Epic battles, distant planets, dangerous aliens and bright stars – where to find the best adventures in deep space
On April 12, the world celebrates Cosmonautics Day – the first manned flight into space, marking a new stage in the conquest of the solar system. Entering the Earth’s orbit has not yet become a public entertainment, but in games you can easily navigate the gloomy airless expanses. In honor of the holiday, we recall the best ways to feel like an explorer of the unknown.
EVE Online
The MMO from CCP Games can hardly be called a dream game – it requires an insane amount of time and knowledge, and in return it usually offers the bitterness of defeat, complete or partial loss of property and betrayal from the closest partners. This is EVE Online – a world of powerful corporations and intrigue, where people do not play, but live.
But if you still go into this world with your head, then the player will have great freedom. If you want – dig asteroids. If you want, punish such miners with a small fleet and get away before their friends arrive. In EVE, you can explore planets, explore uncharted areas of space, hide from bandits, destroy corporations from within and, of course, participate in battles for thousands of players.
EVE Online is often said to be much more fun to read than to play. But this is only partly true: not a single text will convey the feelings of participating in battles, where the loser irrevocably loses everything.
Elite dangerous
While the creators of Star Citizen are raising hundreds of millions of dollars and promising a dream game, some are already playing it. Elite Dangerous is not so ambitious, but it allows space adventure fans to do almost everything – explore space and planets, fight in the air and on the ground, trade and set up ambushes.
Elite has already received two major updates and a dozen minor ones, and the Odyssey release is expected soon. The new expansion will allow you to explore the planets on your own two feet, add action missions, new types of tasks and much more.
And in Elite Dangerous, the main plot is well developed. Players are usually not warned about this, so one day you can, for example, run into a huge alien ship. It looks very creepy:
No man’s sky
Hello Games has gone from being one of the most hated studios to being a role model for all developers. From an unusual, but content-poor space explorer simulator, the game has turned into a daring experiment with a huge number of possibilities. No Man’s Sky has received free updates for years, and now it is easy to disappear in it for several tens of hours.
The basic formula of the game has not changed over the years, but has overgrown with mechanics and content. This is a huge, almost endless space exploration simulator with a seamless world in which you can land on a planet, walk around it, board a ship and fly away again – without any downloads. The gameplay here is almost meditative: collect resources, create new ships and vehicles, admire the outlandish plants and animals.
At the end of March, NMS received another major update with cooperative expeditions, new solo missions, rewards and more. Now there is a lot of content, as befits a real game about space exploration.
Mass Effect Trilogy
The adventures of Captain Shepard and his crew need no introduction. The most famous game space trilogy will return on May 14: the Legendary Edition will include the first three parts and all the additions to them, and the graphics will be significantly reworked, raising the resolution to 4K.
Bioware is currently working on a new Dragon Age, so the next Mass Effect is still a long way off. Therefore, there will simply not be a better time to return to the solar system and fight back the Reapers.
Dead Space Trilogy
Another EA franchise that many are familiar with firsthand. After the unsuccessful start of Dead Space 3, the series was closed, and the Visceral studio was disbanded. Since then, nothing has been heard about the universe, and its authors are now working on a spiritual successor, The Callisto Protocol.
Despite the cool attitude of fans towards the third part, we still advise you to go through the entire trilogy. The first Dead Space is a great horror movie, the second is a powerful action movie, and the third is science fiction that teases with secrets and expands the lore.
Not so long ago, insiders told that EA decided to resurrect one of their story franchises, which players love very much. Given that the companies do not have many episodes, fans hope for Dead Space.
Outer Wilds
In the game Mobius Digital, players are invited to become a member of the Outer Wilds Ventures program, which should help find answers to the mysteries of the strange, ever-changing solar system. The hero takes off on a ship, crashes, but immediately wakes up in a time loop. Now we have only 22 minutes to save the system: after that, the star around which the planets revolve will explode, turning into a supernova, and destroy everything around.
Outer Wilds came out with Outer Worlds and almost got lost in its shadow, but managed to attract the attention of critics and players. Pleasant music, secrets at every step and an unusual concept – this was enough to collect many awards and receive the highest marks.
Prey
Events Prey unfolding in space “Talos-1” station, where out of control out alien life form – Typhon. The main character and the remaining crew members decide to destroy the station so that the aliens do not get to Earth.
Like most Arcane games, Prey hasn’t gained widespread acceptance. But fans and critics praised it extremely highly for its excellent scenery, captivating storyline and unusual gameplay that encourages experimentation. Enemies disguise themselves as elements of the environment, and each section of the station throws up new surprises and secrets.
Kerbal space program
If you are not interested in epic battles and drama, then you should take a closer look at the game from the studio Squad. Kerbal Space Program is a very detailed and fascinating cosmodrome simulator, after a couple of hours in which you can seriously start dreaming of a career at Roscosmos. The scope for creativity here is truly huge, because the player controls not only the construction of the rocket, but also its launch, control, calculation of the trajectory, as well as fiddling with the passengers of the shuttles.
KSP is challenging enough for the attentive and willing to learn gamers, but not boring or boring. Here you are constantly learning something, and for every successful launch and landing you feel special pride. Even the darkest moments are brightened up by funny green kerbonauts sitting in a rocket and screaming heart-rendingly in emergency situations.
Stellaris
Famed for its strategies, Paradox Interactive usually explores historical conflicts, but has not been able to ignore the space theme. Stellaris invites you to create your own galactic empire, which will seek mysterious treasures, explore the wonders of space and lead its people to world domination.
The game has many advantages: it is a very large, deep game with a lot of nuances, which is interesting to understand even after several tens of hours. But there is also a minus: it will take a long time to understand all the subtleties, and sometimes the games last very long. Do not forget about the large number of paid DLCs, without which the game still feels incomplete.
Astroneer
The adventure game System Era Softworks takes place in the era of intergalactic discoveries in the XXV century, when humanity reached the borders of outer space. Players take on the role of brave astronauts who explore the planets of the solar system.
Astroneer is a very cute, calm and beautiful game in which you need to be creative in solving problems. The deformer, for example, allows you to change the landscape of planets. And the biomes of all celestial bodies are unique: they hide different secrets and offer new obstacles.
Strategy fans should also pay attention to the Homeworld Remastered Collection – a re-release of the cult dilogy with multiplayer support. And someone could have missed the cult simulator of space defeat FTL: Faster Than Light, in which you have to save your crew from almost certain death. For horror fans, we recommend Alien: Isolation – horror for a long time discourages the desire to meddle in the affairs of aliens .
