This is a great pick for fans of games like Elite Dangerous who want a new game that focuses on exploration, space travel, and adventure. You aren’t just exploring the galaxy you’re discovering it, planet by planet.

If you’re the first to set foot on a planet, you get to log and name its alien wildlife, which gives No Man’s Sky a sort of pioneer spirit that even Elite Dangerous can’t match. No Man’s Sky has more than 18 million billion worlds to find. It’s huge, too, bigger than you can fathom. The team also updated the visuals and optimized the engine.Īt long last, that interplanetary adventure envisioned in No Man’s Sky’s previews and trailers has finally arrived, and it’s an absolute dream to play through. In the years since launch, regular updates have added requested features like full multiplayer, fleshed out base building, and the ability to command your own armada. The game we got on release, unfortunately, was a shallow and buggy mess. It promised a galactic playground where the planets and everything on them were procedurally generated. No Man’s Sky’s vague but stunning 2014 trailer was always going to be hard to live up to. Here’s 8 space sim games like Elite Dangerous to check out today. Whether you’re chasing the high of an action-packed dogfight or want to trade your way to wealth, you’re bound to find something in here to love. This list of space sim games similar to Elite Dangerous offers the best of both. Some aim for realism, while others emulate the thrill of whirling through the stars at breakneck speed. We’ve since seen a resurgence in space sims.

The advent of digital distribution in the late 2000s ushered an indie boom and a second coming for niche genres, the space sim included. Even at its height in the ’90s, when critics couldn’t stop gushing over Wing Commander and X-Wing, the space sim was never massive. The space sim has always been a niche genre. Players are free to explore any of the game’s 400 billion star systems, completing all sorts of work, from bounty hunting jobs to cargo runs. Released in 2014, Elite Dangerous thrusts players into the cockpit of a spaceship on a course to, well, anywhere they want.

Best free pc space simulation games