this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
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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?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

SpaceBourne 2

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I know there has been some controversy around it, but Star Wars Outlaws might be worth a look.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Why not? Seems like a fun adventuring game that lets you travel from planet to planet solving problems/doing tasks for people. Seems similar to what the OP is looking for.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's not fun and the writing is bad.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Fun and bad writing are subjective. Would you care to be more specific on why it's not good?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Not really, there's plenty of reviews out there. I just don't think that someone who found Starfiield to be mid will find Outlaws any better.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Not really what is looked for here in most ways, but there's Parkan.

I have little to say other than it exists.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

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...)

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