The Best Space Exploration Games For Your PC
Space was never the final frontier for video game developers. Indeed, the ability to create worlds far beyond life on this planet has been a key component of gaming since its earliest days. We’ve seen it since the early 1980’s, with legendary arcade cabinets like Space Invaders, Asteroids and Galaga to name but a few. If graphics were basic and sound composed of bleeps and buzzes, it mattered little when the excitement of shooting aliens could be had.
However, not all space games were shooters. Coders perhaps more inspired by Star Trek than Star Wars set about creating infinite galaxies to be explored and traversed. The longer duration meant these were more for home systems – arcade games demanded coins be shoveled in frequently and long, absorbing games didn’t fit the format.
Elite is often cited as the launchpad, taking the 8-bit machines by storm in 1984. These days, there’s much more power in your phone than the retro systems ever packed and the gateway to new universes can be found in your pocket. Space Leaper: Cocoon is a recent favourite of ours, with the card-based RPG nature of the game a new twist on the formula. The online slots on Ladbrokes includes titles such as Stargate and Spaceman as the space exploration theme diversifies further. Even the ubiquitous Angry Birds got in on the action as they chased pigs round the solar system in Angry Birds Space. Of course, there’s more power in your PC than there is in your phone and truly immersive space exploration can be found without ever leaving your desk. Let’s take a look at three of the best.
Eve Online
Eve Online is no spring chicken, having launched almost two decades ago. But with upwards of 500,000 subscribers travelling, trading and warring across over 8,000 systems, it could be the culmination of what David Braben envisioned for Elite had he had the technology at the time. There’s a real sense of community amongst privateers, with publisher CCP’s creative director Bergur Finnbogason explaining “…80% of our players view themselves as helpers, 95% of sessions in single player are preparation for multiplayer.” The free-to-play MMORPG is still supported by CCP, with the most recent updates, Eve Evolved releasing throughout 2022.
No Man’s Sky
Hyped beyond hype in the lead-up to its 2016 release, No Man’s Sky initially flopped. Many of the promised features (such as multiplayer, which is a fairly big one) were not available at launch. Critics were underwhelmed and a huge debate about ‘unfinished’ games being put to market and dependent on future updates re-ignited amongst fans. Six years and many major updates later, the game has fulfilled the faith that early adopters put in it. This year’s No Man’s Sky: Beyond revision included Virtual Reality support for the final frontier to be quite literally in front of the player’s eyes. Ears were always taken care of, courtesy of a fantastic soundtrack from Sheffield experimentalists 65daysofstatic.
Outer Wilds
If you don’t have months, perhaps years, to devote to a game and would prefer a self-contained game, 2019’s Outer Wilds should prick up the ears. The player is an anthropologist tasked with learning the secrets of an extinct alien race in a solar system stuck in a timeloop, with the aim of breaking it and letting time progress. If the player dies, they restart at the top of the loop, giving the game a Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask dynamic. However, it avoids linearity by giving the player free rein to seek clues from any of the five planets at any point. Exploration leads to picking up the pieces of the puzzle, almost like an interstellar jigsaw with no picture to work from. A host of awards followed, with GameSpot summing up “…by letting you chart your own course and piece together its mystery at your own pace, Outer Wilds makes each of its expeditions feel incredibly personal and absolutely unmissable”.
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