

In our original The Outer Worlds review written by Dustin Bailey, we had some mixed thoughts on the game, though we noted "some instances of genuine greatness" in there. Nonetheless, The Outer Worlds remains a firm favorite of ours, and with The Outer Worlds 2 release date on the way, now's the perfect time to dive in.

Check prices on Humble.

Best space games: Light shining out from behind a planet as a spaceship approaches in Elite Dangerous.

Elite Dangerous

30 years since it first graced the BBC Micro, the Elite series returns in the form of Elite Dangerous. It was around for a while in alpha and beta forms, enough time to be written about thousands of times and played by countless pirates, bounty hunters, traders, and explorers. So we already knew it was going to be a bit impressive.

Our playground is a whole galaxy. Not just any galaxy, either, but the Milky Way is recreated here to a terrifying scale. As Steve Hogarty said in our Elite Dangerous review, "[the game] is a giant spacey sandbox. The game's playing area encompasses the entirety of our galaxy, every star and planet and nebula and moon that we know about, plus billions of procedurally generated ones on top." It's populated with black holes, gargantuan suns, space anomalies, and spaceships that flit around like tiny specks of dust on an inconceivably big table.

The base game is a fantastic space sim, but it's thanks to its vibrant modding community, players are improving it with things like chatting ship AIs that react to voice commands. And if you're lucky enough to have an Oculus Rift, then you're in for a treat, to the point where your ship spins out of control and you dive headfirst into a sick bag. If you want to know mire about what we think of the game, read our Elite Dangerous review. If you want it, our Elite Dangerous system requirements page 

Check prices on Humble.

Best space games: Aliens Dark Descent. Image shows marines blasting away in a corridor.

Aliens: Dark Descent

The world of gritty space-based sci-fi adventures would not be the same if it weren't for the Alien franchise. While there have been many videogame adaptations over the years, those that come most quickly to the minds of most fans are likely to be survival horror games. Aliens: Dark Descent distinguishes itself by putting you in control of five marines in a real-time tactical game.

You can probably guess the storyline (you're trapped on a ship in space and there are Xenomorphs aboard), but the atmosphere and the unique approach to battle help keep this experience fresh. You can develop each of your marines individually, with the option to give them unique classes and abilities to best suit your strategies. To add to the tension, if they die, that's it - this game has permadeath, which means you'll probably end up getting quite emotional. Meanwhile, the twists and turns of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation's schemes mean that you may not actually see where it's all headed.

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Best space games: Space detritus among the clouds, with spacecraft flying around in Endless Space 2.

Endless Space 2

The story, a 4X designer would probably say, is something that emerges naturally from the interplay of systems in a strategy game - the clash of borders, an unplanned war. Amplitude Studios doesn't think that's much of an excuse. They've stuffed Endless Space 2 with as much science fiction as it can contain - and given that it's got whole galaxies to fill, that's plenty.

Here, you'll meet living crystals, tiny dragons, recycled war machines, and millions of clones of a bloke named Horatio. It's a universe teeming with offbeat ideas to enjoy and then enslave if you're that sort of explorer. If not, you can play as numerous sentient trees and spread olive branches throughout known space.

There's less left to the imagination than in conventional grand strategy - scraps are resolved in a beautiful 3D battle engine that sees your elaborate ships drift together in the void in a dramatic, interplanetary ballet. It's like Football Manager, but with chrome, faster-than-light monoliths. Isn't that what Sega's catalog has been missing until now? To some up, as Robert Zak said in our Endless Space 2 review, "the Endless universe of Amplitude Studios' imagining is a good one, brimming with evocative storytelling, wonderful design of races and creatures, and an adept understanding of the 4X genre."

Check prices on Humble.

Best space games: a human emissary speaking to a Sakkras wiseman in Masters of Orion.

Master of Orion series

Fans have been arguing since last century over which of the Master of Orion (MOO) games is the better of the series, and they only seem to agree that the third most definitely isn't it, which makes the widely available double pack featuring the first two games something of an essential and stress-free purchase.

Released in 1993, Master of Orion took the concepts of Sid Meier's classic turn-based Civilization and applied them across a galaxy of planets rather than just one so that instead of various flavors of human settlers and terrestrial biomes, players were given a wide range of planets types and races to control and conquer, such as the Silicoids; able to thrive in the most hostile of environments, albeit at a glacial reproductive rate.

While the driving force behind the MOO series and the best strategy games since has been technological advancement and colonialism, this was the first game of its type to really nail diplomacy and offer a route to victory in which some measure of galactic peace could be achieved. The sequel went even further, with customizable races and a political victory that required you to be elected as the Supreme Leader of the galaxy.

What is undeniable is that the first two MOO games are important historical references, as seminal an influence on turn-based space conquest as the first two Doom games were in establishing and defining the FPS. Unlike Doom, however, MOO has cast such a long monolith-shaped shadow over the entire space game genre that many would argue that the Orion games have yet to be eclipsed.

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Best space games: A character in futuristic clothes looking at the sun setting on an alien planet in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition

For Mass Effect newcomers, admittedly, there's not much fizzing and whooshing of spaceships to be enjoyed in the trilogy, but it's still a planet-hopping, alien-seducing space adventure and one of the best sci-fi RPG games you're likely to play.

Mass Effect boasts a strong story and set of characters, and, in spite of a complete lack of direct spaceship control, you're in command of a functioning ship with the ability to explore the galaxy.

Parallels have been drawn - not least by BioWare themselves - between the Mass Effect trilogy and the classic exploration series Starflight, which was notable in the late 1980s for being one of the very first space exploration games and is notable today for not having been better in that regard since. In terms of storyline, with all that ancient technology end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it gubbins, Mass Effect's storyline is remarkably close to Starflight's. Indeed, Starflight could almost be seen as the '70s original to Mass Effect's BSG-style gritty reimagining, only without the risible Galactica 80 spin-off series to besmirch its reputation.

Check prices on Epic.

Best space games - Schematics of a ship in space in FTL Faster Than Light.

FTL: Faster Than Light

Space is awful and will probably kill you: that's the lesson FTL attempts to impart to brave spacefarers. This permadeath ship management game is, on the surface, a simple race to deliver information to the hands of your allies, but you're being chased. With every diversion explored, the enemy fleet gets closer and closer, and even if you do stay ahead of them, random death lurks around every corner.

Random violent encounters, shopping sprees, new worlds and races, unlockable ships and configurations, loads and loads of weird and wonderful weapons and tools - there's so much in FTL that every game has the potential to be dramatically different. One could see you managing a tough vessel that employs ion cannons to disable enemy systems and drones to pepper them with lasers. Another might inspire you to use mind control to defeat your enemies or teleporters to fill their ships with your crew.

So much can go wrong. Sometimes, it's your fault, like when you mess up a fight and end up rapidly attempting to patch up hull breaches and put out fires. But sometimes luck just isn't on your side, like when you agree to help a space station deal with a plague and one of your crew gets sick. But every failed attempt is a complete story full of adventures and misadventures, and a great excuse to make another valiant attempt.

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Best space games: Ships fighting in the depths of space in Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

A game that successfully manages to combine the very best of 3D real-time strategy, albeit without a proper single-player campaign, with the kind of empire-building offered only by the very top 4X games.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is played across a user-defined network of stars. Players begin forging an empire around the gravity wells of planets with shipyards, research outposts, extractors, and defense systems, then assemble fleets combining frigates, corvettes, cruisers, and capital ships to map and eventually conquer neighboring systems.

In earlier versions of Sins of a Solar Empire, conquest was largely achieved in the time-honored RTS fashion of dragging a huge box around every single damn ship you owned and directing them towards the enemy systems to allow the sheer force of numbers to win the day. However, with the introduction of diplomatic victories in a previous expansion and research and occupation victories as part of 2012's Rebellion standalone - not to mention new Death Star-like titan ships as a much-needed counter to the ultra-defensive starbase structures - the stalemates that would often cause games to peter out can be pursued as potentially winning strategies. And let's not forget about the mods that let you play out your Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica fantasies.

Check prices on Fanatical.

Best space games: an alien flying a spaceship through an asteroid field in X4 Foundations.

X4: Foundations

If you're after a realistically simulated universe filled with spaceships, stations, and plenty of trade, X4: Foundations has everything you need. X4 gives players the opportunity to live out their space fantasies by providing a variety of game starts, each with its own set of variables to make each save completely different.

Despite launching back in 2018, Egosoft, the developer behind X4, has continued to support the game throughout the years with huge updates. Not only did we see the launch of the 6.0 update, which upgraded the game engine, but there was also a push for the modding scene as the community received Blender Modding Tools for the first time.

Whether you're playing as a space pirate who attacks rogue ships with little regard for human life or a business person looking to make a fortune, X4 is designed to let you shape the universe in the way you want it. Even if you've spent thousands of hours trying to solidify your station, just know that all it takes is one aggressive batch of fighters to stop you in your tracks. If you ever wanted more from Starfield's space combat, consider picking up X4: Foundations to experience space from a new perspective.

Check prices on Steam.

Helldivers 2

Helldivers 2 is the ultimate space game, taking players on a journey throughout the galaxy to get rid of the rising alien threat spreading across the universe. In this third-person shooter, teams of up to four players gather in groups to take on missions where they must eliminate specific targets. Equipped with an arsenal of bombast weapons, you must eliminate the threat, complete your objectives, and escape the planet without experiencing any casualties.

What makes Helldivers 2 special is the sheer amount of chaos that is caused on the battlefield. Whether it's giant bugs, waves of robotic creatures, or the strange Illuminate faction that was added to the game in December 2024, there's so much variety in every mission. Pair all this action with friendly fire, and you've got yourself a stage set for mayhem as teammates fight to stay alive from incoming stratagems.

Check prices on Humble.

A bunch of characters standing together in Void Crew gameplay

Void Crew

The camaraderie between the Star Trek crew is what makes the franchise so iconic and beloved, so what if you and your friends could recreate that magic? Well, Void Crew does a great job at that, allowing you and your squad to man a spaceship, journey across the galaxy, and salvage parts, all while reclaiming humanity's territory.

A solid crew will have no trouble taking roles and perfecting their jobs, but it's also a fun time when things go awry. However, if you manage to set yourself up for victory, you'll quickly find valuable resources to improve your space-faring ship in no time, all while fighting off dangerous foes, too.

Check prices on Humble.

Issac Clarke floating in his signature outfit in a low-gravity section of Dead Space remake

Dead Space (2023)

Many games showcase the vastness of the universe and space with a sense of freedom, but in Dead Space, the threat of alien life is a horror that humans can't begin to comprehend. In this remake of the original game, you play as Issac Clarke, an engineer who is unfortunate enough to be on a ship overrun with vicious aliens called Necromorphs that, well, aren't exactly friendly.

Similar to horror games like Resident Evil, Dead Space forces you to enter tight hallways, with the scattering of monsters beyond your imagination scurrying through the vents of this desolate ship. Fortunately, you are armed with some awesome sci-fi weapons that make dealing with the threat easier, but don't expect it to be a walk in the out-of-this-world park.

As we said in our Dead Space remake review, "[the game] is a gloriously grotesque glow-up that embraces the original horror game's robust formula."

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A ship flying to cuboid planet in Cubic Odyssey gameplay

Cubic Odyssey

If Minecraft and No Man's Sky had a baby, chances are that it'll resemble Cubic Odyssey. Currently in early access on Steam, you'll mine resources, craft tools and weapons, and build vehicles to explore a large galaxy where each planet offers bustling life and dangers, which will give you plenty of reason to visit each world.

Developed for both solo players and those with friends alike, it's a great time for people who love the idea of exploring an endless universe and want to reach for the stars. But beware, the Red Darkness is a galactic-scale infection that is rearing its ugly head, and you'll have to take it on before it consumes all of the planets.

Check prices on Epic.

Best space games: A Destiny 2 guardian fighting the robotic Vex

Destiny 2

For all of its peaks and troughs over the past decade, Destiny 2 has remained a firm favorite of ours. Between Bungie's slick gunplay, gorgeous recreation of the solar system, and immersive storytelling, D2 has a lot going for it.

The last time we went hands on for Review, Cheri Faulkner had nothing but praise for the space shooter. In her 10/10 Destiny 2 The Final Shape review, she says that it "ties up a decade's worth of story, conflict, and relationships in the most engaging and emotionally satisfying way possible. Bungie's best-in-class narrative team has outdone itself, the combat and gunplay sit at the pinnacle of the FPS genre, and I've ultimately never played anything like it."

While the latest xpac, The Edge of Fate, fails to hit the highs of its predecessor, it's perhaps ironically the perfect time to get involved. Bungie has dramatically improved the new player (new Light) experience, and you can enjoy a refreshed narrative that doesn't have a decade of buildup to plough through.

Play for free on Steam.

For more space games, the best Star Wars games and strategy games have you covered with more incredible experiences worth sinking hours into. In addition, check out the upcoming PC games of 2025 to see what space games might be in store in the future.