Are there any games like Starfield?
Are there any games like Starfield?
So, Starfield was a disappointment (in my opinion). The story isn't interesting. The lore and world-building do not make sense. The game mechanics do not mesh together. (And it doesn't run well on the Steam Deck.)
But the promise of Starfield? The big space game? The big space RPG where you can play as Captain Reynolds type character? That's something I can get behind. I want to traverse space, visit different planets, get lost, meet interesting characters, solve their problems, and shoot some stuff. Two games come to my mind when I think of this:
- No Man's Sky
- Mass Effect
I've only played a few hours of No Man's Sky, but I think it does space traversal well. To put it bluntly, flying from planet to planet without interruption is better than fast travel. But the gameplay loop did not
Mass Effect nails the space adventure side of things. You visit multiple interesting places, you meet different people with curious problems, and you solve these problems (mainly by shooting). But it's a typical Bioware game: The places you visit are small and confined, and there are (comparatively) few of them. The space traversal is done by clicking a few buttons in a menu.
My question is: Are there any “big space games”? Are there any games that deliver on the promise of Starfield? What are your favourite sci-fi RPGs?
The Outer Worlds is pretty much what Starfield could and should have been and was made by Obsidian, the developers behind a ton of other great games such as (in chronological order, with the best of all games ever bolded)
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2
- Neverwinter Nights 2
- Fallout New Vegas
- Pillars of Eternity
- Tyranny
- Pillars of Eternity 2
There's even a sequel to it coming out some time this year so you don't run as much of a risk of running out of game any time soon!
In this genre of “big space games”, The Outer Worlds stands near to Mass effect, because it follows “the Bioware formula” pretty closely: The player and a group of followers visit several semi-open worlds, where they look for a MacGuffin related to the main story while solving local problems. (I’ll write a short essay about the Bioware formula someday…)
The Outer Worlds was a good game (not great) and I look forward to the sequel. I’ve played most Obsidian games and I wish they wrote more sci-fi.
Try Freelancer. It's literally free / abandonware by Microsoft. It's a little old but perhaps it will scratch the "big space game" itch you're looking for?
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/freelancer-bbb
Microsoft themselves hosted it for the longest time but they don't anymore
There is even a mod called "Discovery" which ads an online MMO component ....buuuut there's a huge emphasis on Role playing and PvP so that might not be for you (it isn't for me either)
For single player mods there is one called "Crossfire"
Yes! Freelancer is an amazing (albeit slightly dated) game. It takes some effort to get set up, but it does run quite well on Linux.
Freelancer Alpha One Dash One.
Throwing Elite Dangerous in there as well. The learning curve is steep, and story is not driven by anything but you. But oh my god does it satisfy that “fuuuuck space is so big” feeling. The one thing that was fun in Starfield was the gunplay, which is the only thing missing in vanilla Elite, but they have an expansion that adds that. I haven’t played Odyssey, but supposedly it has gotten much better over the years.
I have Elite Dangerous on Steam. I have 8 hours of playtime. Alas, without a story to hook me in, space trucking is not for me. :(
You have to read the news in game. There is an evolving story line about the thargoids invading known space. There are new colonies that are being formed hundreds of light years from known space that need protection and supplies. There are communities like the fuel rats that are constantly coming to the rescue of stranded explorers. It’s a really big, open, beautiful galaxy that has a lot going on. It’s a shame it always gets overlooked because you have to search the story out instead of it being served to you on a platter by npc and cutscenes. Don’t get me wrong, I looooove a good story driven game. Elite is probably, in my little opinion, the best execution of a true open world game. You just have to really search for the story, and I can see how that could be a barrier for entry for a lot of people.
Adding to the other comment, I feel like you can get a taste for all that by visiting the game's subreddit. Seeing all the cool things people do and how the community moves the story forward really motivates me to play the game. I guess you could also watch a youtube video to get up to date on the story and different ways to play the game.
It is a great game but you really do need to look stuff up to fully enjoy it, unfortunately. Also, space trucking is only one way to play it.
The E:D devs shit in every existing player's mouth when the first paid expansion dropped, and they've never fixed their abusive pricing model. You're actively punished for being a legacy user.
I probably would have bitten the bullet and kept playing if the game wasn't incredibly shallow, though. Somehow it manages to still be that way after several content expansions... Everything is a novelty that gets repetitive the second time you do it, and the variance between systems is frankly embarrassing. PvP is the only facet that has any real replay value, and I'd rather dogfight in Star Citizen.
Everspace 2 (first one was a rogue like, you don't need to play it to enjoy the sequel)
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw (also a sequel, the first one doesn't have a Y axys so you may not like it)
Chorus
All three are a lot of fun, neither are AAA games so they lack a bit of polish but aren't vanilla as hell either. I enjoyed each one better than Starfield but neither as much as ME 1-3.
Also I've had some luck with https://www.50gameslike.com/ finding games.
Everspace 2 is heaps of fun and looks fantastic.
I'll check out all three of them!
Cowboys in space is not my favourite trope, but I've heard good things about the first Rebel Galaxy. How was the switch from 2D combat to 3D combat in the sequel? (And is the story any good?)
The story is alright, but the combat is pretty good.
Also I’ve had some luck with https://www.50gameslike.com/ finding games.
Cool site. Thanks for the link.
You're welcome!
These are the ones I've played over the years. Hope I'm not missing anything:
Elite Dangerous - Highly reccomend this, it's basically a huge sandbox, with full size galaxy, "real" star distances and orbits, excellent flight model. It also has the most awesome community around it. Downsides are that while it has lore and ongoing background story, there's no quest, no interesting characters, no rpg elements. Also there's quite a learning curve, and quite a grind (albeit maneageable these days). There's also a new colonization feature in the works that will involve a lot of comunity effort. If you do decide to play it, join a group, a squad, or just buzz me so I can add you here and there. Friends make the game sooo much better.
Everspace 2 - This may be what you're looking for, as it has story, good gameplay, arcadey flight model and lots of rpg elements. Overall a great game. Only problem with it is that it's not particularly large. Its universe is far smaller than starfield's.
NMS - Another one with an immense galaxy. This one has a storyline, but not a lot of rpg elements. A lot of it is procedural and after a while feels very samey and shallow. It does have crossplay and a great community as well.
X4 - Not especially large, but great single player game, with a universe that feels lived in. Also no rpg and I hear the endgame gets a bit managery.
Spacebourne - Haven't played it long but iy gas good potential. There's a bunch of systems, there's quests, reminds me a bit of freelancer. The downside is that there's a single dev, so development is slow and there's a fair amount of jank.
Edit:
ME - I feel it is still king of story driven spage-rpg even after all these years. Maybe give Andromeda a try? The story is meh, but it has great gameplay, and far fewer bugs.
There's the game that inspired them from the early 90s, Star Control 2.
It's free on Steam as Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters, but the best way to play it today is Ur-Quan Masters Mega Mod. So many QoL features!
The game also had some sequels, including Star Control Origins, which is a more modern game, but the story isn't quite as good.
Star Control 3 exists, but sucks.
And then there's the series from the 80s that inspired this one, Starflight. That one was too dated for me to get into, though.
The original creators are working on a sequel! ‘Children of Infinity’
I forgot to mention that part -- yeah, the series is still alive, and fans have been waiting for that sequel from the original creators for what, 30 years now?
A game that meaningful should always be given a look, even if it can feel a bit "dated" in some ways.
Thanks for bringing that up!
I often see Star Control 2 mentioned as an inspiration for Mass Effect. How does Star Control compare to Mass Effect? Is there a set story or is it more of an emergent narrative?
There's a set story, but it's discovered. The world is wide open, and the player can go anywhere right at the start of the game. There's minimal railroading at any point.
Unless I misunderstood what you meant by emergent narrative. The progression through the game requires the player to learn what to do by interacting with aliens and also exploring a bit. There is an in-game hint system (an alien dialogue tree with prices), but there are often multiple solutions to each "problem". The player can even get through the game being good or evil -- whatever they choose!
The game plays very differently than ME, but you'll probably find the dialogue trees very familiar. And I think SC2 actually does them better than ME.
IMO KotOR was an inspiration for Mass Effect - it may be worth a look.
There's always Star Citizen... :)
Okay but really I agree that Starfield is a mess. The thing is, nobody else has really delivered on the whole package yet. Ground and space combat, trading, and a narrative.
Mass effect and Freelancer gave two different sides of the coin and I think they're the next closest.
Freelancer
+1 for that. One of the best space sims, despite its age, and my first contact with actual zero-g dogfighting (boost, turn off engine, rotate ship to try and hit the enemy)
Star Citizen will get a story mode called Squadron 42 witch should be feature complete and it has a star studded Hollywood cast. It looks worthwile but it won't be here for at least a year.
I enjoy your optimism. I hope we see Squadron 42 soon and I hope it’s good. (The shitstorm if it isn’t would be huge!)
Yeah the prologue level they showed looked incredible. I really hope they can give the game all the polish it needs, after so long in development they absolutely need to release something with quality to match.
As much as I'm a fan of the project, I don't think SC/SQ42 would scratch the same itch that somebody who just got done playing Starfield or Mass Effect would feel. Star Citizen is way more on the simulation side and light on RPG elements.
I wouldn't be so sure that SQ42 will be a guaranteed slam dunk as many SC fans seem to be speculating. That's if it ever does get released or course.
The gameplay in the recent demo is subpar. FPS combat in particular was trash, far worse than HL1; a game released more than a quarter of a century ago. Turret gunning and the platforming parts looked decent but they are not going to carry the game. No example of player controlled space flight was shown.
The space battles looked nice in a b-movie kind of way, but I have my doubts how this will translate to fun space flight gameplay.
From SC, we know that they have a very history of even basic conceptual balance and they are horrible at iterative play testing.
Regarding the Hollywood cast, Gary Oldman sounded like he wanted to get his money and get out of there ASAP. Anderson wasn't much better. Writing was some high school-level drivel "we must win because we must!" and lots of shouty one liners. There is a very real possibility that the whole thing will be a Wing Commander: The Movie - 30 hours of tedious custscenes. And you just know it's going to take itself extremely seriously (think the space bulldozer scene in Wing Commander).
Looking at the UI/UX of SC, it's not unreasonable to assume SQ42 will suffer the same sorry fate. Very flashy ironman-style UI visuals that are nigh unusable in a video game.
Let's see what happens.
I too wish for a game like this but apparently it's impossible to do it, either due to lack of vision, budget or expertise (or all of the above). Starfield sounded perfect on paper and it was a good studio to attempt it but in the end it was just a bland, soulless, boring mess of a game.
As for my suggestions, I just got smaller games, not larger ,and in that vein honestly: FTL. It's a 2d sprite roguelike and yet it's the best game at giving me the feeling of being a scrappy starship captain on the run, trying to scrounge together resources in order to complete my trip despite overwhelming odds.
The second closest game is Starbound but your mileage will vary, it feels unfinished and there is no real story to speak off, although the ship you continually improve and build in over time as you explore the universe does start to feel cozy and homely. It is also basically a worse Terraria in space so if you don't like gameplay like that, skip.
If you like Mass Effect you ought to try KOTOR1 and 2, oldies but goldies, but they do have the same weaknesses you already outlined for ME, it's very much a set story.
Faster Than Light's my jam! For me, it was dethroned from the throne of roguelite games by Slay the Spire.
Starbound was the first and last game I pre-ordered. I wish they would have stuck to the original vision with the survival mechanics. Thinking about it, Starbound is basically a proto-Starfield. The both promised an experience based on a different game (Terraria in space vs. Skyrim in space) that was undercut by the overuse of procedural generation. (Someone please create an 8 hour video essay about this.)
Yep, there are definitely many comparisons between Starbound and Starfield, it is why I was excited about SF in the first place - it looked like a big budget SB made by an experienced veteran team! The joke's on me I guess lol
Go check out the multiverse mod for FTL. It added a ton of variety and content and put FTL straight back into the top spot for me.
In a similar vein, if you want to try something new check out starsector. You have to get it from their website currently but it's a great game, lots of potential, lots of mods.
You can try to revive the sector, build your own mega corp, become a pirate, be a slaver, be an anti-slaver, gun running.
No FPS parts though
I've heard of it and tried to get into it a few times but I think I just lack the time/patience of my youth to get into something like that anymore, its a steep learning curve and you have to make most of the fun yourself / RP.
Perhaps Starsector? It's a top-down sandbox rpg. I personally find the lore and world-building interesting. Has great mechanics, and you can really get into the nitty-gritty when it comes to ship and fleet builds, you can basically do anything you want, whether you want to do solo stuff or form an empire. It also has a fantastic modding community.
Came here to suggest it and here it is, the newest comment! The modding scene is insane, too, for such a relatively small and unknown game.
I love Starsector. I just wish it was written in something more performant than fuckin' Java. But, if it were, there probably wouldn't be the mods for it there are today.
One of these days, I'm going to get around to writing a quest line of my own. Honest.
Yeah, Starsector is probably my favourite lesser known game. There's a mod/tool called "Mikohime Java 24" that's supposed to help a lot with the performance, but I haven't had a chance to test it myself. Would be great to see another quest line, if I had the skills I'd love to make a mod myself lol.
Escape Velocity: Nova is hands-down one of the best space rpgs ever made, and it's a real shame that almost nobody talks about it.
Lots, but only a few that are worth a damn. I've come to call them "Han Solo Simulators".
Its a genre that seems to attract a lot of half baked game designers. Make a big universe sandbox where you fly a spaceship to space stations and planets and moons and trade stuff and do pirate shit or anti-pirate shit. Lots of people have this idea, only a few make anything good out of it. Doesn't seem like it can go wrong, and yet . . .
Battlecruiser 3000 AD is a particularly infamous case of 90s Internet lore. By all accounts, it did eventually patch the game up enough to be decent, but it took years to get there. At release, the game's installer would crash for most people. However good it might have ended up, the Internet drama was better than the game ever could be. Look up "Derek Smart" if you're interested.
The X series is one I want to like, but it's been really buggy for me. Like rage quit when it destroys my progress kind of buggy. I haven't played X4, though.
No Man's Sky was an infamous mess at launch. Unlike Battlecruiser 3000 AD, it did eventually change its reputation, but it was a long, hard road. I played it a few years ago and found it uninteresting, but basically playable.
And then there's Star Citizen. I'll just leave it at that.
Anyway, the Elite series is probably the most successful for single player or smaller multiplayer, and Eve: Online for massively multiplayer.
I enjoyed Starfield, but it wasn't anywhere near good enough to put the same hours into it as most Bethesda games. It had such potential, but they dropped the ball.
Star Citizen is the only modern game that I've got any hope for. It's still years from being a proper game, but in the meantime you can have a surprising amount of fun in the persistent universe, assuming you can run it at acceptable framerates.
It gets a ton of hate, which I think is pretty unjustified given that it's the single most ambitious gaming project ever, and the progress they've made with in-house tools is frankly amazing. Just don't go dropping hundreds on ships and you won't have anything to regret.
I believed in Chris Roberts because of Freelancer and backed it on Kickstarter, and have watched from the shadows as the story has unfolded. I occasionally dipped my toes in to see how it was coming along, but the performance was awful on midline hardware so I put it back down and waited. Now that the turmoil at the top has come out and people are leaving, I don't hold much hope for the future of the game.
I think the reason it gets a ton of hate is that Roberts had gone and proven that Microsoft were absolutely right to take Freelancer away from him so it could get finished. They weren't shackling a maverick genius, they were mitigating losses from his poor leadership.
Maybe check out Starsector by https://fractalsoftworks.com. It's written in Java so it runs on basically anything, and it's 2d top-down but the detail on the ships is great. I love this game very much because it scratches most of the itches I was hoping for from Star Citizen.
mmmmmmmn
Delicious copium.
Elite Dangerous: Best space travel, strap on your VR, put on a virtual monitor playing star trek into your cockpit and stand in awe of how gigantic planets truly are. It has fallen under mismanagement and its mid to late game is terrible. But for the price it's great.
X4: Space sandbox game from the legendary studio behind... the x series. Fantastic galaxy sim where you can do whatever. Hunt bounties, be poor space trader who converts all their life savings to silicon wafers only to find out nobody is buying them or become ceo of the entire space. Only negative for me is it would be the perfect game if it had open space and orbiting planets and all.
Star Sector: basically mountain blade in space. Not on steam.
Space Engineers: Build your own spaceships and do whatever. The resources are more befitting of an automation game and you can automate.
More niche games: Astrox: Even online but singleplayer. Objects in space: Abandonware that takes an interesting approach to space travel. Delta v: rings of saturn: hardest sci fi space mining simulator around the rings of saturn. Starship EVO: very early access but has the best ship building system I've seen so far and ring worlds.
Elite Dangerous
Duskers. A game that seems to be inspired heavily by the aesthetics of the first Alien movie. Instead of one terrifying xenomorph, there are four (?) different kinds all working independently to exterminate humanity. You're at the point in the story where they've basically succeeded, and you're trying to figure out what the heck happened. You get to do some basic scripting as well!
It's loosely in the same genre but you may like Rebel Galaxy. It takes a slightly different approach to space combat making it closer to naval warfare. Very enjoyable soundtrack.
Love this game! Just reinstalled yesterday after years to start a replay of it. I just hope if they make a third they go back to this style (more capital/naval ship feeling) and not the smaller fighter style the second one adopted.
SpaceBourne 2 is a single-player, open-universe RPG and third-person shooter game with an abundance of features, including role-playing, mining, trading, piracy, crafting, and deep exploration. The story picks up where it left off in SpaceBourne, but now the player's goal is to build a new empire in the galaxy, with the methods of doing so being completely up to the player.
star trek online. you could technically warp to destinations rather than fast travel but it would be hard to keep that up and ignore them. It even has a race event where the ships have to visit major planets and locations and it even allows for transwarps but because of the race nature you at best can use it for a shortcut or two to optimize the path. They used to have events with hourly rotations and just being up and watching the space map was sorta neat as you would see all these ships trying to do the race. They switched to a format where people could choose it more whenever they want though so it lost that particular community effect.
Not really what is looked for here in most ways, but there's Parkan.
I have little to say other than it exists.
Haven't seen anyone mention Starpoint Gemini. Warlords was probably the best iteration. Kinda like Eve but single player and a half way decent story.
so for something completely different and focusing solely on the "size" aspect:
the biggest, that i am aware of, game in terms of sheer SIZE involved, is Stellaris:
it's a paradox grand strategy game, not first person at all, so completely different from the other recommendations and probably nothing to do with what you asked for...but if you want something truly MASSIVE...well...can't go much larger than galaxy spanning all out war involving gigantic fleets and armies!
so if power fantasies is something you're interested in, maybe take a look! it's pretty easy to get into, but has a lot of depth (but no requirement) to master later on! and it has a lot of settings regarding game speed and difficulty to tailor it to your tastes.
and mods, god help me, the mods; play a couple hours to get to know the game, then definitely get Gigastructural Engineering from the workshop. short list of ridiculous engineering:
- Attack Moons
- Behemoth Planetcraft
- Neutronstar Gigaforge
- Matryoshka Brain
- and a bunch, even more ridiculously huge projects!
(sidenote: the new DLC subscription on steam is...kinda worth it honestly. not the worst idea, especially to just try it out for a couple hours. i was extremely skeptical, but it's kinda, surprisingly, less predatory than the previous "we'll release 2 20$ DLCs, and 1 30/40$ DLC per year" model...)
Still in early access, and not very pleasant to looking at first glance, but Ostronauts is a start from scratch go anywhere and solve problems space game. On my first play I was pulled over but the cops for salvaging without a license only for the cop to write me a ticket and then start flirting with me. I got his number. Make sure you can cover the cost of the ticket and docking fees before you dock or they won't let you undock. Flight mechanics are very real and you quickly feel like your piloting a space jalopy. RPG system is great too. You unlock skills that level as you use them and need to repair components as they can break down. Slow development by I think one guy, but a work of love for sure.
Ostranauts looks cool as heck! I've added it to my wishlist.
I'm commenting late, but there is The Precursors which does require Slavjank tolerance, but if you have it, it provides an interesting flavor on a space opera adventure.
I also haven't tried The Tomorrow War which seemingly requires even higher Slavjank tolerance, and probably isn't a top of all time game, but seems interesting if you like peering into strange forgotten games. Warlockracy did a video of this one.
I’ve actually heard of The Precursors before. It was featured in Tehsnakerer’s Playing series. I don’t know what my tolerance of slavjank is. I’ve played Operation Flashpoint a lot when I was a kid. Does that qualify as slavjank?
Really it just means the sorts of bugs you find with minimal QA testing combined with stilted voice acting, potentially untranslated audio or text, cultural beats that don't quite cross over, and some game design choices that are different than how a game developed alongside western games might do things.
If you can stand this lack of polish, these sorts of games can at least give amusement for their price point.
If you're into retro-gaming, Starflight and Starflight II were both excellent.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight_2:_Trade_Routes_of_the_Cloud_Nebula