I have never been more proud of a studio than Hello Games. Not taking the loot and running but instead doubling down and surpassing your vision is some next level sheeit
@@michaelwesten4624 which console port? I bought it on PS4 and it always both played fine and served the purpose I needed it to. It was a game I seldomly played but when I did it was in two to three weeks chunks. Every time I got the urge to go back, the game had changed entirely. They never stopped trying to make it better and I appreciate their efforts. It's unfortunate your time spent wasn't as enjoyable
@@michaelwesten4624 Michael, I'm getting serious "I shit my diaper and nobody will change me" vibes from you. Since that's the case, I've gotta ask: Did you shit your diaper?
That would be great. But the triology is not designed to enable building too much. I was surprised to see it on this list. Maybe Andromeda has some building, but overall they are all pretty cinematic, linear and closed, which are essential for their charms. (Personal stats: 108 hrs in ME LE, 66 hrs ME Andromeda.)
You missed out on The X-Games. X4 is a huge space sandbox where you can build a huge empire or just pirate along, fight big wars, conquer whole systems, etc.
Seriously, I put thousands of hours into X3 and X4 combined, the choice of ships, number of races, things to build, etc, there's so much you can do it's ridiculous.
Fully agree!! I am playing the X series from the very first X-Beyond The Frontier in 1999. That's 25 years of playing this series. And if the theme of this video is Explore and Build space games, then this series really belong in here. I have no idea how he could missed that, and are seriously disappointed. With the latest updates, this series is really huge, and the developer is still expanding and improving. For me the X series, and thus X4 Foundations is the real successor to one of the first space games I played - Elite on the BBC-B computer somewhere in 1984.
I really like Space Engineers. You can build soo many different things in that game. But its not a full game yet IMO. Very fun to play for people who enjoy building things
@@Velta_Nox I have that game and it looks awesome. I'm sooo weird cause I buy games then they sit there. I got Witcher and played it for like 20 mins and then start playing SE or Jump in FruityLoops. Lately I been toying with Stable Diffusion. Empyrion looks sick though. Its a lot more survival in that game. It is dangerous outside.
No Mans Sky gets maximum credit for 8 years of completely free updates. Pay once and done. That deserves a helluva lot of credit on it's own. Now, some titles you missed: Space Engineers - If you want more freedom that Starfield gives you to build a ship, but also bases and land vehicles, this is the game you want. Empyrion - Similar to Space Engineers but a little less complicated. Icarus - You spend your time on a a planet, but you live on a space station. You go down to complete mission, level up and gather resources, then go back to station and take a new mission. Industries of Titan: You run a corporation that is trying to establish outposts on Jupiter's Moon, Titan. You get space ships delivering supplies, try to find rare alien artifacts. It's a strategy building game. Starpoint Gemini - There are several Gemini games, but the most recent are similar to Everspace, and are great space combat games. Space Crew - My favorite on this list. It's very Star Trek like, without being Star Trek at all. You manage a crew on a ship, you have to move your people around to various tasks. If you have to attack, you need someone on guns, but maybe you have to not have someone at navigation. Or you need to man the guns, so you have to take someone away from Medical. Managing the ship crew and loadout for each mission it a big part of the game. Maybe you're retrieving a malfunctioning satellite, or maybe you have to destroy some pirate looting space lanes. It's not about high end graphics or cinematics, and that's good because the gameplay is what makes this game great.
The redemption arc of No Man's Sky is something truly remarkable. For anyone reading this, if you can I urge you to buy the game and try it. I have sunk hundreds of hours into the game and it still has something new to offer. It has an incredibly helpful and thriving community to get guidance when stuck on things as well.
@@XentorAntarix There's a really good and thorough video that goes into the very likely reasons for why it had such a shitty and scammy start, look for "The Engoodening of No Man's Sky" from Internet Historian. For a _very_ brief summary - a possibly socially awkward and somewhat overenthusiastic/too optimistic developer, a very pushy publisher that turns "I want to put this into my game" into "This game will have all of this at release, promise!", game journalists that are used to dealing with not-socially-awkward-and-not-bad-at-explaining-themselves devs and PR people. The video I suggested goes into more detail and provides some good evidence. Also, if they _were_ scammers, why would they have put pretty much a whole year into fixing the terrible release into something decent at zero cost for everyone who had bought the game already, and why would they still be throwing out major updates _for free?_
There is nothing as satisfying in gaming as that first time you manage to successfully land softy on the surface of The Mun in "Kerbal Space Program". Also. There is nothing quite as frustrating as then realising that you didn't put a ladder on the side of your spaceship so your little green Kerbals can't get back in the rocket to go home again.
I can tell you something more frustrating.... sending them to Mun, getting them back, and as you reenter... you see that you forgot to either, put a damn parachute... or you messed up with the sections and the engine is tied to the parachute so it's destroyed in the reenter.... xD
After seeing the tragic demise ~5 years ago of flat earther Mad Mike Hughes when he forgot to check the staging of the parachute on his home made rocket, the one thing I _never ever_ get wrong on my KSP rockets is the parachutes.
Just completed my mega orbital shipyard station that builds ships on-site with extraplanetary launchpads+simple construction mod. It has a bunch of ferry vessels to bring resources and crew between other stations and ground bases and enough life support to sustain a permanent crew for 2+ years at a time without resupply. There is NO other video game that will let me do this… let alone with realistic physics.
X4: Foundations Definitely worth an honourable mention. And R.I.P. "Fractured Space", the game which had the best soundscape or feeling of being in space.
@@celestialfleaso much for that "explore and build"... Part of this is fault of Egosoft, we the players make most o the marketing for the game, because they don't invest i publicity...
@@efxnews4776 My channel is proof they invest a lot of energy in content creators. which is what'll make them the most money, not mass advertising to people who may or may not even care. Though granted they don't have the same budget as AAA studios, that's obviously going to restrict them in terms of what marketing options they have. That said, a large company/channel like gameranx has no excuse not to know about a game as popular with fans as the X series.
@@efxnews4776 They market it - but you've got to be careful marketing a game like X4. It's a very niche game. If they spam out advertisements to the general gaming population, a ton of people will buy the game that won't have anything like enough time to spend on it, and the Steam review will nosedive.
@@runnergo1398 use the ship log to guide you towards unexplored parts and if you're completely stuck - feel free to google for solution, the ending is definitely worth reaching
Prey 2017 is gonna give you more than enough space feel, especially from a technical view of how a space station works like and how floating in space with just a booster backpack would be like.
I think you guys missed the "to explore and build" on the title... Dude left out X4 foundations wich is literally a 4x space empire bulding in first person, you can pilot space ships from fighters to massive capital ships, control fleets, build and control ships, conquer sectors, build space stations, mine, trade, fight all in a fully simulated galaxy. And you guys are expecting Prey on this list? Wich one by the way? The original Pre even had space vehicles...
Good to see Chorus get some love. A great AA space fighter with interesting combat. Story wanders into space magic territory but not too corny and had good emotional beats.
Empyrion - Galactic Survival, We space nerds should check this game out as well. Micro level base and ship building, huge universe to explore, factions, land and space POI exploration, crafting, mods, and multi-player. EGS is a lot of fun too.
@@Spootington buddy, there was no other game who did planetary exploration at that point like Mass Effect did, you can literally trace this trend among space sims of having planetary exploration straight to the Mass Effect, so yeah, maybe the exploration in Mass Effect, is weak now, but not when was launched...
Just wanted to give further kudos to No Man's Sky, which absolutely deserves the #1 spot. I am a pre-ordered, Day 1 player who was definitely very disappointed upon release. But over the last 8 years, Hello Games has stepped up beyond what most game companies could even hope to provide, (especially the bigger ones). They have released massive, literal entire game-changing updates for FREE, consistently adding new content that pleases all types of players. Whether you're primarily a base-builder...an explorer...a unique loot hound...a ship collector...an angsty, combat-focused wildling who wants to go around killing everything...there is something that is going to be interesting to you in NMS. It's the kind of game you can do a deep dive for a few days, a week, a month, whatever...then leave and come back 6 months later and a whole new list of things is there to do. All devs should look to these guys as an example. Outer Wilds also gets a huge thumbs up, from me. Very different than other space-based games and difficult in a way that doesn't seem to want to punish you. Pure enjoyment, playing through this title.
I didn't hate my time with NMS, it had some good moments. But I always describe it to others as "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle". The game relies way too much on procedural generation and does a poor job at keeping things fresh and interesting. After having explored each archetype of planet, having done one or two derelict freighters, killed a couple sentinel waves in space and on the ground, done any other kind of hostile encounter once or twice you truly have seen all there is to each respective content snipplet. Those settlements are incredibly unspectacular either, basically just a glorified minigame where none of your binary choices actually matter. The game's overall design also hinders itself. There being not one, two, five, ten but 255 or so huge-as-f*ck galaxies renders the entire multiplayer nonexistent outside of >maybe< finding people in that Nexus social hub to >hopefully< do ultimately repetitive and boringly easy missions where everyone may still feel very alone because there is no challenging difficulty involved and because the game's netcode is absolute trash and everyone is lagging and desynching heavily more often than not.
I played it day 1 as well. Just played it last night for a bit. The amount of updates Hello Games has put out is amazing. Though day 1, I was so disappointed with it. Glad it exceeded what I wanted from release.
Absolutely not on No Man's Sky. The fact that Hello finally gave people the game they promised is irrelevant. Millions of people never went back after day 1. The game was awful, yet they paid, met with crushing disappointment, and that was their only experience of the game. Games must be up to scratch from day 1 - minor bugs acceptable, entire promised systems missing? Hell no. Hello and liar Murray should NEVER get to redeem their reputation.
@@Martial-MatIt's gonna be interesting to see how the launch of "Light no Fire" will go. Many people seem to have forgiven them and strongly believe in that "redemption arc" of NMS. They better don't f*ck up Light no Fire in a similar fashion or people will pull out their pitchforks.
@@Martial-Mat Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion. As far as MY money spent, I'm satisfied. It sucks that you're not, but I don't believe you can speak for many others. Every single person i knew who pre-ordered or bought within the first year was definitely disappointed...pissed off, even...but they all came back eventually and enjoyed playing, to some extent. If your experience isn't similar with those you know, that's valid for you & them. But I hope you save some of that same ire for every other game that comes out in an unfinished state, which is a lot of them.
I ❤ Astroneer! Seriously, it's like a cozy version of No Man's Sky. I still pull it up once in awhile to see what else they've put into the game since the last time. The controls take some getting used to if you're on a controller but it's a really nice game to boot up when you're listening to podcasts and just vibe to.
The final straw for me with Starfield as a collector player was when I saw that you could have a maximum of 6 mannequins in your base.. Is 6 really the extent of the engine??? Also the fact that NPCs walking close to a table would make the items on the table fly across the room. I spent so long setting up my base only for one NPC walking across the room making it look like a hurricane aftermath
It's because they didn't used Fallout 4's engine but 76's it's one of the trash they pulled to stabilize the Game online. Same with some mechanics like looting and storage. I really wanted to love that game but we'll Todd doesn't improve at all one step for 700 back...
Weird I have a bunch of mannequins in my ships and outposts. Also you don’t need to drop the stuff to decorate anymore you can decorate using the build menu
Give 'Pulsar: The Lost Colony' a look. It's one of the best co-op space games I've ever played. It's you and 4 friends running your own space ship in a fully explorable galaxy. You can do missions for different factions all while searching for a missing civilization. Highly recommend it.
So sorry to ask but what is the difference between X4 and Elite Dangerous? Seems like they share the same potential roles like farming mining hauling fighting etc
Seriously how the hell does a game like X4 NOT make it onto the list? It's LITERALLY the whole point of the game with HUGE DLCs that add hundreds of hours of new content...come on guys!!
Stellaris has a mod called "Gigastructural Engineering & More" in the workshop, and it's amazing! I highly recommend this mod if you've ever wanted to be able to build something that spanned an entire solar system. I'm not surprised that I have most of these, but I hadn't heard of Universim or Astroneer. They've been added to my cart!
so no X4: Foundations? I love this channel but how can you miss a huge game like that.....its a huge sandbox that lets you explore and create your own empire
@@ValentinaDiNapoli-bh7ds Comparing NMS to X4 is like comparing a car to an AC unit. Please stop comparing 2 completely different things and ideas, it actually works AGAINST the claim you're making (which was without a point as it was, anyway).
@gameranx i love your contet but you miss some space games. The Number 1 game for this list need to be X games like the last X4 from Egosoft. That is the best of the best solo space game. And you miss some other games like Star Trek online, Star Conflict and Space Engineers and some other games. But im a Star Citizen man :D
X4 Foundation is a good choice that wasn't on the list, it is probably one of the most deeper space sims other than eve online except this is single player with the feature to send trading ships from your game into other people games. Sunk over 500 hours into it and counting.
Mass Effect Legendary is probably my favorite game series of all time, closely followed by Fallout 4 and the Horizon Series. And I gotta say, Starfield is up there too. Good call dubbing it a comfort food Bethesda game, because I can see loading it on my Steamdeck someday and hacking around in Starfield when I’m out on vacation, the way I do now with Fallout 4.
No mention of X4 Foundations or Space Engineers, should have dropped Starfield from this list for one of them. Latest reports indicate there is no studio or developers working on KSP2 while they are still selling it on Steam. AVOID KSP2.
I think I wrote a short funny review back in the day saying "KSP: When math makes you sweat" or something. Because one slightly "off" construction or miscalculation and you would maybe get far but still never anywhere close to where you wanted to. The loss of green minion-likes life was brutal. Imagine how people in RL who build actual space rockets and send humans up must feel. KSP is realistic in a weirdly funny way.
I'm so happy that NMS made #1 here. I love a lot of these games but I will always come back to NMS. It's been an absolute adventure and such a big impact on my life since I accidentally found it years ago, only because I was bored and figured I'd give it a shot. WOW!
Starfield is the type of game you either hate or it takes your life. I wanted to uninstall it after 2 hours, 20 hours later I'm finishing a SIDE MISSION . Wild game.
I'm personally in team "hate it". I have tried 3 separate times to get into it, and I just can't. The stale dialogue, the non-existent free roam exploration, the absurd amount of loading screens, etc. etc. All of this is entirely involuntary, I'd love to love this game (especially because I preordered the deluxe edition, which I never do normally). But for me, it's genuinely one of the most unenjoyable games I've ever played.
I'd love to add 2 of my all time favorite space games. First is Alien Legacy from the 90s. Great space game centered around a mystery. The second is Starflight from the 80s. I really wish a studio would remake these today. Outstanding games.
No Man’s Sky has TWO HUGE things that keep me from enjoying it. 1. The Devs refuse to give us a fully functioning, zero limitations, and full control of Ship Building. I want them to go through every S-Tier Game that has a Open Sandbox/Free Building whether it’s a Space Game or not and take the best parts from each one and use it as inspiration to give us the best building experience possible. 2. They need to create a Modding API like Bethesda that way we can get better MODS, Script Extenders, and ETC so we can actually add stuff to Games. Whole modding NMS isn’t bad by any means there’s limitations like adding ships just overwrites vanilla ones. *Bonus* This is to add on top of issue #1. In addition to a real ship building feature because they promised years ago to add, yet never did (The current ship building feature is not what we asked for) is I want: - Ability to Build a Space Station in anywhere in space we’d like. - the ship size we should be allowed to build, manage, and fly should be as big as the Capital Ships.
@@arturpaivadsDamn dude, i have 300 hours in The Outer Worlds and dont remember having to “explore AND build” like the title of the list in the video suggests, its just an RPG where you have minimal exploration in the Borderlands-esque areas and hub zones, its more centered around the storytelling and rpg aspects. Of course Starfield will qualify because you can build settlements and build ships. Reading comprehension is absolutely lost on you dude
Yeah, no X, SE or Empyrion on a list about explore and build in space is ... unfinished imho. Nonetheless all games on the list are good and deserve a mention
Shout out for including FTL! It was originally created for the PC, but the port to iPad has made it even better - it’s like the iPad was built for FTL (and not vice versa!). I’ve been playing it on and off for the past decade (!!), and it’s still as thrilling and engaging as it has been when I first started playing it. Highly recommended -and I’m an Elden Ring / Baldur’s Gate / Elite Dangerous player..
Empyrion Galactic Survival is a great game has base building ship building and can explore thousands of planets with seemless space to ground transition lots of bases, trading, and mining. Really fun game.
Endless Space 2 is one of my favorite 4x games. All the different races play uniquely different from each other and the small to big interactions in the game really shape how each playthrough feels.
I couldn't get into Elite Dangerous, but not sure why. Maybe a bit more handholding in the beginning would have helped. I was like in these newbie systems but accidently went outside of them and got cut off from things I was planning to do there. Next I was trying to figure out where to start anew, but like I felt overwhelmed by the many solar systems and all these political overlays and such. iI flew around a bit, made a little bit of money, tried s few different methods of money making, but none of them "clicked" with me. i upgraded to one or two slightly better ships but still felt lost in a sense. The way you could (or rather not) modify your ship also felt sort of needlessly restrictive. Not sure if it had to do with the game being F2P and heavy on mulitplayer maybe deliberately putting a strong leash on you? I actually played one or some of the original Elite games back in the day but don't remember anymore how they worked (except for those iconic manual space station docking procedures), so maybe the issue was me?
You totally missed "Space Engineers" and "Empyrion Galactic Survival" But there are also some games I've never heard of before, and I'll have a look at them.
All of the mass effect games are great, the first 3 are connected to your choices, the 4 takes place in another universe, now I know most people don't like the 4th one, but I love the story, the multiplayer is stupid though
i remember when everyone lost their shit when people sighted the first thargoids in Elite. you have to include space engineers and the X series, solid games. also honorable mention to Underspace and Strike Suit Zero.
I have a recommendation, Empyrion: Galactic Survival I have been playing it for years. Think of a Sci-Fi survival game mixed with Minecraft where all ships and bases are built block by block.
This is the biggest miss I have seen Gameranx pull in awhile, both the X series and Space Engineers left off a list of "explore and build in space?" Or Empyrion? Avorion?
@@vexile1239 most likely they don't know... Empyrion will be free this week on Epic, though, maybe folks can start to appreciate the game the game more.
for those who liked surviving mars, here's something to look forward to: Alien Horizon. It is an alpha from a solo dev (adjust your graphics expectations a solo dev, not a fully fledged studio with Paradox money). Alpha, so still incomplete but all the fundamentals are all there. And it is free so if you love colony sim, I think it is worth a couple of hours to try it out.
star citizen is completely glossed over some how, imma take yall seriously now, maybe i missed the part where you meant fully released still star cit has done more then other games that have fully released. so you could add that game with a disclaimer unless im missing something comepletely, but star citizen really offers a lot merc, bounty, salvage, mining, investigation, and more yes its buggier than anything that exists but still the level of detail is worth a mention. P.S. first non troll post , love your work
Edit: never mind me, E:D was actually included - it's just missing from the chapter list. Teaches me to jump from chapter to chapter 😂 Originally posted: Elite: Dangerous deserved to be on this list. The Elite franchise is the daddy of all space sims. Does not have any building, but, then again, neither did Chorvs.
i wanted to like E::D, but it's so frustrating to play. 80% of the time you're just waiting for something to happen. flying gets boring very quickly. i have like 750 hours since the release of Horizon (Cobra Mk IV :)) and haven't managed basically nothing. a couple of easy engineers, stufff like that. never even saw a thargoid.
@@Patterner I enjoyed it. I spent most of my time outside the Bubble. Traveled to the center of the galaxy, went to the green nebula, and a bunch of random planets in the void. Rarely did anything besides explore, survey and land on planets
Can absolutely vouch for Hardspace Shipbreaker. It's a truly addictive dad game with a really compelling narrative. The career mode can be done in time-limited "shifts", but I like to disable both the time limit and the oxygen drain so I can just salvage the hours away.
Weirdly, I thought you'd have mentioned Space Engineers here also. It's surprisingly still getting updates and is on console and PC. Otherwise, damn good list! 🤙
Mass Effect Legendary Edition is a gem and must have collection. Hard to replicate such a great and impactful trilogy. Man I miss those types of games.
cosmoteer, space engineers, and empyrion galactic survival deserve some recognition in my opinion they are some of the best space ship/space games available check them out
Empyrion Galactic Survival needs to be slapped for releasing a DLC without fixing their janky game though lol. The combat needs a massive overhaul and NPC pathing, animations, sound, models, etc.
@@johnrindal7350 me too, I bought it in August 2016 and played it for years before getting irritated with the jank. It's an hidden treasure that just needs a budget and some good programmers
@@Christfollower89both of you are right... Empyreon needs an overall, i wouldn't even say the graphics, but models, i also think that the blocks need to be reworked, it should have more sizes, you should also able to tweak the grid for when you want to build different things... EGS needs better models, better UI, better animations...
"Oxygen not included" is a fun space game. I have a soft spot for "endless sky" too. It's not finished and will probably not be for years, but for a free, open source, community built game... that's fine. There's plenty to do in it.
i get why they didnt include it. im a citizen player myself and i love it with all of my heart. but its not at a point where they could recommend it without facing issues. but when its done... its gonna be amazing man.
Star Control 1 had the best sound track. Star Control origins is worth a look. I liked it. Apparent urqa or something is a fan based project that is being worked on
@@DocPlaysBad nah nah, hardcore mode is training and studying until someone let's you go to space. The self built rocket is easy mode. Starting income in the market system in game is like. Crazy headstart status.
you forgot the empty planets as well, for the most part, if you don't count the same dungeon pasted on every planet or multiple times on the same one. I gave it a shot because of skyrim but even skyrim is better.
Stardeus needs to be in a part 2. It's made by a duo dev team and it's basically Rimworld in space. You can explore space, send scouting expeditions to planets, loot and salvage derelict spaceships (or add them to your own) and build your own ship or space station complete with colonists and a team of robots. Been out for a couple of years and not enough people know about it. Seriously addictive. Also worth adding Genesis Alpha One: "As the Captain of a Genesis starship, you journey into uncharted space on the ultimate mission. Build and manage a space vessel, farm resources, deal with terrifying alien infestations, clone creatures and explore a vast, randomly generated universe".
Avorion is an awesome game from a small indie team of German devs. I have spent a couple thousand hours in that game which with both DLCs is still under 40$. You start from scratch with nothing but a tiny little mining drone. Mine for resources to build your ships up. Battle pirates and the evil aliens to reach the center of the galaxy and oust the evil aliens forever. You have 100% freedom in building your ship, but it's voxel grid based so curves are a bit tricky. It also has an extensive economy of stuff to trade to fill your fleet's coffers.
Absolutely love seeing Everspace 2 get a shoutout. I definitely preferred Everspace 1, so if you've only tried 2 give 1 a shake when it's on sale. Both fantastic underappreciated gems.
Surprised you didn't include Space Engineers. Need to explore to discover where the resources are that you will need to mine to create the components you need to build the vehicles you want.
StarField was the biggest disappointment. For how cutting edge the setting is with space and traveling to different planets, the game design was so outdated especially with those loading screens.
I think my thing about that game is just how good the ship builder is. Like why? I can make this awesome ship and then have basically nothing to do with it.
I have never been more proud of a studio than Hello Games. Not taking the loot and running but instead doubling down and surpassing your vision is some next level sheeit
It's still boring as hell though.
They have truly earned their fantastic reputation at this point. They are heroes in my eyes.
why are you proud? of their mediocre game with still terrible ui and still borderline unplayable console port?
@@michaelwesten4624 which console port? I bought it on PS4 and it always both played fine and served the purpose I needed it to. It was a game I seldomly played but when I did it was in two to three weeks chunks. Every time I got the urge to go back, the game had changed entirely. They never stopped trying to make it better and I appreciate their efforts. It's unfortunate your time spent wasn't as enjoyable
@@michaelwesten4624 Michael, I'm getting serious "I shit my diaper and nobody will change me" vibes from you. Since that's the case, I've gotta ask: Did you shit your diaper?
What i really want is another space opera rpg like Mass Effect, that was peak sci-fi
@@DoomsdayMayBeOkay it's the dream just gonna have to keep doing the yearly playthroughs of the original trilogy and Andromeda till then!
I honestly just wanted a followup to Dragon Age Inquisition but they're completely ruining the sequel.
That is precisely what I was dreaming Starfield to be...
The first time I saw a space rpg shooter
That would be great. But the triology is not designed to enable building too much. I was surprised to see it on this list. Maybe Andromeda has some building, but overall they are all pretty cinematic, linear and closed, which are essential for their charms. (Personal stats: 108 hrs in ME LE, 66 hrs ME Andromeda.)
You missed out on The X-Games. X4 is a huge space sandbox where you can build a huge empire or just pirate along, fight big wars, conquer whole systems, etc.
Seriously, I put thousands of hours into X3 and X4 combined, the choice of ships, number of races, things to build, etc, there's so much you can do it's ridiculous.
love x4!!
I've been playing since the original X-Beyond The Frontier, it's up there as one of my all time favourite franchises.
i'm probably gonna surpass 1000 hours in x4 soon. played x3 a lot too.
Fully agree!!
I am playing the X series from the very first X-Beyond The Frontier in 1999. That's 25 years of playing this series. And if the theme of this video is Explore and Build space games, then this series really belong in here. I have no idea how he could missed that, and are seriously disappointed. With the latest updates, this series is really huge, and the developer is still expanding and improving. For me the X series, and thus X4 Foundations is the real successor to one of the first space games I played - Elite on the BBC-B computer somewhere in 1984.
I really like Space Engineers. You can build soo many different things in that game. But its not a full game yet IMO. Very fun to play for people who enjoy building things
there was also this cool event where people were building ships in Space Engineers that should have been then salvaged in Hardspace Shipbreaker :)
Very surprised this wasn't in the list. It's definitely more space than Universim.
@@GwenActually I was surprised too. I was sure it would be included. If it was a bet I would have lost money lol
This and also "Empyrion" if you want that similar SE game that focuses on more survival and exploration (even better with "Reforged Eden" mod).
@@Velta_Nox I have that game and it looks awesome. I'm sooo weird cause I buy games then they sit there. I got Witcher and played it for like 20 mins and then start playing SE or Jump in FruityLoops. Lately I been toying with Stable Diffusion. Empyrion looks sick though. Its a lot more survival in that game. It is dangerous outside.
No Mans Sky gets maximum credit for 8 years of completely free updates. Pay once and done. That deserves a helluva lot of credit on it's own.
Now, some titles you missed:
Space Engineers - If you want more freedom that Starfield gives you to build a ship, but also bases and land vehicles, this is the game you want.
Empyrion - Similar to Space Engineers but a little less complicated.
Icarus - You spend your time on a a planet, but you live on a space station. You go down to complete mission, level up and gather resources, then go back to station and take a new mission.
Industries of Titan: You run a corporation that is trying to establish outposts on Jupiter's Moon, Titan. You get space ships delivering supplies, try to find rare alien artifacts. It's a strategy building game.
Starpoint Gemini - There are several Gemini games, but the most recent are similar to Everspace, and are great space combat games.
Space Crew - My favorite on this list. It's very Star Trek like, without being Star Trek at all. You manage a crew on a ship, you have to move your people around to various tasks. If you have to attack, you need someone on guns, but maybe you have to not have someone at navigation. Or you need to man the guns, so you have to take someone away from Medical.
Managing the ship crew and loadout for each mission it a big part of the game. Maybe you're retrieving a malfunctioning satellite, or maybe you have to destroy some pirate looting space lanes. It's not about high end graphics or cinematics, and that's good because the gameplay is what makes this game great.
I was honestly about to complain in the comments about no man's sky not being included, but the I reached #1
I agree, cannot forget about Space Engineers.
why are you proud? of their mediocre game with still terrible ui and still borderline unplayable console port?
@@michaelwesten4624 I've got it on xbox and switch and I love it!! (also why is there a random "?" after the word "proud"?)
No Man's Sky looks like completely new game with newest update. I should try it in VR.
The redemption arc of No Man's Sky is something truly remarkable. For anyone reading this, if you can I urge you to buy the game and try it. I have sunk hundreds of hours into the game and it still has something new to offer. It has an incredibly helpful and thriving community to get guidance when stuck on things as well.
I bought it years ago but still haven’t played it. I need to do that. Thanks!
@@Gigi-fv9ky Give it a try for sure! The intro part is a little slow but once you start jumping planets it gets awesome.
I support no (not even redemtioned) scammers.
@@XentorAntarix There's a really good and thorough video that goes into the very likely reasons for why it had such a shitty and scammy start, look for "The Engoodening of No Man's Sky" from Internet Historian.
For a _very_ brief summary - a possibly socially awkward and somewhat overenthusiastic/too optimistic developer, a very pushy publisher that turns "I want to put this into my game" into "This game will have all of this at release, promise!", game journalists that are used to dealing with not-socially-awkward-and-not-bad-at-explaining-themselves devs and PR people. The video I suggested goes into more detail and provides some good evidence.
Also, if they _were_ scammers, why would they have put pretty much a whole year into fixing the terrible release into something decent at zero cost for everyone who had bought the game already, and why would they still be throwing out major updates _for free?_
@@XentorAntarix well... too bad for you.
There is nothing as satisfying in gaming as that first time you manage to successfully land softy on the surface of The Mun in "Kerbal Space Program".
Also. There is nothing quite as frustrating as then realising that you didn't put a ladder on the side of your spaceship so your little green Kerbals can't get back in the rocket to go home again.
I can tell you something more frustrating.... sending them to Mun, getting them back, and as you reenter... you see that you forgot to either, put a damn parachute... or you messed up with the sections and the engine is tied to the parachute so it's destroyed in the reenter.... xD
After seeing the tragic demise ~5 years ago of flat earther Mad Mike Hughes when he forgot to check the staging of the parachute on his home made rocket, the one thing I _never ever_ get wrong on my KSP rockets is the parachutes.
Omg 😂😂😂
Just completed my mega orbital shipyard station that builds ships on-site with extraplanetary launchpads+simple construction mod.
It has a bunch of ferry vessels to bring resources and crew between other stations and ground bases and enough life support to sustain a permanent crew for 2+ years at a time without resupply.
There is NO other video game that will let me do this… let alone with realistic physics.
I could never figure out how to launch my rocket.
The trick is making the exploration interesting.
So the OPPOSITE of Starfield.
@@dv6342 "wide as an ocean deep as a puddle"
So the opposite of NMS.
So the opposite of E::D.
Completely agree! And maintaining that interest across the time played. I hate feeling like I'm doing chores or I see the pattern too early
X4: Foundations
Definitely worth an honourable mention.
And R.I.P. "Fractured Space", the game which had the best soundscape or feeling of being in space.
worth much more than an honourable mention.
@@celestialfleaso much for that "explore and build"...
Part of this is fault of Egosoft, we the players make most o the marketing for the game, because they don't invest i publicity...
@@efxnews4776 My channel is proof they invest a lot of energy in content creators. which is what'll make them the most money, not mass advertising to people who may or may not even care.
Though granted they don't have the same budget as AAA studios, that's obviously going to restrict them in terms of what marketing options they have.
That said, a large company/channel like gameranx has no excuse not to know about a game as popular with fans as the X series.
@@efxnews4776 They market it - but you've got to be careful marketing a game like X4. It's a very niche game. If they spam out advertisements to the general gaming population, a ton of people will buy the game that won't have anything like enough time to spend on it, and the Steam review will nosedive.
Outer Wilds genuinely is one of the best games I’ve ever played and I’m almost 40. If you’ve never played it I promise you you’ll feel the same
Outer wilds is once in a lifetime experience. we are so lucky to play it. at least me
I love the game, but I got to a point where I got stuck and didn't know what to do next.
@@runnergo1398 use the ship log to guide you towards unexplored parts and if you're completely stuck - feel free to google for solution, the ending is definitely worth reaching
Sadly, I can't stand the graphical style... If there should ever be some kind of mod that changes it, I'll probably play the hell out of it, too...
@@Wolf-ln1ml There are definitely mods for it. Just Google it.
Prey 2017 is gonna give you more than enough space feel, especially from a technical view of how a space station works like and how floating in space with just a booster backpack would be like.
Also dead space and alien isolation
Prey is one of my all time favorite immersion sims.
I didnt believe when he didnt mentioned Prey and Outer Worlds.
I think you guys missed the "to explore and build" on the title...
Dude left out X4 foundations wich is literally a 4x space empire bulding in first person, you can pilot space ships from fighters to massive capital ships, control fleets, build and control ships, conquer sectors, build space stations, mine, trade, fight all in a fully simulated galaxy.
And you guys are expecting Prey on this list?
Wich one by the way? The original Pre even had space vehicles...
@@efxnews4776 well you can not build but you can explore.
Good to see Chorus get some love. A great AA space fighter with interesting combat. Story wanders into space magic territory but not too corny and had good emotional beats.
You should try Everspace 2 if you like Chorvs...
Today I came back to No Man’s sky after two years. After playing I went to youtube and saw this video xD it is a sign that I made a good decision.
Same here, but it's one year for me and I'm loving it, 100+ and I'm still lost 😂
@@Orionn070 do you guys really think it’s worth pushing through? I found it a bit dull when I tried it.
@@willdavis105eh its kinda shit: started it and nothing made me wanna go thru with it all the way so theres that
No, mate, it's a sign your computer is recording your every move and UA-cam used this data against you 😂
@@Shini1984 not this time, because I subscribe this channel :)
Empyrion - Galactic Survival,
We space nerds should check this game out as well. Micro level base and ship building, huge universe to explore, factions, land and space POI exploration, crafting, mods, and multi-player. EGS is a lot of fun too.
I was wondering if anyone would mention this game.
Such a great game that gets missed by a lot of reviews
Best space game I've ever played, eat, sleep, build your own ship, several galaxies to explore and planets.
**sniff** I just wish it would be available on GoG or _some_ other source than Steam (nor Epic)...
Mass Effect forever goated
Legendary tier. No other space game even comes close.
@4whwwta if you're in it for the exploration, Mass Effect falls flat on its arse.
Everything else it does, it does exceptionally well.
@@Spootingtondude, stop talking bs, Mass Effect is the Star Wars of videogames.
There's absolutely no other game likely...
@@efxnews4776 Sorry, but planetary exploration was the weakest element of the series.
And I say this as a fan.
@@Spootington buddy, there was no other game who did planetary exploration at that point like Mass Effect did, you can literally trace this trend among space sims of having planetary exploration straight to the Mass Effect, so yeah, maybe the exploration in Mass Effect, is weak now, but not when was launched...
Just wanted to give further kudos to No Man's Sky, which absolutely deserves the #1 spot.
I am a pre-ordered, Day 1 player who was definitely very disappointed upon release.
But over the last 8 years, Hello Games has stepped up beyond what most game companies could even hope to provide, (especially the bigger ones).
They have released massive, literal entire game-changing updates for FREE, consistently adding new content that pleases all types of players.
Whether you're primarily a base-builder...an explorer...a unique loot hound...a ship collector...an angsty, combat-focused wildling who wants to go around killing everything...there is something that is going to be interesting to you in NMS.
It's the kind of game you can do a deep dive for a few days, a week, a month, whatever...then leave and come back 6 months later and a whole new list of things is there to do.
All devs should look to these guys as an example.
Outer Wilds also gets a huge thumbs up, from me.
Very different than other space-based games and difficult in a way that doesn't seem to want to punish you.
Pure enjoyment, playing through this title.
I didn't hate my time with NMS, it had some good moments. But I always describe it to others as "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle". The game relies way too much on procedural generation and does a poor job at keeping things fresh and interesting. After having explored each archetype of planet, having done one or two derelict freighters, killed a couple sentinel waves in space and on the ground, done any other kind of hostile encounter once or twice you truly have seen all there is to each respective content snipplet. Those settlements are incredibly unspectacular either, basically just a glorified minigame where none of your binary choices actually matter.
The game's overall design also hinders itself. There being not one, two, five, ten but 255 or so huge-as-f*ck galaxies renders the entire multiplayer nonexistent outside of >maybe< finding people in that Nexus social hub to >hopefully< do ultimately repetitive and boringly easy missions where everyone may still feel very alone because there is no challenging difficulty involved and because the game's netcode is absolute trash and everyone is lagging and desynching heavily more often than not.
I played it day 1 as well. Just played it last night for a bit. The amount of updates Hello Games has put out is amazing. Though day 1, I was so disappointed with it. Glad it exceeded what I wanted from release.
Absolutely not on No Man's Sky. The fact that Hello finally gave people the game they promised is irrelevant. Millions of people never went back after day 1. The game was awful, yet they paid, met with crushing disappointment, and that was their only experience of the game. Games must be up to scratch from day 1 - minor bugs acceptable, entire promised systems missing? Hell no. Hello and liar Murray should NEVER get to redeem their reputation.
@@Martial-MatIt's gonna be interesting to see how the launch of "Light no Fire" will go. Many people seem to have forgiven them and strongly believe in that "redemption arc" of NMS. They better don't f*ck up Light no Fire in a similar fashion or people will pull out their pitchforks.
@@Martial-Mat Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion.
As far as MY money spent, I'm satisfied.
It sucks that you're not, but I don't believe you can speak for many others.
Every single person i knew who pre-ordered or bought within the first year was definitely disappointed...pissed off, even...but they all came back eventually and enjoyed playing, to some extent.
If your experience isn't similar with those you know, that's valid for you & them.
But I hope you save some of that same ire for every other game that comes out in an unfinished state, which is a lot of them.
I ❤ Astroneer!
Seriously, it's like a cozy version of No Man's Sky.
I still pull it up once in awhile to see what else they've put into the game since the last time.
The controls take some getting used to if you're on a controller but it's a really nice game to boot up when you're listening to podcasts and just vibe to.
The final straw for me with Starfield as a collector player was when I saw that you could have a maximum of 6 mannequins in your base..
Is 6 really the extent of the engine???
Also the fact that NPCs walking close to a table would make the items on the table fly across the room. I spent so long setting up my base only for one NPC walking across the room making it look like a hurricane aftermath
It's because they didn't used Fallout 4's engine but 76's it's one of the trash they pulled to stabilize the Game online. Same with some mechanics like looting and storage. I really wanted to love that game but we'll Todd doesn't improve at all one step for 700 back...
Weird I have a bunch of mannequins in my ships and outposts. Also you don’t need to drop the stuff to decorate anymore you can decorate using the build menu
But at least it just works!
@@CRYOKnox if you don’t know what you’re talking about why comment?
@@Chris-yv2iv yeah dunno what the OP is talking about but I have a massive outpost and lots of habs filled with stuff which always remains in place.
NMS is great now. They really did stay with it. Usually 2 or 3 large updates a year and a few expaditions.
How can you make a video like this and NOT have The X series? X4 is a Godsend of a game.
Give 'Pulsar: The Lost Colony' a look. It's one of the best co-op space games I've ever played. It's you and 4 friends running your own space ship in a fully explorable galaxy. You can do missions for different factions all while searching for a missing civilization. Highly recommend it.
It is insanity to miss on X4 Foundation .... this was a massive miss Jake.
So sorry to ask but what is the difference between X4 and Elite Dangerous? Seems like they share the same potential roles like farming mining hauling fighting etc
My name’s Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite channel on UA-cam
Seriously how the hell does a game like X4 NOT make it onto the list? It's LITERALLY the whole point of the game with HUGE DLCs that add hundreds of hours of new content...come on guys!!
No kidding!! X4, Space Engineers, Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous and Empyrion Galactic Survival are all I play.
If we're talking about hands-on terraforming and if yiu like seeing numbers go up - the planet crafter is the way to go
Stellaris has a mod called "Gigastructural Engineering & More" in the workshop, and it's amazing! I highly recommend this mod if you've ever wanted to be able to build something that spanned an entire solar system.
I'm not surprised that I have most of these, but I hadn't heard of Universim or Astroneer. They've been added to my cart!
so no X4: Foundations? I love this channel but how can you miss a huge game like that.....its a huge sandbox that lets you explore and create your own empire
The game with the horrible performance and terribly outdated, aliased visuals. No thanks, I stick with nms
@@ValentinaDiNapoli-bh7ds Comparing NMS to X4 is like comparing a car to an AC unit. Please stop comparing 2 completely different things and ideas, it actually works AGAINST the claim you're making (which was without a point as it was, anyway).
@@ValentinaDiNapoli-bh7dswith such a basic take on the game, I also suggest you stick with nms.
@@TehGM bs response. I talked about the game performance, Not the game content. Try harder
@@TehGM besides, I would rather stick with a working AC unit, than with a half broken car. It's all about taste. But yours is thinner than Tin
I'm really glad you included KSP and Elite: Dangerous. Those are two of my favourite games and they deserve all the love they get and more
@gameranx i love your contet but you miss some space games. The Number 1 game for this list need to be X games like the last X4 from Egosoft. That is the best of the best solo space game. And you miss some other games like Star Trek online, Star Conflict and Space Engineers and some other games. But im a Star Citizen man :D
Shipbreaker is so fun and addicting. It never gets any love, so I'm glad to hear it get mentioned
X4 Foundation is a good choice that wasn't on the list, it is probably one of the most deeper space sims other than eve online except this is single player with the feature to send trading ships from your game into other people games. Sunk over 500 hours into it and counting.
Mass Effect Legendary is probably my favorite game series of all time, closely followed by Fallout 4 and the Horizon Series. And I gotta say, Starfield is up there too. Good call dubbing it a comfort food Bethesda game, because I can see loading it on my Steamdeck someday and hacking around in Starfield when I’m out on vacation, the way I do now with Fallout 4.
Don't forget Freelancer as well
Absolutely amazing game, I find myself replaying it every once in a while and it's always fun!
I cant find it online anymore my cd copy is used up. Besides my new computer does not have a cd/DVD reader 😢
A Steam release would be so dope. Does Microsoft still own the rights to it? Do it, shut up and take my money, Bill!
No mention of X4 Foundations or Space Engineers, should have dropped Starfield from this list for one of them.
Latest reports indicate there is no studio or developers working on KSP2 while they are still selling it on Steam. AVOID KSP2.
Love Starfield, the amount of realistic content mixed with fantasy is amazing.
KSP. You build, crash, rebuild learn from mistakes. Then build again. Gravity is done great. It’s my all time favorite space game.
I think I wrote a short funny review back in the day saying "KSP: When math makes you sweat" or something. Because one slightly "off" construction or miscalculation and you would maybe get far but still never anywhere close to where you wanted to. The loss of green minion-likes life was brutal. Imagine how people in RL who build actual space rockets and send humans up must feel. KSP is realistic in a weirdly funny way.
I'm so happy that NMS made #1 here. I love a lot of these games but I will always come back to NMS. It's been an absolute adventure and such a big impact on my life since I accidentally found it years ago, only because I was bored and figured I'd give it a shot. WOW!
Starfield is the type of game you either hate or it takes your life. I wanted to uninstall it after 2 hours, 20 hours later I'm finishing a SIDE MISSION . Wild game.
Starfield is the type of game you either love or you have actually played good video games before.
I'm personally in team "hate it". I have tried 3 separate times to get into it, and I just can't. The stale dialogue, the non-existent free roam exploration, the absurd amount of loading screens, etc. etc. All of this is entirely involuntary, I'd love to love this game (especially because I preordered the deluxe edition, which I never do normally). But for me, it's genuinely one of the most unenjoyable games I've ever played.
I’m over 200 hours in. Love it 😎👍🏼. I had to go with the classic space cowboy role. Freestar Rangers all the way!!
@@mrwakacorp100%😂. That game will NEVER be considered a hit.
@@Steel-101 sorry to hear that.
SpaceBourne 2 - such an epic undertaking from a hyper small dev. He deserves a spot in this list.
I love it, but the game is still in early access...
And this dude left out Star Citizen, wich is possibly the most costly game ever made...
Super surprised you didn't mention X4 Foundations. May be the most involved space game builder of them all. Check it out.
I'd love to add 2 of my all time favorite space games. First is Alien Legacy from the 90s. Great space game centered around a mystery. The second is Starflight from the 80s. I really wish a studio would remake these today. Outstanding games.
Stellaris is such a good game!
It is...
It would be so great if you could experience all that in first person, don't you think?
An alien empire wishes to communicate... Ha!
No Man’s Sky has TWO HUGE things that keep me from enjoying it.
1. The Devs refuse to give us a fully functioning, zero limitations, and full control of Ship Building.
I want them to go through every S-Tier Game that has a Open Sandbox/Free Building whether it’s a Space Game or not and take the best parts from each one and use it as inspiration to give us the best building experience possible.
2. They need to create a Modding API like Bethesda that way we can get better MODS, Script Extenders, and ETC so we can actually add stuff to Games.
Whole modding NMS isn’t bad by any means there’s limitations like adding ships just overwrites vanilla ones.
*Bonus*
This is to add on top of issue #1. In addition to a real ship building feature because they promised years ago to add, yet never did (The current ship building feature is not what we asked for) is I want:
- Ability to Build a Space Station in anywhere in space we’d like.
- the ship size we should be allowed to build, manage, and fly should be as big as the Capital Ships.
Aw The Outer Worlds didn't make it
If it qualifies, then so does Fallout...and neither are really "space" games.
@@dr.bherrinStarfield qualified. It obviously does.
Youre hopping from planet to spaceship, and the whole theme of the game is space...
Underrated game, loved it.
@@arturpaivadsDamn dude, i have 300 hours in The Outer Worlds and dont remember having to “explore AND build” like the title of the list in the video suggests, its just an RPG where you have minimal exploration in the Borderlands-esque areas and hub zones, its more centered around the storytelling and rpg aspects. Of course Starfield will qualify because you can build settlements and build ships.
Reading comprehension is absolutely lost on you dude
@@arturpaivads since when was the outer worlds starfield?
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is another game that fit in this list. Awesome exploration, fun gameplay and a great soundtrack. Give it a try!
Surprised Space engineers is not on the list considering it is the best space game out there.
Hahaha maybe to build stuff? But best space game ever? Nah that goes to X4 foundations...
Space Engineers has always been a favorite of mine. Suprised it didn't make the top 5 of the 1st list.
Yeah, no X, SE or Empyrion on a list about explore and build in space is ... unfinished imho.
Nonetheless all games on the list are good and deserve a mention
Shout out for including FTL!
It was originally created for the PC, but the port to iPad has made it even better - it’s like the iPad was built for FTL (and not vice versa!). I’ve been playing it on and off for the past decade (!!), and it’s still as thrilling and engaging as it has been when I first started playing it.
Highly recommended -and I’m an Elden Ring / Baldur’s Gate / Elite Dangerous player..
I’m shocked that Star Citizen isn’t on the list although it’s forever in Beta and buggy.
Perhaps because it has (Serious) no building content?
You answered your own question.
@@callaway86 I never asked a question, I simply made a statement.
Empyrion Galactic Survival is a great game has base building ship building and can explore thousands of planets with seemless space to ground transition lots of bases, trading, and mining. Really fun game.
Welcome back Gameranx.
Endless Space 2 is one of my favorite 4x games. All the different races play uniquely different from each other and the small to big interactions in the game really shape how each playthrough feels.
Why in the world was Space Engineers not on this?
Could have had Empyrion on this. Been around a while but a good game. Some good servers out there with customisation that makes it better.
I couldn't get into Elite Dangerous, but not sure why. Maybe a bit more handholding in the beginning would have helped. I was like in these newbie systems but accidently went outside of them and got cut off from things I was planning to do there. Next I was trying to figure out where to start anew, but like I felt overwhelmed by the many solar systems and all these political overlays and such. iI flew around a bit, made a little bit of money, tried s few different methods of money making, but none of them "clicked" with me. i upgraded to one or two slightly better ships but still felt lost in a sense. The way you could (or rather not) modify your ship also felt sort of needlessly restrictive. Not sure if it had to do with the game being F2P and heavy on mulitplayer maybe deliberately putting a strong leash on you? I actually played one or some of the original Elite games back in the day but don't remember anymore how they worked (except for those iconic manual space station docking procedures), so maybe the issue was me?
It was slow to start for me too but now its pretty much my favorite "podcast game"
You totally missed "Space Engineers" and "Empyrion Galactic Survival"
But there are also some games I've never heard of before, and I'll have a look at them.
They missed out on X4: Foundations. Think Eve Offline.
Left out the #1 OG of space games- Space Engineers. And of corse Empyrion has to be in this list somewhere
I wanna give a shout out to the Rebel Galaxy games. not enough people have played those
I like mostly because the mini games and the banger radio stations...
100% I still haven't played rebel space 2 but am looking forward to it
All of the mass effect games are great, the first 3 are connected to your choices, the 4 takes place in another universe, now I know most people don't like the 4th one, but I love the story, the multiplayer is stupid though
Disappointed that X4: Foundations isn't on this list. It's basically EVE Offline.
i remember when everyone lost their shit when people sighted the first thargoids in Elite.
you have to include space engineers and the X series, solid games. also honorable mention to Underspace and Strike Suit Zero.
How could you leave out X4: foundations?????
I have a recommendation, Empyrion: Galactic Survival
I have been playing it for years. Think of a Sci-Fi survival game mixed with Minecraft where all ships and bases are built block by block.
Space engineers?
Space Engineers is sci-fi Minecraft for adults and it's awesome. Why is Starfield on this list?
*Space..... The final frontier....*
*This is the voyage of the USS Gameranx!!*
This is the biggest miss I have seen Gameranx pull in awhile, both the X series and Space Engineers left off a list of "explore and build in space?" Or Empyrion? Avorion?
Empyrion is a guilty pleasure
X4 is my dream game, and i do have some 1.7k hours in Empyreon, but frankly, i prefer the crafting in Starship Evo...
Does the team at gameranx even like those games you mentioned?
@@vexile1239 most likely they don't know...
Empyrion will be free this week on Epic, though, maybe folks can start to appreciate the game the game more.
@@efxnews4776 epic? I get the impression they despise epic
Thought Space Engineers was going to make the list. I've been addicted for months now and cant stop playing
Outer wilds is the best space exploration game out there.
for those who liked surviving mars, here's something to look forward to: Alien Horizon. It is an alpha from a solo dev (adjust your graphics expectations a solo dev, not a fully fledged studio with Paradox money). Alpha, so still incomplete but all the fundamentals are all there. And it is free so if you love colony sim, I think it is worth a couple of hours to try it out.
More of, what if RimWorld was 3D and had updated graphics.
star citizen is completely glossed over some how, imma take yall seriously now, maybe i missed the part where you meant fully released still star cit has done more then other games that have fully released. so you could add that game with a disclaimer unless im missing something comepletely, but star citizen really offers a lot merc, bounty, salvage, mining, investigation, and more yes its buggier than anything that exists but still the level of detail is worth a mention.
P.S. first non troll post , love your work
It's still in alpha and is often unplayable with the amount of bugs it has.
"It's from 2016, but it's still worth checking out."
Thank you for making me feel old.
Edit: never mind me, E:D was actually included - it's just missing from the chapter list. Teaches me to jump from chapter to chapter 😂
Originally posted: Elite: Dangerous deserved to be on this list. The Elite franchise is the daddy of all space sims. Does not have any building, but, then again, neither did Chorvs.
Yes it does. You build parts through Engineering but also, through community events a space station can be built.
Like Colonia for example
it's on the list #3
i wanted to like E::D, but it's so frustrating to play. 80% of the time you're just waiting for something to happen. flying gets boring very quickly. i have like 750 hours since the release of Horizon (Cobra Mk IV :)) and haven't managed basically nothing. a couple of easy engineers, stufff like that. never even saw a thargoid.
@@Patterner I enjoyed it. I spent most of my time outside the Bubble. Traveled to the center of the galaxy, went to the green nebula, and a bunch of random planets in the void.
Rarely did anything besides explore, survey and land on planets
@@HeWhoShams good for you. i never got the 5000 ly requirement for an engineer....
Can absolutely vouch for Hardspace Shipbreaker. It's a truly addictive dad game with a really compelling narrative. The career mode can be done in time-limited "shifts", but I like to disable both the time limit and the oxygen drain so I can just salvage the hours away.
no love for X4? 😢
Weirdly, I thought you'd have mentioned Space Engineers here also. It's surprisingly still getting updates and is on console and PC. Otherwise, damn good list! 🤙
Starfield is basically a sandbox game that instead of being a sandbox is literally a giant box of sand.
🥱
Don't dig too deep. I saw my cat digging in that box a while ago.
I guess the space 😺 left something smelly there...
😂
Mass Effect Legendary Edition is a gem and must have collection. Hard to replicate such a great and impactful trilogy. Man I miss those types of games.
Am I the only one wondering how Star Citizen did not make the list?
Not a finished product...
Because it has no building or survival elements and isn't even close to a playable game.
cosmoteer, space engineers, and empyrion galactic survival deserve some recognition in my opinion they are some of the best space ship/space games available check them out
Empyrion Galactic Survival needs to be slapped for releasing a DLC without fixing their janky game though lol. The combat needs a massive overhaul and NPC pathing, animations, sound, models, etc.
@Christfollower89 all true but for what it is its still a great game I have 1500hrs in it lol
@@johnrindal7350 me too, I bought it in August 2016 and played it for years before getting irritated with the jank. It's an hidden treasure that just needs a budget and some good programmers
@@Christfollower89both of you are right...
Empyreon needs an overall, i wouldn't even say the graphics, but models, i also think that the blocks need to be reworked, it should have more sizes, you should also able to tweak the grid for when you want to build different things...
EGS needs better models, better UI, better animations...
Looking for that one guy complaining about ''why no star citizen????'' lmao
but you've gotta admit, it will awesome at release in 2045... but I heard it may be delayed
@@genx-calibur yup lmao
Yeah why no star citizen? 😅 Best graphics, gameplay, exploration and fighting.
"Oxygen not included" is a fun space game.
I have a soft spot for "endless sky" too. It's not finished and will probably not be for years, but for a free, open source, community built game... that's fine. There's plenty to do in it.
How is star citizen not on this list…
It'll get there when it's released in 2034 🤞🏻
i get why they didnt include it. im a citizen player myself and i love it with all of my heart. but its not at a point where they could recommend it without facing issues. but when its done... its gonna be amazing man.
Star Control 2, yes it's old but it's a great space game. Make sure to play the voiced one like they had on the 3DO, it's super worth it.
Star Control 1 had the best sound track. Star Control origins is worth a look. I liked it. Apparent urqa or something is a fan based project that is being worked on
At this point just build your own rocket and go to space. Full immersion. Light work no reaction.
I hear that only works if you play hard-core mode
Rogue-like all the way.
@@DocPlaysBad nah nah, hardcore mode is training and studying until someone let's you go to space. The self built rocket is easy mode. Starting income in the market system in game is like. Crazy headstart status.
@@Lenariet Buddhism status effect does go hard. Certainly helps with progression each cycle.
@@hawkeyejo9609I hope in my next life I get reborn as a giant space snake floating through interstellar space.
I knew No Man's Sky was going to be on this list. You can't talk about space games and not bring that one up. I'm so glad to see that it was #1.
Starfield..? I'm sure you could have found another space game to add that is actually good.
He literally left out X4 foundations...
Where is Freelancer from 2003?
That is the best Space Game ever and the game should be on the top 1
Let's explore empty spaces in StarField
Cringe. Starfield haters spend more time hating other things than enjoying games they actually like. Sad existence. :C
@@MrCreativenthe's not wrong though 😂
@@MrCreativentDouble Cringe people who find enjoyment in doing nothing.
you forgot the empty planets as well, for the most part, if you don't count the same dungeon pasted on every planet or multiple times on the same one. I gave it a shot because of skyrim but even skyrim is better.
Starfield really sucks...
Theres indie games that do better what Starfield tries to do...
watched the video, immediately got on steam and got myself Deliver Us The Moon, played it through in one go, 8 out of 10, would recommend.
Why isnt Space Engineers in here?
Stardeus needs to be in a part 2. It's made by a duo dev team and it's basically Rimworld in space. You can explore space, send scouting expeditions to planets, loot and salvage derelict spaceships (or add them to your own) and build your own ship or space station complete with colonists and a team of robots. Been out for a couple of years and not enough people know about it. Seriously addictive.
Also worth adding Genesis Alpha One: "As the Captain of a Genesis starship, you journey into uncharted space on the ultimate mission. Build and manage a space vessel, farm resources, deal with terrifying alien infestations, clone creatures and explore a vast, randomly generated universe".
No space engineers??!
Avorion is an awesome game from a small indie team of German devs. I have spent a couple thousand hours in that game which with both DLCs is still under 40$. You start from scratch with nothing but a tiny little mining drone. Mine for resources to build your ships up. Battle pirates and the evil aliens to reach the center of the galaxy and oust the evil aliens forever. You have 100% freedom in building your ship, but it's voxel grid based so curves are a bit tricky. It also has an extensive economy of stuff to trade to fill your fleet's coffers.
.... X4?
Absolutely love seeing Everspace 2 get a shoutout. I definitely preferred Everspace 1, so if you've only tried 2 give 1 a shake when it's on sale. Both fantastic underappreciated gems.
Wow, no X4?
Surprised you didn't include Space Engineers. Need to explore to discover where the resources are that you will need to mine to create the components you need to build the vehicles you want.
StarField was the biggest disappointment.
For how cutting edge the setting is with space and traveling to different planets, the game design was so outdated especially with those loading screens.
I think my thing about that game is just how good the ship builder is. Like why? I can make this awesome ship and then have basically nothing to do with it.
keep crying hater...go play your generic ...no man's sky