Not first person, but Starsector is my go-to for my SciFi fix. Trading, pirating, smuggling organs and selling them on the black market, exploring star systems for suitable planets to establishing your own thriving colony...there is a ton of options and something for everyone.
Oh nice, this totally reminds me of Escape Velocity back in the day. Looks like an updated version. I love it.
Starsector is closer to a strategy game version of escape velocity. A game closer to what you're envisioning would be Endless Sky
That looks super cool! Not OP but thanks for the recommendation!
The biggest competitor to Star Citizen right now is Elite: Dangerous. I've played it a lot and it's pretty good. You can play solo or online, too. It can feel a bit slow and it doesn't hold your hand when it comes to learning how to play. There's combat, trading, and exploration. Also pretty active communities online.
If you want to go back in time a bit, there's also the X series from Egosoft that's spanned back many years. There are a few installments and more is being developed. These games are definitely more colorful in several ways than Elite: Dangerous. More of a focus on the Rule of Cool than trying to be real sims.
Haven't played Star Wars: Squadrons, so I don't know the state of the multiplayer side of things. It does offer a solo story mode, apparently. May be worth looking into.
Every now and again I'll think about games like Freelancer, Freelancer 2, X-Wing, and the Wing Commander franchise for straight sit-in-cockpit combat action. Those are very old- early Mid 1990's to early 2000's. If you feel like something retro and can run them, those are options. I wish we had more games styled after those early space sims.
I have to second the Elite Dangerous vote here. Especially if you find an online community to play with. It is part space flight sim, part trading and now part fps. It has its problems, but the expansive scope of it always amazes.
Groups like The Buur Pit are new player friendly and will help a new commander learn. Game can also be had fairly cheaply on its frequent spelials.
Elite Dangerous has been on the downswing for a while now. May not be the greatest time to dive in, when at least their biggest fans on YouTube are talking about chances the company will stop development.
I have this but the controls felt super weird when I tried it out of the box. Any rebindings you'd suggest?
This game is simultaneously the most jank yet most complex space game I've ever played. Love it.
Seconding this. This game is deep and amazing. You can literally run a space empire in it with enough work and time.
There's always No Man's Sky, I haven't played it for a year or so but I know they have added a ton of new stuff in the last few updates. Maybe not completely fulfilling, but could kill some time pleasantly
I always give it a go but the loop winds up losing me within 10 hours of play or so. Love the art and idea behind it but struggle with the gameplay :/
I was just browsing Steam and found SpaceBourne 2, which I mentioned in another Freelancer-related thread. But it looks pretty solid/promising, based on the reviews. I wishlisted it, but can't personally vouch for it.
I'm currently loving a bunch of games in the factory building genre so can I offer you some Dyson Sphere Program in these trying times?
Imagine factorio but you're in a mecha suit building factories spanning multiple planets eventually multiple stars, to build exponentially more complex resources until you're able to shoot swarms of dyson reflectors and eventually build a rigid sphere in orbit.
Still in Alpha after several years, but exquisitely polished, runs fine on legacy machines, excellent responsive dev team, combat is being added soon.
Tried DSP but it lost me within the 2 hours of a return window for Steam. Been loving Satisfactory for factory builders!
Outer Wilds and Subnautica don't have ship fights but they give off a similar feel to star citizen/ no man's sky (to me).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/753640/Outer_Wilds/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/264710/Subnautica/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/848450/Subnautica_Below_Zero/
Gotta mention FTL: Faster Than Light. Not a 6dof game, but great fun commanding your crew and navigating some fun encounters.
Launch Everspace 2 (especially since you've kickstarted it), it's a great one of those and not as intimidating as something like Elite Dangerous. Although, if you want to go deep, that's the way to go..
I've been super curious to try Everspace 2 since it removed the rogue-like aspects of 1, which were tedious, but reviews have been hovering around 70%. Waiting for a good sale, personally.
Try Everspace. It's a roguelike space shooter. Controls feel very free and intuitive. There's also a sequel that's out now that's more of an open world space RPG (same shooting mechanics but not a roguelike). But you can try the first game for only 4 dollars and see if you like the combat.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/396750/EVERSPACE/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1128920/EVERSPACE_2/
I was kinda disappointed by Everspace. I like roguelikes, and like space games, so it ticks my check boxes. I was really hoping to like it, but it just felt repetitive and grindy to me. But YMMV.
For your space reading adventure I love Escape Belocity: Nova. It's very old but I've had so much fun with it if it's runnable on new machines.
Endless Sky is a free/open source game in the spirit of Escape Velocity, I recommend checking it out if you're a fan of the Escape Velocity series.
Also there's an Escape Velocity remake called Cosmic Frontier which has been in the works for many years which I recall hearing had the original developers blessing to use their assets.
now Endless Sky looks interesting. Thanks!
Oh man I loved those games and I never hear anyone talk about them anymore! They were so fun. I found out about them because someone installed the shareware version of the original on one of the Apple computers at my elementary school. I remember when EV: Nova came out and the ships finally had engine glow it was a HUGE deal.
I'll second the recommendation for the X series from Egosoft and the latest X4 has had a number of expansions that make it worthwhile, it's made by a small team and is a bit fiddly at times but it's definitely worth a shot.
If you like sandbox building, Space Engineers. There are so many good mods to give the game some life and nothing is more satisfying than building your own ship from materials you mined.
I've got like 300 hours in it
Rebel Galaxy is an exploration/open world-ish space game with weird controllers but a pretty fun gameplay. You get to fine-tune different classes of ships with a variety of weapons, shields, engines, etc. while completing missions to earn money and earn reputation with different factions.
It's basically Sid Meier's Pirates, but in space and with a modern look. I found it highly entertaining.
Is Rebel Galaxy Outlaws good or just the original?
I can't help but feel that all of us old timer "why won't they make another Tie Fighter?" guys did not show up when they did exactly that on Star Wars Squadrons.
But also, hey did you know they made another X-Wing/Tie Fighter game called Star Wars Squadrons? That happened.
Squadrons was kind of boring in my opinion. Lots to love in the gameplay itself and all the details, but by the end of the campaign I wanted to be done and haven't thought about it since. It would be a great buy for $10 though.
Played the shit out of Squadrons. Multiplayer was fun, story was fun. For whatever reason it breaks my PC now when I launch it so it's on hold for me
Probably not what you are looking for but I found myself enjoying the JumpLight Odyssey demo yesterday. Has a very 1970 Anime vide ala Star Blazors.
I tried the demo, pretty fun. Like a more involved and proper starship simulator, with FTL's chase mechanic.
If you're into classic 6DoF games, then the Descent series (including Freespace) and Forsaken are go-to plays for me. We're talking late 90's/early 00's, though, so take that with a grain of salt.
What about Freespace 2? I see it on sale on GOG right now for 20% off
How about Empyrion - Galactic Survival? Kind of like Space Engineers but with better singleplayer content.
have you played the star ocean games?
the focus isn't on the ship, but it's very much a space/scifi focused game.
Stellaris! It's a game like civilization, but in space. I have hundreds of hours in and it has been responsible for many nights of me staying up late than i should. Constant free updates and many options for paid dlc to expand your options.
If you're willing to wait, I don't think we should leave the upcoming Bethesda IP, Starfield out. It's due in September and from what little I've seen is a real competitor for Star Citizen.....
Except it will be complete.
I've already paid for the deluxe edition...
What have we said about pre-ordering games? xD
@ThunderQuack is Eve Online still around that used to be fun
I tried it a few years ago but couldn't complete the tutorial because organizations left no mining rocks around haha