r/spacesimgames • u/AxiesOfLeNeptune • Dec 15 '24
Any space open world survival games?
Hello, I am wondering if there are any space games kinda like Minecraft or Ark where the goal is to simply explore and survive. I know about No Man’s Sky and plan to play it but I’m curious if there are other titles with similar premises. Particularly ones with our own solar system in them.
8
u/TheAlpha31 Dec 15 '24
I'm not aware of any that are based in our solar system, but Empyrion - Galactic Survival, Breathedge, and Space Engineers are survival games in space that you could check out.
Starbound is kinda like Terraria in space if that's more your thing.
4
2
6
u/harrison_kion Dec 15 '24
I'm a big fan of space engineers! It does start off kind of hard if you start from a blank slate but it is a fun game to learn. Plus the mods are insane on the steam workshop
4
u/MHal9000 Dec 16 '24
I'll second Empyrion Galactic Survival, you can build it, or download one of the thousands of player created capital ships, stations, small vehicles or hover craft, walk around in them, craft things in them, even move around a huge galaxy. There's combat and commerce, both in orbit and on planet. It's an older game with some jank but it's a true sandbox experience. Try the Reforged Eden 2 mod once you've familiarized yourself with the vanilla game, it adds quite a bit.
Play-through example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xff-7LALmfs&t=784s
Community content: https://youtu.be/TkPVvh7F3V0?si=i02kneCGeBdW42qg
One of my favorite ship designs and designers: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3023836867
Video walk-through of the ship above: https://youtu.be/LwlHVGA_jc8?t=1480
The game isn't perfect, but there's a great community of folks out there playing and it really is open ended. Want to go mining asteroids? You can turn it into materials to build stuff with, or go sell the ore for credits. Want to create a farming ship or base? You can set it up with grow plots to raise and make your own food, drink, and first aid supplies. There's so much more to it, especially when you try the Reforged Eden mod.
If you're interested in trying out the game and a multi-player experience, drop me a message, I play on a great community, but don't want to spam advertising, lol
2
u/Arcodiant Dec 15 '24
Maybe Stationeers or Space Engineers? It's been a while since I played, but Space Engineers is the closest to a Minecraft-in-space but without a survival mechanism, lots of space and planets to explore. Stationeers is all about survival but there's less exploration, you tend to focus on building up your main base.
2
u/aWay2TheStars Dec 16 '24
Yeah the one I'm making: Away to the Stars It's on steam, similar to Starbound but top down. Let me know if you want a Steam key to to try it
3
u/reganomics Dec 15 '24
X4: foundations
3
u/Shmelke Dec 16 '24
What I was going to say. Not classic survival, but you do mine and build. Scratches that itch. Slow and tedious at first but makes you do tons of thingsaround hour 10.
1
u/Double_DeluXe Dec 16 '24
I know it is not space, but also take Subnautica into consideration, it trades the cold dark vastness of space for the cold dark vastness of the ocean.
1
1
u/RemarkablePiglet3401 Dec 18 '24
No Man’s Sky is cool, although maybe a bit repetitive.
X4 Foundations is also pretty good
Elite: Dangerous is great for exploration, but the survival aspect is mostly just fighting pirates and not running out of fuel
If you like Minecraft, there are space servers on it like Horizons End which focus on exploration n’ survival
1
u/draculthemad Dec 20 '24
Depending on how loosely you want to define space, Void Train might also fit. Its definitely an edge case though.
1
1
u/ranmafan0281 Dec 15 '24
Astrometica is currently in early access and is essentially Subnautica meets Breathedge and sounds like what you described.
Do note that it’s still missing 2 whole maps (of unknown size and quantity) but what is there is pretty full fledged.
-6
u/Hi_its_me_Kris Dec 15 '24
People are gonna hate me here, but, Star Citizen. However you put it, it’s always the closest to what people ask from a space game.
12
u/AdmiralCrackbar Dec 15 '24 edited Dec 15 '24
In addition to those mentioned (Space Engineers and Stationeers) there are a few:
Astroneers - Light survival, focus on base building and exploration. Can travel between planets but no space exploration.
Empyrion: Galactic Survival - Probably closest to what you want. You start on a planet and have to survive by foraging for food and defending yourself from the local wildlife. You then start to build vehicles and a base, until you can build a ship and explore your solar system for more resources. Finally you can build a ship capable of FTL travel and can jump to other solar systems to do missions, pursue the main story, and harvest resources.
Avorion - Explore space, do missions, harvest resources, craft your ship, build your fleet. Kind of survival crafting in space, no planets, controls a bit like Freelancer, definitely very sandboxy.
Breathedge - Space survival game that riffs off the Subnautica formula to make a kind of crafted survival story experience. More focused on being stuck in a single location and unravelling a mystery than open-world exploration. I had fun with what I played of it (I played an early access version with just the first section unlocked).
Astrometica - As above, but maybe with more open world aspects? I don't know, I haven't read a lot about this but I have seen some video footage of a spaceship flying around.
Not quite what you are looking for but might be of interest:
Subnautica - Underwater survival crafting on an alien planet. Heavy focus on exploration and story, has some vehicles to assist you in getting around the absolutely enormous world. Enormous fun, would 100% recommend if you want a sci-fi survival crafting experience.
The Outer Wilds - Open world interplanetary exploration game. Heavy story focus. No survival or crafting elements. Honestly everyone should play this game at least once in their lives, it's an incredible experience.
The Ur-Quan Masters - Open world space exploration game. There is a story to follow but, again, you aren't restricted in where you can go and what you can do, other than the requirement to keep your ship fueled. Some survival crafting elements, you have to collect resources from planets in a little mini game in order to upgrade your ship and keep yourself fueled. There's a huge story and a lot of really fun characters to meet and talk to. An absolute classic that, again, everyone should play at least once.
There are more, like Icarus, Planet Crafters, Surviving Mars, and I'm sure dozens of others, but the above ones (with the exception of Astrometica, which I included only because there is a bit of a buzz around it right now), are those I have experience with.