More FREE and CHEAP Space Games - Spring Sales

GOG's current sale has some large discounts on some great space games. This includes space combat, adventure as well as sim games. Here's a few recommendations.
0:00 Intro
0:24 Diaspora: Shattered Armistice
2:11 Objects in Space
4:03 Observation
6:08 Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
7:37 Chorus
8:59 Hardspace: Shipbreaker
10:15 Journey to the Savage Planet
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Music by Epidemic Sound

[@dereksherwood3794]

Love Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. It's a very faithful love letter to Wing Commander Privateer. The station mechanics are the same. So, if they feel 'old', it's intentional. Very fun game :)

[@Acehalo2]

Be cautious with Objects in Space, the game was abandoned in early access in 2019 after about a year of development and radio silence from the developers ever since. It's interesting as a "what could be' game and not as a "what is" game. If you go into it knowing that it will (likely, though if against all odds the devs reappear after 6 years of ignoring it maybe there's a chance lol) never ever be finished and is abandonware now it's fun in a janky kind of way. :)

[@MGoogle3146]

A common tale unfortunately.

[@lumarious]

Yup. I think I played less than 10 hours before I hit a game breaking bug that prevented me from going any further. Was really enjoying it too 😢

[@WolfDarkrose]

cant ever forget spacebounre 2

[@randalthor6872]

yes this should get a lot more love!

[@gintonic5770]

He already mentioned Spacebourne 2 in the video, which was made 7 days ago (4 days prior to your comment)

[@Scimarad]

I was going to play Hardspace: Shipbreaker but I actually read the employment contract! :)

[@ironduke6100]

cannot recommend Diaspora enough. It's free, plays fantastically with a simple joystick, and you can complete the story in a day if you're a good pilot. I've played it many times and it never gets old

[@scissortongue5772]

Really appreciate these videos! Lovely stuff

[@romainguarinos4614]

Observation was a REALLY enjoying experience for me. It was a BIG YES for me ! I RECOMMAND it to ALL my friend ! The gameplay and SciFi story is sooooo nice ! Rebel Galaxy Outlaw has a really nice ambiance but a bit of to much grind for me. Quite fin none the less ! Chorus is quite beautiful ^^ We did Journey to The Salvage Planet and the DLC with a friend of mine. A little short but SO MUCH FUN ! The dark humour is everywhere and the story is fun ! Really refreshing !

[@oliverjunge8671]

I can't really recommend Objects in Space, not even at this price, because it is in an barely playable state. If you don't fancy flying 30 minutes just to loose all your progress because the game crashes when you try to dock afterwards, it might be a good idea to skip this one. Too bad, because if it was in an playable state, it would be among my favorites. I hope someone at some point will copy it and make something actually playable.

[@mart719]

Outlaw is probably the closest you’ll get to old school Privateer. Good fun game.

[@stab74]

Objects in Space apparently was abandoned by their devs some time ago. Mixed reviews on Steam. Too bad looks interesting.

[@ubertuna1]

I highly recommend Ostranauts to any looking for a similar title that is not abandonware, it plays almost identically while having much deeper shipbuilding and many other mechanics. Also in the realm of free and open source space games, Oolite and Pioneer are two massively overlooked titles I wish got more appreciation. Both are modern-ish remakes of the original Elite and Frontier: Elite II, respectively. These are some of the greatest single player space sims ever made in my opinion and it seems the only people who know of them are those who actually played the original Elite games and loved them so much they sought these projects out. These games are free and awesome! Go play them!

[@Elwaves2925]

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw was a great game with a great soundtrack. You can ignore the auto lock on if you want more of a challenge. Didn't know about that BSG but as a fan I'm definitely going to give it a look. Cheers Ant.

[@nullvoid244]

Thx bought rebel galaxy outlaw based on your recommendation

[@brianawilk285]

I went for the dying suns over Rebel Galaxy outlaw. Considering how short dying suns is Im probably gonna buy this now. I loved the first RG but I kow OL is a different type of game which is probably why I was hesitant.

[@randalthor6872]

you can go on nexus mods and download some really bad ass skins for your ships that other people have created with the ingame designer :)

[@RSProduxx]

I wish Diaspora would be turned into a full game with lots of funds etc... played it years ago. I´d call it a great demo for what a decent BSG game could be like

[@RadimentriX]

dumb question, does it have anything to do with "beyond the red line" or was that another BSG project that happened to use the freespace 2 engine?

[@RSProduxx]

@@RadimentriX I think there was another one. But I´m more familiar with the Freelancer mod tbh. I wasn´t even aware that Diaspora used that engine ...

[@dragonsteamworks6675]

Hardspace is a blast, in some cases literally if you're not careful. A massive recommend. If you don't want to deal with dying or some of the oxygen management you can just play in a more sandbox mode and just have fun. Chorus was a fun experience, just know you don't have the typical way to get around like in space. Forsaken flies like an aircraft more than a spaceship from what I recalled so it can be a bit jarring if you're expecting the traditional spaceship movement system. Still recommend it if you like combat and space magic.

[@dmacpher]

Loving this series - have found some gems

[@jamesharbinger1711]

I remember Diaspora, it was so much fun, and has a great story

[@The_Diginaut]

If we're mentioning space games where you don't fly space ships, Genesis Alpha One is insanely underrated and overlooked. I had so much fun with that game, it deserved more development.

[@this.is.a.username]

I wish I could recommend Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos, but I haven't been able to get it to run under windows 11. Shame, it's such a fun game.. hopefully GOG gets that fixed.

[@simondaniel4028]

That's a great game! IMO it still can compete with scale, activities, and just a beautiful UI if you've a HOTAS. I'd love to see that and the first game get some attention here. Christ that first game was a real b***h, lmaoooo

[@Freyar]

I know running above 1080 causes it to crash, but beyond that it works on win11

[@this.is.a.username]

@@Freyarrunning it AT 1080 causes it to crash. unless iw2 forums have fixed anything, the game is unplayable unless you play at 800x600

[@rockjianrock]

I played IW2 too and now i'm playing X4 on an UWHD. Sad to hear I wont be able to revisit it on my current system 😭

[@usernameMOT]

Chorus blew me away - don't remember what possessed me to buy it, but boy was I happy with that space drifting campaign.

[@emhome924]

Observation. one of the best.

[@Wayleran]

Avorion. One of my favorite games of all time. Wonderful little gem that doesn't get the credit it deserves. It's an indie title mostly made by one guy and has been consistently updated. I loved it 6 yrs ago when it was barebones and lacked balance and QoL but now it has tons of content, gameplay systems, very few bugs, tons of QoL, etc... Think of a combination of a space simulator with RPG elements and tactical engaging combat with diplomacy, trade routes, station building, missions, smuggling, and all the other things you could want. All that and it's basically "Minecraft in space" in regards to it's voxel based ship/station building and salvaging/mining. It also has a bit of a simple and fun 4X style grand strategy design. I couldn't recommend this game more and I wish more people would give it a shot. I've put well over 1000 hours with my buddy since 2017 and I see us playing this game for many years to come, if not, the rest of our lives to be honest!

[@user-fk8fr4om3m]

Very intuitive yet complex building system - takes a bit, but it's fun for systems nerds and min/maxers to design aesthetic, or unaesthetic (subjective) ships. I have 132 hours just in the creative mode lol.

[@Wayleran]

@@user-fk8fr4om3m Totally agree and also you can just import designs from the Steam workshop.

[@michaelmacdonell4834]

Another one to keep an eye on is "Astronomics". Simple, but very challenging. Currently has a demo on Steam.

[@Marguelito]

Nice one on Diaspora...now to Between the Ashes, also from the FSO engine, which is gonna release it's second act soon and both are absolutely free to play!!

[@ademason3096]

Observation is a great little game, it is short, but well worth a look

[@RadimentriX]

Chorus is awesome, played it on the steam deck and it's lotsa fun once you unlock the drifting and teleport abilities :D wish there was a successor for it

[@kspen72]

Who remembers the old diaspora? It was kind of cheesy super fun low graphics multiplayer

[@noxwarlord4909]

Love hardspace shipbreaker

[@pedro16797]

Another alternative for free space games is Juno: New Origins. It's a KSP-like space sim with a larger focus on creative freedom that has a freemium version for mobile and is also available on Steam.

[@Rebar77_real]

Tons of mods for the Rebel Galaxy series if you never got into them before. In RG:Warlord there are fleets too.

[@bemusedkidney8619]

I agree with the others that say Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is well worth a look.

[@happyspaceinvader508]

Really keen to play Observation, but waiting for a sale on Steam.

[@phobosd]

Keep an eye on Hunternet Starfighter :)

[@brianawilk285]

I just bought the dying sun and it reminds me of the old-school colony wars. Only thing I dont like about it is its a very bare bones game, I wish it had at least a little bit more in the load out customization. But I love how the combat feels.

[@CreatorOfWorlds]

Since we now have a game like shipbreaker, perhaps there soon will be games where you are tasked with building ships, colonies and space stations for clients.

[@DeadBaron]

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is a sequel to Rebel Galaxy. The first one you piloted a capital ship. Always wondered why they went to a starfighter game for the sequel.

[@Freyar]

Because people were complaining about not being able to go up and down

[@munkyheed]

@ObsidianAnt - Do any of these games have a VR mode? These (and the other collection you reviewed a few weeks back) woulda all be IMMENSE in a headset!

[@ThePlayerOfGames]

Good&cheap space games is such a niche to hit and yet IMHO you nailed it in this one 😁 I bought OIS in the early days because I was told the team was really talented, sad to hear it's turned into abandonware, it's very immersive

[@dsagent]

Freespace and Battlestar Galactica? I'll check out the first game for sure.

[@serafimdeyn2390]

I really recommend Observation! It's quite of an experience!

[@MAXdori]

I wonder how much Tachyon: The Fringe is now?

[@gokkiyoutube]

Neat!

[@luzkenin]

Observation reminds me of Iron Helix

[@broderp]

So where do you get these? that would have been nice information to have don't you think?

[@scottromesburg7935]

I've played Observation a few times

[@scottromesburg7935]

@efxnews4776 you should! Decent story and room for a sequel

[@scottromesburg7935]

@efxnews4776 definitely take the time!....leaves it wide open for a sequel

[@Planet2A]

Do you have a safe link for Dispora shattered armistrice?, I think freepsace 2 equal to my beloved microsft freelancer so If i can do some dogfighting instead of having to drink water and push elevator buttons im all in.

[@JoeRobson]

Adding my voice to the cautions about Objects in Space. I had a great time with it when it first came out, then returned to it last year with a new PC to find it completely unplayable- all the text is totally garbled. I suppose I could spend a day trying to make it work but there’s no hope of a patch from the devs in case something else breaks. A shame.

[@luckygrunt]

Does anyone know where I can stream Battlestar Galactica? I have a few services I use, and a VPN, so location isn't too much of an issue.

[@MianMianGaming]

starsector

[@MagnusInsomnia]

There's a game i've been looking for that is a spaceship combat game, but not in space, making it really fucking hard to find. It came out years ago and you pilot a ship in atmosphere in a similar way to war thunders battleships. much love to anyone that can remember this gem and point me towards it.

[@TheSarge23]

Dreadnoughts, perhaps?

[@Wafelkowiec]

I'd add Star Wars: Empire at War. Game is old, yes, but the conquest mode is still fun. The full potential lies in the Steam workshop. The mods are amazing though the game wasn't made for such complexity so optimisation, UI and few other things are a bit jank.

[@randalthor6872]

that game is amazing!

[@valkyrieorion7200]

No escape velocity?

[@allenmitchell3596]

Good vid, think you forgot the links

[@WarpedSpace]

One day 😉

[@adrianhall7822]

You forgot Oolite - completely free and a great port of the original Elite that started it all.

[@aoihitori]

Cheap games? I bought Starsector for less than $20 and became one of my favourite game ever.

[@HighlandStudio91]

Don't know if Warframe was ever mentioned on this channel, but downloaded it earlier yesterday & I was immediately taken in by it. Superb graphics, artwork, game mechanics are decent, interesting story and it appears to be quite an immersive game in terms of content. Very impressive game for a free one! It's cross platform and is single/multiplayer. I haven't delved too deep into it...but while there are space ships, I don't know if piloting one is an option...perhaps so(once I progress further?)

[@mega-doom]

Good video. I never thought I would write this. I am starting to think that space flight games in general are rather boring and dull and I have little hope for the future of space gaming in general. Star Citizen put me over the edge with how they see the future of space gaming. (Hint it is not good for the consumer.) The only space games worth supporting now is ELITE and No Man Sky. Any other franchise is just soul sucking. What is your take?

[@kettch777]

Journey to the Savage Planet is a great game, but it's more like Metroid Prime with heavy comedic elements than other space games.

[@RFC3514]

Where are you seeing Rebel Galaxy Outlaw for £5? It's over 20 on Steam.

[@ObsidianAnt]

As I said at the start of the video, this is the sale over on GOG. Check gog.com :)

[@RFC3514]

@@ObsidianAnt - I guess I missed that, and only played back the part about the actual games, where you mentioned the price. 😄

[@theonefrancis696]

Objects in space was a gem, too bad they left it to rot.

[@jwiz2974]

Really wondering how they are able to produce a BSG ripoff without geeting sued by the rights owners.

[@Elwaves2925]

I wondered that as well. Maybe it's because it's free and aren't profiting from it?

[@ricardioscarbonara102]

It's free so, not making money out of the IP

[@Inductus]

Like the others said it's not profiting, but also there are two other possibilities: simple ignorance which I don't frankly think so likely, or they just have some people with brains involved who realize that a project made by diehard fans is contrary to any threat and stomping on those serves no one's benefit. I guess if the IP was owned by Nintendo they would've stomped already.

[@MoA-Reload...]

There was BSG Online kicking around for a while but that fell on it's face. I guess if that was still a thing they'd go after it as a direct unlicenced competitor. For now the rights holder might see it as keeping hype around the ip up so letting it be it's thing. They're also probably well aware of the backlash brought down on CBS Paramount when they started going after fan made productions number of years back. That spilled over into the modding community and a number of projects were scrapped as they backed off from Star Trek to be safe and CBS/Para got a lot of flack from the fan base.

[@michaelvansise4887]

One other thing to note, this thing is ancient. "Diaspora: Shattered Armistice" was released in 2012. The game that it is a mod of is Open Freespace 2, and Freespace 2 was released in 1999. 12 year old mod of a 25 year old game.

[@pmcollectorboy2929]

What? No Helium Rain?

[@hkberard4934]

Star Citizen is game about making game

[@CelticUchuu]

Galaxy on Fire 2 Full HD Exo One Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut

[@bitofbeer]

Could you do a best VR space games?

[@simondaniel4028]

What would that list be though? The only worthwhile space games are games made for not-vr and then converted to it. * E:D if you've the hardware (and espically a voiceattack profile), * NMS for straight-up VR mechanics (body, ik) and given the wealth of content and cross-compatability, there's a lot to say for that too. * Freespace 2 Open if you've the paitence to configure it and have a good flightstick (the mods, like Blue Planet, are excellent campaigns) * Hardspace has UEVR but no developed profiles yet * Detatched is great fun if you're into a suit-sim but it isn't a flight game, really. * Overload isn't a space game, really, but the VR is great if you've the stomach for it * Home VR Spacewalk is a fun tech temo and a must-try for a great way to spend 20 mins doing something new * Fractal Fly - tech demo * Fly Dangerous - skeleton right now, but fun in theory, like canyon racing from E:D * The Outer Worlds has 6dof VR but I haven't tried it, I feel like we're getting away from 'space game' now... Dunno, maybe I missed some. Freespace2Open has the most potential for what I want, it just needs a long tutorial to set this or that the way you want. Elite, tho, man if you've a voice control set up and one of those AI assistant voice things, oh man. *

[@almostpilot378]

Evochron legacy....

[@MardenZengar]

Free or cheap, cause if it's free it can't be cheap, and if it's cheap it can't be free.

[@euteo]

I am so mad about Hardspace Shipbreaker - this had the potential to be an absolute gem with it's mechanics and physics - buuuut devs chose to spend the development money on a cheesy story and 40-50 hours of gameplay until it gets pointlessly repetitive.

[@Sniperahead]

ED and not boring.. great joke

[@getsideways7257]

Humans are weird creatures. They claim they love space sims, but never touch a real one with a ten feet pole in their lives...

[@Freyar]

Objects In Space had a lot of potential but the game was dropped incomplete in early access. Neat mechanics to toy with but not a clean experience. Lots of bugs.

[@nzavon]

None are on sale, for me

[@ObsidianAnt]

The sale is on gog.com

[@oomwat6101]

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw £23.79 Yeah right ... £3.59 would be OK, but that's just thievery!

[@aliensounddigital8729]

Chorus was a good game until you get to the end. The ending boss fight pretty much ruins the game. Everything after that goes back to being okay.

[@rafaelpolissperandio4222]

First

[@fennyfinari906]

None of these hold a candle to X4:Foundations.

[@johncrisp352]

Steam Sale….. What???

[@aliendoggy1]

no sale. its over!

[@ObsidianAnt]

GOG.com sale. :)

[@aliendoggy1]

@@ObsidianAnt Forgot about gog :P

[@jack_knife-1478]

I wish you would tell us the platforms they're on

[@zXPeterz14]

If your ever looking for video ideas then the best space games on consoles would be great for us console peasants 😅

[@unblessedcoffee1457]

You need to do more research on your videos if you are recommending objects in space...

[@CasepbX]

You would have to pay me play that gross ass Chorvs game

[@MikhaelHausgeist]

Dislike only because Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. Never ever EVER touch this shit even with mile long stich. This is quinessence of garbage elements fron old cosmosims.

[@lioraja9951]

space game.. lol those ae just iphone like "games"

[@RFC3514]

The "modern" Battlestar Gallactica series is great... for about 3 episodes. By season 2, they're scraping the bottom of the barrel. There are maybe 3 or 4 good episodes in the whole series after that, and it's when they ignore the massive hole(s) they dug the main story into and just do something unrelated. Great universe for a game, but definitely not a good TV show.

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

Eh, I'd say that the BSG remake was good to great, all the way through until the middle of S2, when gets killed, and then just walk away and pretend it got suddenly cancelled at that point, because the shark, it was massively jumped and it never got even vaguely good again. It's sadly all too ironic that the voice over talks about how the Cylons had a plan, because EXACTLY like ***king Lost, the writers never actually bothered to have one of their own, and it really, REALLY shows. But those first 1.5 seasons? Great stuff, and a very worthy re-imagining of the original, IMHO.

[@RFC3514]

@@DrBunnyMedicinal - Even in season 1, you could see cracks starting to appear (S01E05 is one of the _worst_ pieces of sci-fi I've ever watched, possibly as bad as Prometheus, though thankfully shorter). The original writer (Moore) had maybe 5 or 6 episodes in him, poured half of that into the two (pretty good) pilots, and didn't have enough left for a full season. So they started buying generic sci-fi plots from random writers and trying to hammer them into BSG. That sort of works in shows where each episode is a completely separate "adventure" and where the characters are already well established, but not when you're laying down the foundation for those characters (and for the show as a whole). The result was characters that behaved in completely different ways from one week to the next (because the plots hadn't been written with them in mind), deus ex machina plot devices that worked one week but inexplicably didn't the next, etc.. By season two, the problem wasn't just the writing; acting, editing and direction started to nosedive as well. There were a couple of fun episodes (directed by James Olmos), but the whole thing was just depressing.

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

@@RFC3514I think the show was still in S3 at most when I last watched it (much to my regret, I really should have stopped partway through season 2, though that was only obvious in hindsight) so I'll defer to your opinion on the series. Well, that was a lot longer ago than I realised.

[@RFC3514]

@@DrBunnyMedicinal - There's nothing to "defer". My opinion is my opinion; you may have more lenient standards. But it _is_ a fact that they started using other writers (that had no connection to the pilots / miniseries) during the first season. And the worst (IMO) of those writers, who apparently had zero experience with sci-fi, became the story editor for season 2.

[@talesfromthecrypto3698]

FTL is about $3 at the moment.

[@jerk_store]

Don't be fooled by the overwhelmingly positive reviews of Hardspace Shipbreaker. The game is extremely repetitive with only a handful of ships to salvage. The gameplay basically circles around, savage ship, unlock next level, rinse & repeat. And if playing games is your way of temporarily escaping politics and the world's troubles, don't get this game. The game shoves their political ideology down your throat, whether you want to hear it or not and whether it is relevant the the main story or not.