Most Space Games Suck

[@thementalgentleman]

Now that I've had a chance to read the comments. I've got to say I apologise for the No Man's Sky slander, it might be a good idea to revisit it now the big update has come out; my bad. (I love spreading misinformation online)

[@evanv-qm8dg]

Eh, the new update is mainly just graphics and a few extra locations. No vastly new systems as far as I can remember reading. That said, I really like no man's sky and I just picked it up. So maybe I just don't know how much of a difference the updates I called "small" make.

[@killfected7309]

the game is completelly diferent then it used to be. even if one does not like it i think the devs deserve respect for actually trying, they released an broken and unfinished game and now try to correct that mistake with hard work.

[@KeijoKurkkuGaming]

Might be a good idea to play the games you review yes indeed😂 nms is awesome

[@X862go]

Do you know about portable refiner duplication ? Brother, we aren't mining shit in 2024 😅. Unless it's an expedition, they make you start over on those. (Kinda)🎉

[@X862go]

It's great to hear cadets. Now, get to your ship and fix it. Next, reach the first drop zone. Do your part to purge the infestation.😅 P.s. We only got 4 weeks for this expedition. You get an armored mech for completion 🎉

[@TheGuyWhoComments]

Kerbal space program:

[@X862go]

What a gem

[@TheGuyWhoComments]

@@X862go we may never get such a good game for a long time

[@X862go]

@@TheGuyWhoComments true

[@techsbyglebbagrov7470]

I was scrolling through comments, hoping to find KSP, and well, here we are!

[@X862go]

@@techsbyglebbagrov7470 welcome fellow Kerbals.

[@okeman7614]

Not even 1 minute in and already got a tank game ad in a space game video.

[@I_am_a_human_not_a_commodity]

Please start using bBlock Origin and SponsorBlock for your sanity.

[@aritrobhattacharya6480]

I think the best example here undeniably is Outer Wilds. It is a game that is about Space Exploration, with a quite fantastic sci-fi story, and without grinding!

[@Flamme-Sanabi]

agreed

[@temmie9430]

Outer wilds w

[@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa8725]

The fact outer wilds wasn't mentioned is crazy. Masterpiece space exploration game.

[@deeplerg7913]

@@asdfghjkllkjhgfdsa8725 Outer Wilds is the correct way to do exploration. *This* is actual exciting exploration, not the "get to point B the fastest" grind that so many other games try to market as exploration

[@AltAccount-oh6ey]

You can't spell "Outer Wilds" without a capital W ione of if not the best space game out there for sure

[@glowdonk]

Despite the initial failure of NMS there's still something amazing being put into it, from a new expedition giving kickass building schematics or cosmetics (and sometimes even a shiny new ship with a unique look), or even things the community asked for for years (like ship making with pre-existing parts)

[@glowdonk]

The evolution of the game is what makes me come back

[@X862go]

💯

[@panagiotisgalinos1335]

A "Space" game is defined as a game in which the thematic setting takes place in OUTER space. Outer space refers to the vast expanse that lies beyond Earth's atmosphere and encompasses the region between celestial bodies. Consequently, a game situated on a singular planet other than Earth that does not involve any interaction with the aforementioned outer space environment would not be accurately classified as a "Space" game.

[@X862go]

Well spoken 😅 but now my smooth brain hurts 😅

[@panagiotisgalinos1335]

@@X862go lol

[@efxnews4776]

@@panagiotisgalinos1335this dude literally did a space sim x space themed. Apples and oranges...

[@zed12-ui4jy]

I think there's another category of space game: spaceship simulator

[@youngkaiser5870]

I mean, most game are sci fi or space themed games (ME as rpg example, Star Wars as shooters, rts etc) and then we get others that are ship or space exploration focus, but lacking so much on certain aspects

[@Quadzilla675]

Bro actually said No man’s sky is a failure. It’s probably the only success in open world space games. It just had a really bad start.

[@Macintoshiba]

to be fair, it was really atrocious at launch. Nobody expected the 180 it has done to this day, so if youve only ever heard about No mans sky back then and not heard about it ever again youd assume its bad. (but that goes to show that maybe he wasnt too thorough in looking into what games hes actually putting up here)

[@clarkmichaels822]

It's still a space game, and space games are boring.

[@Quadzilla675]

@@clarkmichaels822 good for you👍

[@miniwhiffy3465]

@@clarkmichaels822tf you on a video about space games if you don’t like them?

[@bluegoose7832]

Nah it's genuinely so boring, even in 2024

[@JorBoi99]

Let’s not forget the fact that NMS “used to suck” and now the developers have invested so much time and love that it now feels super alive unique and different. In fact, the latest update saw a massive overhaul of planet generation in general and it’s only a PART 1 of a FREE UPDATE! An update of MANY! It’s pretty cool. There are still some multiplayer bugs, but hey… give them some credit

[@ballom29]

Agree. But saddly NMS still had the flaws at its very core it's a shallow and disconnected game, "The surface of an ocean but the depth of a puddle" where cool stuff is added but you've seen the main beef of it within an hour.... still more engaging than starfield

[@mattiaamadori803]

@@ballom29 that’s not entirely true, imo. I have almost 150 hours and I still have a lot of stuff to do. There is much depth to it, maybe it simply isn’t the kind of depth that you expected, and that’s ok, everyone’s different after all. But saying that you’ve seen the most of it in just an hour is absolutely false.

[@ballom29]

​@@mattiaamadori803 I had more hours than you. Never ever said you see the whole game after 1 hour. But for each kind of different content, after 1 hour of it you've seen most of it. - Space wreckage? yeah it's fun the first time, then it's always the same thing - Space stations? cool the first time you see it...oh they're all the same (except the exterior that now had variation) - settlement? choose option A or B, pour ressources in, wait for hours, repeat, and your settlement will look as empty and souless at the end than it was at the beginning. - building a fleet is engaging and it's rewardign to see your entire fleet warp along your capital ship... but after reading the first few report of expeditions - squadron...squadrons - and the list go on And obviously my statement is not absolute, there IS stuff that will take time, like having to endure the endless extreme worlds of Calypso galaxy (if you don''t cruise through the galaxy withotu setting foot on a world ). But at its core NMS has a lot of shallow features disconnected from each others. Evne if we've kept the shallowness..imagine if for exemple you could see frigates of your fleet periodically docks to your settlement ! Or if your squadron mates could accompany you during wreckage exploration ! (even thos it would still feel repetitive)

[@ballom29]

@@mattiaamadori803 ​ I had more hours than you. Never ever said you see the whole game after 1 hour. But for each kind of different content, after 1 hour of it you've seen most of it. - Space wreckage? yeah it's fun the first time, then it's always the same thing - Space stations? cool the first time you see it...oh they're all the same (except the exterior that now had variation) - settlement? choose option A or B, pour ressources in, wait for hours, repeat, and your settlement will look as empty and souless at the end than it was at the beginning. - building a fleet is engaging and it's rewardign to see your entire fleet warp along your capital ship... but after reading the first few report of expeditions - squadron...squadrons - and the list go on And obviously my statement is not absolute, there IS stuff that will take time, like having to endure the endless extreme worlds of Calypso galaxy (if you don''t cruise through the galaxy withotu setting foot on a world ). But at its core NMS has a lot of shallow features disconnected from each others. Evne if we've kept the shallowness..imagine if for exemple you could see frigates of your fleet periodically docks to your settlement ! Or if your squadron mates could accompany you during wreckage exploration ! (even thos it would still feel repetitive)

[@ballom29]

@@mattiaamadori803 ​ I had more hours than you do. Never ever said you would see the whole game after 1 hour. But for each kind of different content, after 1 hour of it you've seen most of it. - Space wrckage? yeah it's fun the first time, then it's always the same thing - Space stations? cool the first time you see it... oh they're all the same (except the exterior that now had variation) - settlement? choose option A or B, pour ressources in, wait for hours, repeat, and your settlement will look as souless at the end than it was at the start. - building a fleet is engaging and it's rewarding to see your entire fleet warp along your capital ship... but after reading the first few reports of expeditions it's jsut "blabla you got 200k credits" - squadrons...squadrons - and the list go on And obviously my statement is not absolute, there IS stuff that will take time, like having to endure the endless extreme worlds of Calypso galaxy (if you don''t cruise through the galaxy withotu setting foot on a world ). But at its core NMS has a lot of shallow features disconnected from each others. Evne if we've kept the shallowness..imagine if for exemple you could see frigates of your fleet periodically docks to your settlement ! Or if your squadron mates could accompany you during wreckage exploration ! (even thos it would still feel repetitive)

[@alvinsrr]

Nms is best space exploration game. You can explore, build ships, build bases, do quests, be pirate, learn languages....and many more!

[@devanggupta9007]

@@Xariann not rlly each base i spend over 10 hours makign is unique, each ship i spend 15 hours tracking down, disassembling, and joining to create my own unique amazing ship is amazing, the 20 hours ive spent with my pets, making weed farms, bribing authorities, getting higher rankings and scamming npcs. take it slow man its not actually about the goal, its about the journey, that ends up giving my objective the emotional attachment making me love it for ever

[@Zood94]

NMS is a good game, but not good exploration game. The planets looks amazing don't get me wrong. But the exploration basically boil down to go to marked locations. Not actually exploring. Space is empty until you have notification of random encounters. Planet is empty until you see random structure that pop up when you fly to any direction of the planet "exploring" or marked from certain NPC.

[@Fuar11]

You can do "quests" which are a select few somewhat well written text based story missions, radiant quests and community missions that repeat themselves, etc.. You can "be a pirate" which really just involves shooting down civilian ships for loot. Not much depth there. You can "learn languages" which is just clicking on a knowldge stone, language database or talking with aliens. Each alien word corresponds to some gibberish mash of characters, which isn't really how languages work anyways

[@X862go]

💯🙌

[@X862go]

​@@XariannI'm telling get a crew together NMS is actually a blast with friends. I mean ppl even make race tracks we have cars motorcycle submarines it's a blast. Plus up to 32 players on pc can be in the same location. Oh and up to 4 can warp on the same freighter 👨‍🚀 🚀

[@BrittTheFurry]

You can't really compare space sims to space themed games. The entire Star Citizen theme is to simulate a life as an advanced civilization. Most planets in space are just empty, boring, lifeless rocks. I sunk hundreds of hours in Elite Dangerous, yea, it gets boring and repetitive, but it's up to you to decide what to do. That's simulating life, the entire theme around it. It's easy to trash a space sim if all you know is story rich, action packed games with linear gameplay. But when you start up a space sim, you create your own story. Stick to one thing or do everything? Be a menace to society or abide to the laws of your faction? It's all up to you. They just provide you with the tools, you build your own story. For example, the stories I created around me in Elite Dangerous are mine to enjoy and to tell others. I started during the great mining rush of 3306. Switched to exploration for a while before being a passenger pilot. Then I became a trader. Now I'm hauling other players across the stars aboard my carrier. I only hop on every now and then, but then there are big events happening. Like I said, the mining rush, virtually anyone became a deep core miner. Then you get a political drama the next months, thargoids trash a space station where your experience as Beluga Liner pilot helps during evac, next a terrorist attack on the core systems. A long planned intergalactic trade route is being build, just in time for someone to claim, they can hear the hivemind of thargoids and a big corp to use that to build a weapon. Then Canonn Research, a player faction, encounter some weird light spirals after a big corp tried to destroy all thargoids with that weapon. These spirals turn out to be giant titans, only rumored for a decade to exist somewhere that now launch a full scale invasion of the inhabited systems. nearly a year later, we're now destroying titans, but the future? Idk what will happen. The story is yours to make, you either take part in the life or you detach yourself from it. All these events, they happened in a 5 year span. In between, you just drift along, listen to chatter, do what you want. By no means does that mean, everyone will find it enjoyable, or it is perfect. But it's an entire genre you try to compare with a different genre. All they have in common is space.

[@Aztaable]

Lots of empty spaces will be filled in once we get base building in SC. Which is next up.

[@Layesliosa]

With Star Citizen example it's more of: "log into the game, take up delivery quest, the server lags and delivery box falls through the ground. Take up mercenary quest, the server lags, and your ship randomly blows up while flying through space. Take up mining quest, the server lags..."

[@X862go]

I really hope they streamline that game it looks amazing and is so difficult to play. I think they would only stop developing if they run out of money 💰.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

@@X862go Thankfully the server meshing tech works(according to the public tests they've held), it is coming in the next major patch. They had to get over a super big hurdle with some backend stuff with 3.24, but they're finally wrapping that up and focusing on the server stability in the next patch.

[@coyote-1312]

I've had some of the most incredible gaming experiences in star citizen and some of the most frustrating. For shooty shooty action stuff I've been a part of some crazy battles for jump town (the drug lab) but you gotta spend a lot of time learning how PvP works, because it's NOT easy to start at, and not to mention all the setup. Aside from the obvious lag and bugs, SC's biggest problem is matchmaking. When you're fighting for a location with dozens of other players, it's fuckin' sick. But often times you might show up to a POI with your squad and there's no one there.

[@trenchXspike]

@@coyote-1312rbc rep i have never had more fun in a game than outrunning a nuke on foot carrying a satchel of drugs

[@notdistracted1289]

i would like to add that no man’s sky had a huge comeback and is now, in my humble opinion, an absolute banger of a spaceboi game to sink hours of would-be sleep into

[@clumsy2615]

How about space building? Space engineers is genuinely one of the best (space) games, combining the "gameplay" of multiplayer crew you can see in star citizen with the abundancy of servers available (kinda like no man's sky). All that is ignoring the fact that you can make absolutely any kind of ship you desire. There can actually be legends about different builds, kinda like the millenium falcon is recognised in the star wars universe.

[@temmie9430]

I made a thingy in the game and it busted when hitting the ground

[@VoxAstra-qk4jz]

​@@temmie9430skill issue

[@Yamyatos]

Yikes.. i really fail to see why so many people hype up Space Engineers. When i last tried the game, they still didnt fix the same freaking janky issues with connectors that cause ships and hours of work to be destroyed in planetary gravity in a coop environment, that casued us to quit literally *half a decade* earlier. Meanwhile, about 20 new DLCs have been released. Start a coop playthrough on a planet and learn to hate the game. Ask yourself why it's an option if the devs are too incompetent to make it work, and realise they simply dont care. I hate Space Engineers. Because it *could* have been such a great game.

[@nanamisonohara864]

@@Yamyatos if you mean subgrid causing shisp to sink ,yeah ,that been there for long time (basically inertia dampeners can't include in their calculations subgrid (or marked ship on your main ship) weight so you slowly sink down. Coop on planet always worked for me and my friends so maybe you didn't had luck or we had? I think the power of that game is now mostly community with all those mods to give you more "blocks" to play with. You want story and little less bugs? go to empyrion ..basically space engineers without as much big community but always something. Anyway time to go back to SE ,my battleship not gonna build itself (this is what gives me fun ,just designing stuff ,building :) )

[@Yamyatos]

@@nanamisonohara864 We usually play vanilla in most games. The issue with the connectors (the thingys to dock to, to transfer ressources to a base, if that's what they were called) we had was mostly that the physics based docking doesnt fare well with larger atmospheric ships docking to a planetary base. Sometimes the jank just adds up and the vibrations end up ripping the ship into two halves. I mean.. sure you can repair stuff in space engineers, but at that point you'll have to decide which half to keep and then grind the other one completely down and rebuild the entire ship half by hand. Which is extremely frustrating and simply doesnt feel good, especially if it wasnt user error that caused the loss. Losing a ship because you got desoriented in a drill hole and engineered a badly balanced atmospheric drillship that then crashes into a wall is one thing. Losing a ship to a badly implemented docking mechanic is another. The other annoying issue with playing on planets was basically the time it takes to leave gravity. Since there is no orbit mechanics you basically just have to go up until you are outside of the gravity well. If i remember correctly, due to the extremely low speed cap, that took .. was it 5 minutes or 15? Now imagine you want to build a space station.. so you bring a couple mats up to start building, realise you forgot something, need to go down again, get the parts, bring them up again. That's 3 trips of doing basically nothing for quite some time. May aswell build a flying base on the surface then and fly the entire thing into "orbit", but that doesnt feel very satisfying either. I realise that at least the second issue is probably something you could fix with mods, but overall the entire atmospheric gameplay loop just feels so badly thought through that we usually quit from frustration before too long. In theory i really like the game. It's just that in practice, whenever we tried to play it, we ended up cursing the devs. Not like we didnt try either. I think i have over 300 hours in the game, and *every single last attempt* ended basically due to frustration with the devs. Basicaly a hate-love relationship with the game. We want to love it, because it's a fantastic concept, but because that's the case we end up hating it for its shortcomings. If we ever try the game again, we will probably just start in space. That takes care of most of the issues we had with the game.. tho it feels like a shame since planets are cool.

[@anolive7535]

I know it's not a space exploration game, but anyone here a fan of FTL? It's a rogue-like where instead of piloting a ship, you control the ship and it's crew as a sort of commander/captain.

[@snarkylive]

Star Citizen is also a rogue-like imo. I think that's something that is missing from a lot of people's thoughts. Death of a Spaceman isn't fully implement, but the way the game is designed, you have limited resources, you outfit your character, you go out into space to do missions or trading, and if you die, you gotta restart, reequip. You could get killed in a bounty mission, killed by a player, die in a bunker, crash into a planet, but the goal is ultimately to see how long you can get a ship and character going without doing something stupid.

[@Supernova094]

Kinda sad elite dangerous didnt make it to list even tho its a decade old now

[@glizzyboi7558]

Perfect example of ‘what could have been’ in space games

[@user-sm4xb1kw6m]

Woah, that's a game I haven't heard of in a while

[@utahraptorgamer5183]

VR elite will always be the GOAT of space games for me

[@cheesyvoid3143]

Because its publisher / developer is trash. It's a good thing that barely anyone remembers this game, otherwise Frontier Developers will think that they must be doing something right.

[@efxnews4776]

ED is essentially a game in life support now, even X4 is more relevant than ED at this point...

[@Blowtorch87]

All of you need to try out Starsector. This game is a work of art both in character and ship design, not to mention the masterful writing. Makes you feel like a Rogue Trader from 40k

[@trengilly01]

Yeah, I love Starsector. It nails the feeling of space exploration and discovery while letting you play however you want. Travel feels like a real adventure while not taking an excessive amount of time. And you feel the vastness of space. The setting and lore is great and the universe really feels alive. And the gameplay loop is fun!

[@dbateman]

It's ok, but hopefully Starsector 2 will come out and be 3D.

[@Eradicator-jv9xr]

​@@dbateman that's probably not happening, ever

[@LEGIONCABAL]

PREY (2017) MENTIONED, I FUCKING LOVE PREY (2017) WERE GONNA SHAKE THINGS UP MORGAN! I SEE A BLACK SHAPE IN THE GLASS! THIS IS THE MOMENT MORGAN YU (AS IN YOU, THE PLAYER (META)) BECAME THE PREY (2017)! PLEASE FILL OUT A PATIENT QUESTIONNAIRE AT THE FRONT DESK!!! (PREY (2017))!!!!

[@Cyrum7]

PUSH THE FAT MAN 🗣️🗣️

[@bruhus_momentum]

Based

[@efxnews4776]

@@LEGIONCABAL comparing Prey with NMS is like comparing apples and oranges... One is an space sim, the other is a looter shooter...

[@LilFeralGangrel]

​@@efxnews4776did you just call Prey a looter shooter? because it definitely isn't, where's the looting? it's only a "shooter" in the sense that there are guns in it. But anyway yeah "space games" aren't really a thing, like OP had footage of FTL but FTL could have been about wizards using magic space tanks and it wouldn't change much, its "spacyness" is skin-deep Prey (2017) is set in space but it's only in the Moon's orbit and removing space would substantially change it because of its mechanics around gravity and also the bits where you explore outside Talos 1. I think the issue with Starfield is unique to the context of the game, Bethesda and its outdated engine. It being set in space isn't the issue, it's just that in developing it Bethesda followed their worst instincts.

[@bruhus_momentum]

@@LilFeralGangrel Well there is looting and shooting in Prey but it definetly isn't a looter shooter. Its classified as a immersive sim

[@plaernotree]

Can we identify each aspect of the genre?? Competent Flight model, 6dof, seamless planetary entry, mining, building, dog fighting, zero g, factions, economy No man's sky would satisfy but the preschool Flight model kills my interest!

[@ezoni8438]

(elite dangerous)

[@Cliffboah]

(Star citizen)

[@IsegrimSTP]

X4

[@nifftbatuff676]

These just formulaic ancillary, tropes. They could apply to any game.

[@plaernotree]

@@nifftbatuff676 yeah but unless they come together in one package it's ineffective, Which is the point of contention! It's all illusionary but how you bring the elements together is whatmakesit click! It a flying apartment with the ability to sustain in a hostile environment. Fun is the interactive systems to keep going. No man's sky has done most of it barring the flight model and cartoony look!! How much better would it be if the flight was at least ace combat derivative!

[@ExTess]

One of the main reasons I played Elite: Dangerous was because I enjoyed the idea of flying a ship through space. Everything else was secondary to Buzz Lightyear-ing myself through the cosmos in search of alien treasures and cool encounters. I loved learning how to land, I loved lifting off, I loved driving the little buggy, I loved refueling by screaming past stars at the risk of burning to a crisp, I loved almost getting wiped by a black hole, I loved escaping player pirates trying to suck up my cargo, and I love almost colliding with planets at speeds faster than human perception - the whole nine yards. But now? I have a car. And I hate driving, and figuring out how to park, and fueling up at gas stations, and dodging assholes on the road, and maintaining speed so I don't get pulled over for being too slow or too fast, and taking care of my car, and everything else related to operating said car. I look back at Elite and have these fond memories, but I can't bring myself to playing it again because I already have to spend a lot of time on the road every week and playing Space Trucking Simulator is the literal last thing I want to do. I wish space exploration games like Elite and No Man's Sky were still fun to me, but nowadays its just a slog disguised as a video game. "Smaller" games like Prey and Outer Wilds help to mitigate that a little, but honestly it's just not the same

[@Flamme-Sanabi]

I like Outer Wilds, it does something NMS does not have: Very unique planets with unique features.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

Wouldn't necessarily say NMS doesn't have unique planets or features, it's that the NMS biomes are static for the entire planet, so if you find a bubble planet, the whole planet is filled with bubbles and so it takes away from the uniqueness aspect when entire planets are lathered in that overlay. Our brains also tell us that that isn't realistic, so it also dampens the feeling of awe, especially when you encounter several other planets with the exact same properties.

[@Flamme-Sanabi]

@@Billy-bc8pk do tell me too, what do the bubbles do?

[@AgusSkywalker]

Nothing, they are a feature of the planet, the terrain has bubbles everywhere. That's just how that planet looks.

[@Flamme-Sanabi]

@@AgusSkywalker but the bubbles themselves have no feature, you cannot interact with them at all.

[@AgusSkywalker]

@@Flamme-Sanabi that's what I said

[@Koplerio]

X4 Foundations It's... a space... sim? Very grindy though- You don't land on planets, so it's space-only. You have some alien species, some of which have multiple factions who are rivals to each other. The space is completely simulated; Every ship and station is simulated/emulated. Runs smoothly though. You're just some dud who lives in the universe, there's some stories to follow. There is a bad robot civ that is trying to destroy all of life and it's made by humans of course. You can mine, do missions, shoot down other ships, sometimes even cap them for yourself. You can build up a small fleet, build your own stations later in game and have a full empire of your own. It's a lot of sitting in the map/UI screens at that point though, but you don't have to. If you want to you can just be a badass pilot destroying them robot ships in masses and save the galaxy from extinction that way somehow. People even made a fully functioning star-wars modification to the game.

[@Luckyleol]

yea, good game, though not that accessible. if you just look at the mainstream space games, you can get a skewed view of the state of the space sim genre. but in reality true space sims cater to a niche audience that enjoy these minutia and has the patience to learn them.

[@0Apostata0]

But it's very big on wasting your time, waiting literal hours to build stations.

[@X862go]

Oh yeah, more power to ya 💪 I can't 😅. I'll just fly in circles and big house 😅.

[@Koplerio]

@@0Apostata0 I mean you can have another constructionship from another faction build it for you while you do other things

[@0Apostata0]

@@Koplerio Doesn't matter. Egosoft clearly shows that they don't respect players time by making everything last forever. I had to start modding to speed up the game. I like the game but I don't have 30 hours a week for gaming to make any meaningful progress.

[@allergic2bulletz875]

"Some Space Games Rock" Right off the bat, it's important to acknowledge that "simulators are not games" is a subjective opinion. Simulators have been a core part of the industry from its inception, back when airplanes and spaceships were barely recognizable wireframes on monocolor backgrounds. It's an understandable perspective; if you can't enjoy the minutia of a space trucker game then wading through it for the occasional duel with a pirate is going to be a terribly boring experience. But I think the implication behind saying "space sims are not games" is that they cannot be fun, and that the parts that are fun are in spite of the genre. So here are some games that directly address what you talked about. 1. Starsector blends procedural generation and hand crafted content to give the player a recognizable setting and consistent experience in the literal core of the game world without compromising the sense of scale. Exploration is rewarding both in in-game loot and in the play-feel of finding ancient ruins, spatial anomalies, and natural wonders far away from civilization. The game extends the same invitation to "be anyone, do anything," but the different careers a player can take all nudge them towards interacting with the real gem of the game's design, which is the three-layer pyramid of fleet combat, ship customization, and player-run industry. The game's modding community is also very active and can easily double (or more) the amount of content in the game. 2. EVE Online solves the problem of creating a believable living universe by turning the job over to the players, and it has been a very effective strategy. The different regions of the map take on the character of the players that are work, live, and hunt there. Every thing a player does, from exploration, cargo running, industry or faction PvE is in direct competition with another and so all activities carry risk of sudden, unplanned "player-on-player interaction." Every bullet, every scrap, every ship has passed through some player's hands to reach the market, all of which took part in this dangerous and unpredictable environment. The barrier to entry is the highest here, but it is unparalleled in its delivery of a true simulation of a science fiction world. 3. House of the Dying Sun is the most streamlined entry in the sub-genre of space arcade combat games, which generally answer the problem of "fun" vs time investment by getting straight to the core of their gameplay and presenting minimal barriers to it. It is a game about piloting a nimble starfighter in beautiful and intense space battles and everything in the game revolves around and returns to this fact. As the taste of modern gaming audiences (and Chris Roberts!) have moved towards bigger-budget projects, games in the style of Wing Commander or Freelancer have fallen out of favor, but House of the Dying Sun is a stylish and wonderfully orchestrated treasure of unadulterated vacuum violence. There are plenty of other, more niche games like FTL, Nebulous, Delta-V, Kerbal Space Program, Avorion, other sub-genres like Endless Sky, Starcom, and Transcendence, and even competitors with the high-budget entries like X4. The genre is not limited to Star Citizen, Elite, or Space-Skyrim and you're doing yourself a major disservice by writing it off because of their faults.

[@zejulius58]

And there are pretty much no other game than EVE Online where player made wars lasted over a year with actual daily fighting taking place :D (yes it falls under player generated content, but I felt it was worth mentioning !)

[@Luckyleol]

i think this discussion is a bit more complex than just two basic types. i wouldn't really call games set in a sci-fi or "space" setting a space game. one must interact with the space. there are more space sims, creative sandbox, arcadey space fighters, strategy space games. not every type of space game will cater to everyone. one the more "refined" space sims could be elite dangerous, which yes certainly has quite a bit of a grind and had a decline, but that game is like space trucking, and a certain type of person really enjoys that. the X4 series is a sandbox career sim in space, dealing with other factions and starting with one tiny ship and expanding to a larger company/faction with various of ships automating what you used to do yourself. rebel galaxy a more arcadey capital ship sandbox campaign with main quests and side quests to gain more money and improve your ship. starsector a 2d space sim where you can manage a fleet, salvage ships, trading, be a mercenary for an established company in a randomized galaxy. space engineers, fabricating and designing ships. avorion. pulsar lost colony like ftl but 3d and co-op. space sims ain't for everyone, but there are quite a variety of them that does things well.

[@tim-3705]

the only space game that did it for me is elite dangerous. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is one of my most favourite games.

[@Joseph-wh5of]

It's pretty good. I play both elite and Starfield I wish I could combine both.

[@combineconformist]

Made me feel like a space trucker and I loved it

[@annasinnata572]

I also love it but the engineering grind to progress any further is just so annoying, thankfully fdev has improved it alot these last few days

[@jestemrobatem5179]

This is the peak of space games for me

[@moroblizniak4457]

Nice video You got there. But smashing NMS and starfield together is literally offence to the Hello Games Studio... They pour so much work into this update that is unrecognizable from day 1 game. Yes, after you complete story, build a base, get your dream fleet of ships and build a farm, there is nothing to do BUT i would rather play nms to end of my days than a wet joke that Starfield is...

[@thementalgentleman]

Yeah, I agree I could have differentiated it more, I did have a separate bit about No man's sky but I couldn't figure out what I wanted to say so I cut it. It's a tricky game to talk about for sure! (I personally don't find it all that engaging due to all the resource micromanagement, but maybe I just need to take more time to get into it)

[@driten0684]

@@thementalgentleman if you want to play nms and dont have to worry about all the resorces you need i recomend just buying them it really tones down the grinding as money is really easy to get.

[@lukebradley5134]

@@driten0684 fr I am shocked how much ferrite you can buy in 10 minutes

[@dellconagher12]

@@thementalgentleman yeah the resource management might be boring but the trick is on exploring the galaxy as what you are a "traveler" take a minute to watch the sky and the ocean to see the fish and the birds (and yeah doing a secondary mission that is important for the 3 main misions is boring as hell i expirienced it)

[@martinsalgado345]

​@@thementalgentlemanif u ever want a less grindy experience in Nms you can personalize your game so you recieve more resources or more necesary resources are more accesible, by appearing in shops and being cheaper, you can literaly personalize it yo your preference since 4.0 i believe

[@battlefield456]

I know of a good space game. "Starscape." The Roblox one. Yes the best space game (IMO) is on Roblox, deal with it. Exploration? Quests? Combat? Faction war and propaganda? Fully customizable ships & sub-systems to fit your styles and needs? Each system has custom stars and plants? A fun community with memes? FREE to play with NO pay 2 win? Check, check, and check! The few things that ruin the game from success is: One dev working during his free time. To many systems, not enough players. The gameplay loop can be VERY boring at times (mostly when getting new stuff). You cant land on planets. There is also lore but its lacking. I would love to see this gem of a game get more attention, even with its flaws it's still super fun and addicting.

[@jestemrobatem5179]

Hello my starscape fella! I love this game too! Playing it for 4 years, don't regret single minute of it.

[@MTODbasics]

I find that most of the fun I get in SC always comes from interactions with players. Roleplaying a space doctor has been my go to lately. When you respond to a distress call you never know if you get to help out someone I. Need or get ganked by their friends and get left stranded on a planet with only a snack bar.

[@admiralkaede]

Same

[@trenchXspike]

one of the coolest relatively low stakes moments i’ve had in SC - in gaming in general - was being a hired guard for an arms deal between differenr players. standing there with a gun and being intimidating to make sure no one tried nothin was pretty cool and i got an extra railgun out of it

[@spacecat7377]

No man’s sky has made a huge turn around, to where I wouldn’t count it as a failure anymore. It’s just recently hit an all time high in players

[@PANDORAZTOYBOKZ]

An all time high is great, but the game still has barely delivered on any of the original promises. Going from a broken mess, to a mediocre base building game with absolutely nothing in common with the game people wanted to begin with.

[@Yamyatos]

@@PANDORAZTOYBOKZ What is missing, according to you? The game is pretty much unrecognizable every few major updates.. and we had 50 of those since launch. To be honest, your comment seems like your opinion is based on the game like 2 years after launch, not 8. While the game isnt perfect, i dont think i remember much that was promised that they didnt deliver yet. People build bases that look like works of art. You can customize ships by now. Planets actually look increadible now. Heck, we even got flying islands since recently. There is huge animals now. The game isnt perfect, that's impossible. But compared to the rest of the bunch.. like starfield of star citizen, it's in its own league.

[@GuildOfCalamity]

Agreed with everything. Most gameplay loops are only focused on QoL improvements, but that's all. Why do I need the bigger ship? So I can haul more loot at one time... QoL. Why do I need a better gun? So I can dispatch the enemies faster... QoL. etc.

[@KuvaKonkorer]

Sense of accomplishment, making you feel more powerful as you progress. To help boost your feelings of being your own character, making your way to the top. To establish the accomplishments of your journey, and affirm those your reasons for pushing forwards.

[@KuvaKonkorer]

The way you look at it. Might as well say. Playing a game is Just QoL. Which it is. So why play? You play for satisfaction, to escape this world, to rid yourself of negativity or satiate your need for endorphins. That is why we play games. QoL is not bad. It is good. Maybe not sufficient enough for one to retain satisfaction, ultimately leading to the stoppage of you from playing that game. But that’s not bad.

[@weylinstoeppelmann9858]

I hate space games that make you do dozens to hundreds of consecutive jumps to get anywhere. Eve Online, Freelancer, Elite Dangerous, many many others. If you need to do a lot of traveling, the act of doing so needs to be fun, and that's admittedly pretty difficult. I think Star Sector and Starfox handled that aspect pretty well.

[@zejulius58]

I agree, but removing this aspect from EVE Online would completly fuck up the economy. And tbh, once you're settled somewhere in EVE, you rarely need to take more than 10 jumps (granted they are ways around too, like ansiblexes, capital ships, titan bridges, WHs ...)

[@roadent217]

Which jumps in Freelancer are you talking about? The fast-travel gates between planets / stations, or the jump gates between different sectors? The former, to me at least, was an auditory and visual feast, especially as you see planets and nebulas zooming past you.

[@Shuulleecho]

So a whole video can be summed up with "a casual gamer doesnt like non-casual games", what a surprise

[@smackerlacker8708]

I think the issue is that the devs spend so much time trying to make space... but space is empty. It's boring. It's the things IN space that are interesting, and people forget that.

[@Joseph-wh5of]

Which is?

[@Seidmadur7]

@@Joseph-wh5of Anything your imagination can conjure! The things that we don't know letting your mind fill the gaps. Taking what-if's and building an engaging story around it. What would happen if we could survive inside the core of a star before it forms a neutron star? An alternate reality? A new species? Maybe you and your crew are the first and have to build a new civilization? We love black holes, what if the concept of traveling through them would be feasible, could there be side effects? Would they be permanent, create a butterfly effect changing the trajectory of humanity? Craft a story around it and make space suit your needs, that's what I feel has been missing. You could fit story lines like the Expanse or Star Trek Discovery into it and gamify it. Everyone's too busy recreating the perfect space sim, they didn't stop to think if they should & whether that would be fun from a gameplay perspective.

[@combineconformist]

space is not boring bud

[@averiWonBTW]

@@Seidmadur7sounds like you want a space *fantasy* game, not a space sim

[@mluby7828]

The deep ocean is a better setting. Still need advanced vessels and can do mining and building. But now there are alien life forms all around you that make exploration interesting and potentially dangerous. A dead rock can't match a coral reef. And the speeds involved are human-scale, not hundreds of km/s.

[@zestyquestman8378]

You are so underrated man, its such a shame to see your non war thunder content not doing so well.

[@ultimate9056]

That's a shame, I liked to finally hear someone talk about space games as a concept

[@X862go]

But War Thunder is the best mmo / rpg/ battle sim/ real life tank Sim game ever made 🎉😅

[@user-sm5ey8mf8v]

​@@X862godcs: IL 2 shturmovik: Gunner, heat! Pc:

[@titanfallgamerwithnotitanf8187]

Where is my Starsector? This is not a request Mentalgentleman, you shall participate in the warcrimes whether you like it or not.

[@LethalOwl]

I agree with pretty much all these points, but at least in No Man's Sky, you're able to skip ALL the things you consider tedious and go straight to the parts you enjoy, pretty much. Using a "custom settings"-world was the best thing I ever did.

[@X862go]

This comment 👌 yup we don't mine in 2024 . (If you don't want to)

[@LethalOwl]

@@X862go Yeaup! I still enjoy doing it from time to time, but it's very nice that it's optional. Mostly I just buy the resources I need from the space station markets.

[@outcastjedi4444]

I think some of the reasons why games are failures partially rely in the company and people’s opinions of that company. It’s hard to go into a game with an open mind when you don’t like the company but want the game. Not a lot of people, but some people do, and the people who do have a voice that gets heard by several people who listen to their opinions. One reason why Starfield was a “failure” was because, I think: Skyrim. Skyrim was pretty great according to a LOT of people, and still has millions of players more than 10 years later. With that much success, it’s hard to beat that milestone, that impact. So anything else that comes after that doesn’t look good comparatively “Why don’t I just play Skyrim again instead of this. I get more (blank) out of it in that”. I love Starfield, I’m not a Starfield hater but that’s one reason why I think there’s a lot of hate surrounding it. Along with that there’s some games that do similar things but don’t have the same focus, so it’s different and BECAUSE it doesn’t have, let’s say immersive flying between planets and space like No Man’s Sky, makes it instantly a “No” on some people’s list. It’s unfair to compare No Man’s Sky, a game MADE for exploration, to a game like Starfield that was MADE for player choices and a good Roleplaying experience. Saying “Why didn’t they do this like No Man’s Sky?” Is like me saying “Why can’t I have an in depth character creation in No Man’s Sky” that’s not fair to No Man’s Sky because it was made for exploration, not Roleplaying. You can nitpick game mechanics, what work and doesn’t work for that game, but don’t compare it with a game that has a different focus for what it does. I don’t hate No Man’s Sky, but I dislike the graphics that make it feel cartoon-like and the lack of character creation. Otherwise it’s a good game mechanically.

[@albertsirbu]

I saw that you had Half Life 2 in your library. That game sits in my memory now as if it was yesterday. I'm 56 years old. No game since has had that impact, I even remember taking sick days off work with the excitement of working my way up the tower for the final chapter. With kind regards, your vid was great.

[@killfected7309]

hearing the prey theme in the background brings me good memories

[@X862go]

You're aware more people are playing No Man Sky than 40k Helldivers 2 is down to 22k. That's according to steam db.

[@schnitthart]

The best game that takes place in space is “Space Engineers”. You primarily just build stuff and test it in the physical environment. You can also do PvP PvE, but it is a secondary option.

[@efxnews4776]

@@schnitthart SE is a space crafting game wich is a subgenre of space sim games. I personally like Empyreon Galactic Survival in this sub genre.

[@Xenotork]

Eve Online > Star Citizen Eve's practically similar to SC just more focused on the 3rd person ship angle rather than the 1st person immersive angle. It's more fleshed out, it has plenty of things to do that are all pretty engaging and have a good amount of risk involved due to the potential of other players engaging you in low sec space, where all the good stuff is at. over 20,000 players are online at once throughout the day on ONE giant server. The economy of the game is entirely ran off the playerbase, making every thing you do worth something to someone. Making isk is easy enough, and access to bigger and better ships is relatively inexpensive, and only requires your time to research the skills required to unlock and fly them. You can do a LOT in this game, and it's only 33 GBs in size and it's free to play. You can also buy the in-game currency through the market but it's not cheap, meaning you can access the entirety of what the game has to offer for free, if you know what your doing.

[@njnjco]

Some of my favorite space games are ones where you can build a base anywhere, create/customize your ships, and just do stuff. Space Engineers has the most in depth building for bases, ships, vehicles, and whatever else you decide to make. It's got lots of moving parts so you can make exactly what you want, though it's lacking in content outside of the gathering resources and building loop. Empyrion has a similar base and ship building grid based system to Space Engineers, but it's far simpler. On the plus side, there's more to see and do. No man's sky is actually good now. It has the best space exploration out of any space game. The base building is great(ish). The building system has lots of quirks and to get the most of it you need to glitch build or use third party software, though just what's in the game is quite capable too. I think flying around in a ship you built and costomized, piece by piece from scratch is way more engaging than flying a bigger better ship that 30,000 other people have, even if you're doing the same stuff in it.

[@_Joshua9797]

I highly recommend playing Star Citizen in a group or organization (Orga). For example, my usual gameplay loop looks like this: I check what’s planned for the day in the Orga and see that we need to defend a group of miners while a rival Orga, as per an agreement, will try to ambush them. So, I equip my ship and head to the designated gathering point. During the mission, I might be assigned as a combat pilot to escort a transport ship that constantly flies to the miners, collects the gathered resources, and transports them for sale. On the way to the sale point, we get pulled out of quantum by the rival Orga, and I try to keep them busy until reinforcements arrive. At the end, the collected profit is shared, and we have a debriefing where we discuss what went well and what could be improved. What I’m trying to say is that Star Citizen’s strength, in my opinion, lies in teamwork with as many players as possible. Of course, the game still has many bugs, and it can be very frustrating, but every now and then, everything just works, and I’m reminded of why I’m so excited for a somewhat bug free version of the game.

[@arminversi]

He really said "star citizen is a Space MMO"... and plays it alone 😂 It's way more easy and fun to handle bugs when you have friends with you. And, playing with a group will redefine your objectives

[@Cmdr_DarkNite]

You don't like space games like NMS, Elite Dangerous, SC and Starfield. Its as if they're types of games not meant for everyone.

[@thementalgentleman]

I like them, and these games have lots of potential. But they don't respect my time, some of the grindier aspects of these games could be tweaked to make them a bit more enjoyable.

[@Joseph-wh5of]

You hit the nail on the head. As he mentioned, the games he likes to play is the fast food version of video games. Log in to hell divers with his friends. Repeat the same exact content multiple times, but it's quick, fast, easy to understand, and full of dopamine. He plays for a few hours and drops the game. This is not what space games are about. You can not simulate the fantasy of space with quick thrills. Space is vast.

[@Joseph-wh5of]

​@@thementalgentlemansuch as?

[@admiralkaede]

​@@thementalgentlemanif they did that though u would also destroy other people's enjoyment of those games so it's not an open and shut case not every game is meant for everyone star citizen and such just are not your title of game that's ok but saying it's bad bec u expect it to be faster would be massively insulting to othe people who love that type of game

[@ChannelHandlePending]

Honestly the only space games I've played thats gotten anywhere close to scratching that "space" itch at the moment is X4, KSP, and I guess aurora, but putting aurora is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Most games like NMS and ED do have the scale to be impressive but the saying "as wide as an ocean, yet as deep as a puddle" applies to them. I do have hope for SC and S42 but time will tell if they are able to live up to their promises

[@Yamyatos]

Just curious, when did you last play NMS? I dont disagree that the release version was definitely shallow, but they added oh-so-much since then.

[@ChannelHandlePending]

@@Yamyatos According to steam, june 2023. Not saying the dont have a lot of gameplay "loops" for lack of a better term, it's just that they are all so shallow they get boring after a while, like I said "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle". Outside of the base building everything just feels extremely limited almost to the point you can just turn your brain off and use it as a background activity while you're focusing on something else. I'd probably put X4 into the same category but it at least has the fleet/empire management - Oh, and just flying around feels so much better.

[@zeldaking13]

And this is exactly why I like linear games a lot! A finely curated experience from start to finish.

[@X862go]

So you telling me when you play skrim you go right to white run 🤔. Idk about you, but whenever the game tells me to follow the path in front of me . I almost always go left 😅

[@PetyrC90]

doing the 100th run in a rogulike is truly "curated"

[@zeldaking13]

@@X862go im not talking about Skyrim, my favorite game is FF13, a fully linear experience ive greatly enjoyed and will stick with me forever. Even replaying it stays fun

[@zeldaking13]

@@PetyrC90 I dont quite mean roguelikes actually, in this case I meant things like Armored Core 6, final fantasy 13 and countless other games that dont really have a lot of freedom in goals, but in spite of that offer an amazing and polished experience

[@aviFlashbacks]

my favorite space game actually happens to be on roblox. It’s stopped getting as frequent and big updates but it recently started getting updated again, after not being updated for over a year. Its pretty good but probably not the best (given that its on roblox) Another of my favorite space games, which I prefer to starscape, is kerbal space program

[@cardboard9124]

Kerbal space program spotted!

[@jestemrobatem5179]

OMG STARSCAPE PLAYER SPOTTED!! Hi mate, I also love starscape. Started playing four years ago, now I'm a HR in IMC. You may heard of us, 300 player industrial faction. So good to see another starscape enjoyer here!

[@badmojo90]

From 1990 to 1998 Wing Commander dominated the Genre; the game formula was perfect and yet no one has ever thought to copy it in all these years. Mass Effect was the closest and it did very well but it always felt a bit lacking in the space area. What we need if a Wing Commander style space sim (a light sim not a microsoft flight sim clone) something easy and fun to play with and at the same time have 'out of ship' gameplay were we walk around talking to people, fixers, crewmates in an rpg style setting with a good storyline between missions. It is actually not a hard concept; developers just need to DO it and stop trying to overthink it.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

I mean, it is apparently hard since none of the big studios have been able to accomplish it. The closest so far has been SpaceBourne 2 but it's extremely janky.

[@badmojo90]

@@Billy-bc8pk I doubt it could be considered 'hard' really more like the modern studios are being really lazy; But SpaceBourne 2 is a great example! SpaceBourne 2 was made by an indie studio, a very small team that were just really passionate about making the game they wanted to make and it turned out fantastically. It is funny that triple-A studios can't even come close to anything like it.

[@oddballl9128]

This basically sums up why I uninstalled X4. Even with a star wars mod and the cheat menu to spawn ships, the gameplay systems were so dense and fiddly and involved so many hurdles of grinding to unlock a new gameplay feature that I just tapped out.

[@pinguman13]

I highly recommend recommend Starlink. It’s a compact 20-hour experience where you liberate about 6 different planets from aliens. You play from your spaceship all the time and there’s all kinds of things you can do by using different elemental weapons. If you play it on Nintendo Switch you can play as Star Fox and friends as well. Ps. You can also point your ship towards the sky and fly out directly into space. Something that Bethesda apparently couldn’t do.

[@annasinnata572]

"one must imagine Sisyphus smiling" is how you enjoy space games, instead of only looking at your goal and trying to be efficent, instead you must find your fun in the task at hand. I feel like space games are more like farming sim than anything, where you wont enjoy the game if you dont enjoy doing the games tasks.

[@JackIsMe1993]

I saw the thumbnail and though damn I do love the Aegis Titan, The first thing that comes to mind is having more fun playing a glorified Taxi driver in Star Citizen than any of the actual baked in gameplay loops (because they nearly always end up being massive time sinks)...I'm playing on a 1060 and somehow it's runner far better than it should....starfield won't even boot....most of my time in Elite was alt-tabbed.....really do wonder at times how something like Star Citizen a game in perpetual alpha made me less cynical about the future of spacegames....

[@miguelprima5937]

Can you play SC with K+M or a gamepad? Or do you need a flight stick setup

[@jmh1189]

@@miguelprima5937 you can do both.

[@paro2210]

What No Mans Sky has become made me less cynical about the future about spacegames. What Elite Dangerous has become and how Star Citizen seems to move is making me more cynical. I would love for Star Citizen to actually get released, but it seems like its mosty a cash grab at this point. Elite Dangerous tried to expand into what Star Citizen is trying to do, but failed hard. For me right now its very much 50/50 of where spacegames goes next.

[@acfern6862]

@@miguelprima5937 mouse and keyboard works fine for ground and vehicle gameplay, although buying a hosas rig was one of the most fun purchases I made on the game.

[@Billy-bc8pk]

@@paro2210 If there were more to do in No Man's Sky than just mine and shoot it might be cool, or if the mining and shooting wasn't so shallow it would be cool. I know some people will say, "The building, the crafting!" but that only matters if there's something to build or craft that feels important because you might lose it, but NMS is very static in that regard. Very little danger and very little risk.

[@forkittens]

i spend way to much time thinking about this; but planets in space games... they tend to have a problem with being 1 biome across the whole planet... and thats boring because of the lack in variety. planets in our solar system came into being through the same forces of physics that made planets in other systems.. they should basically all look like earth or a barren waste like we see here... but that would be boring because every planet would be too same-y for exploring a new one to seem rewarding... so its a problem that if fixed, makes things worse, but it in of itself seems like there should be a better way to design planets. i just dont know what that would be or look like.

[@IndustrialBonecraft]

Star Citizen's problem is less 'grind to get loot to brag about' - it's more that, in theory you have side missions and so on going on all the time.... but all the dynamic stuff needs five different in-development systems to be connected up to actually implement at all, and even then it'll be a dice roll as to whether the servers can handle it. At the moment the game has different bits of a couple of things that exist in a semi-vacuum, but until systems 2, 3, and 4 are implemented, systems 1 and 5 can't talk to each other so nothing is actually going on.

[@ThatoneComrade-444]

One of the best space games that gets it right is space engineers because it has the right amount of exploration and you can build your own ship and rover with complete freedom

[@Leon_Portier]

Putting it like that I realize that I love games with a space setting (Freespace, Neboulus, Brigador,...) than space exploration games - mostly because of grind

[@Maddock_]

The time over fun over profit really is the crux of the problem in games like SC. But they’ll never understand until it’s too late

[@Billy-bc8pk]

I think that's just how it is -- Stellaris, X4, EVE Online and other grand strategy games focus more on time and strategy and logistics than instant fun. Star Citizen attempts to take the logistics of games like EVE but puts them on the "ground floor" so t ospeak, which is fine. It's just not a game for everyone. I agree thaty if you want instantaneous fun and gratification, opt for Hell Divers 2 or some such; they give you that feeling of being a cool space hero with zero loss and no setbacks. But not everyone is looking for the instant gratification aspect from gaming, some people want something with a bit more risk/reward to the logistics, just like Tarkov is not going to appeal to people who prefer Fortnite.

[@Maddock_]

@@Billy-bc8pk there’s a balance to strike here between ADHD and stupidity, and SC is leaning in the wrong direction. Repetitive chores and virtual timers are not valuable gameplay especially if you’re stuck doing nothing in the meantime, and there is zero excuse for it. Simple as that

[@Billy-bc8pk]

@@Maddock_ Then don't do tasks that require repetitive chorse or virtual timers? The game gives you options, which most other games don't. And there is no such thing as being stuck doing nothing in the meantime. If you blew your ship up, then that's your fault for not being a good pilot. But use global chat to ask if anyone needs a crew while you wait for your ship insurance. If you're a cargo hauler and you don't want to manually load and you use the auto-timer, it's your choice to be lazy and not manually load your ship. You can still go be crew elsewhere if you choose to be lazy like that. As stated, the game gives you options, even for people who are extremely lazy.

[@Maddock_]

@@Billy-bc8pk things can and should be better. I don’t have time to deconstruct the black hole of bad faith in front of me right now. Most games don’t give me options??? Are you even listening to yourself? And it’s *my* fault if the game’s instability fucks everyone over constantly? And, get this, I’m lazy because I’d rather do real gameplay that I chose than invent random reasons to work around a time gate that only exists as a garnish to hide the fact that there’s no substance behind it, on top of the time wasted by the game’s inherent instability? Dude, you don’t even know me. You don’t have to keep embarrassing yourself on the internet for this project. I’ve probably been there longer than you too.

[@admiralkaede]

U misunderstand what u find fun and what another person finds fun is different star citizens gameplay in being very long and simulated is intentional it's a life sim u may not enjoy it but other people do it's not a flaw or a bad thing it's just a different creative approach and that's a good thing that we have so many genres and choices

[@UVCMD]

"If simulating life was so enjoyable, I wouldn't play videogames..." Meanwhile Euro Truck Simulator 2 placed 46. on most concurrent players at this very moment, Farming Simulator 22 is placed 49. aaaaand.... The Sims 4 - Literally nothing but a regular life simulator, is placed 37. Source Steam charts. That being said, it is totally fine, if you enjoy games with dense action. But others might enjoy a more laid back gaming experience, that most simulator games provide. And other than in real life, you can't just change professions and experience at least a little bit, what it would like to be something else. Especially if it touches the realms of fiction, like space games do. Btw. I've never played Star Citizen and hope, that this game will be fun in the future. But it might get there. I imagine it to be a EVE Online combined with an immersive first person RPG. But yeah, maybe it will just fail.

[@pasindudinusha6507]

Worst crime of the star field to me is the main story that takes away all the curiosity about space. Because once you have completed the story you have already been to the center of the universe. It's just a multiverse of humans doing the same things over and over (There are differences sometimes, but the Starborn are just repeating the same cycle.) There are no more secrets important than that. It felt so underwhelming.

[@Azure9577]

Nobody here knows about starsector, big sad, best 2d space game imo

[@ezoni8438]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="492">8:12</a> elite did that in like the 80s

[@kydenrax904]

This is also what blasted Dual Universe, it was originally pitched as a massively dynamic sandbox and all content would be player generated, so players would actually fight for resources, create factions or governments, build incredible structures, space stations and their own industries. What we ended up with was a point A to point B fetch quest game, Travel 5 hours to a planet, mine the resources, travel 5 hours back, sell them to some bot, upgrade ship, repeat. There was no emergent player content, the game just limited you to that simple gameplay loop even though it had the potential to be as sandboxy as Minecraft factions servers but with thousands of players.

[@ehdan3038]

hey this was a great video and I really agree with 90% of it, apart from nms, I think nms really is close to being fun and not that time-consuming, It has been really improved over the years and right now it has a very fun story, gameplay and systems like pirate battles, I agree with everything else but I think nms is really fun for a lot of people (has more daily players than helldivers after the recent update)

[@thementalgentleman]

No man's sky is a good game, and can be fun! but I still find it hard to get into due to all the resource management in the early/mid-game. I had planned to talk about it separately but couldn't make it work.

[@ehdan3038]

@@thementalgentleman that's understandable, nms is a bit grind-heavy early/mid game, but for me the ease of flying and going places which are things that make the other games such a slog, are a really nice change, and the story is actually great as well IMO, but I know what you mean

[@ehdan3038]

@@thementalgentleman if you could pitch a hypothetical space game, set in space, that utilises large open spaces and zero gravity, what would you say?

[@handlewithhandle]

my first 500 hours on no man’s sky was just exploring lots of it I have seen planets with robots the size of buildings caves big enough to land a ship in mountains worthy of a fortress I have a giant freighter full of thing i have found and it’s getting full then robots got added fully and I did the main story line just for a glowing pole that hits harder then a cool breeze on a hot day I have a giant floating base hidden in the clouds with 10 landing pads and 6 different floating islands that are all connected

[@jakubmuron9030]

I think the greatest problem Star Citizen is currently facing isn't the polish level or lack of content in general, but the lack of any real group objectives. There's jump town camped by clans, it spits out tons of cash, but you could just as well do it alone if there weren't bigger fish running around. Elite Dangerous comes to mind as an inspiration, with not only major faction powerplay but also smaller player-made organisations fighting over systems, both influenced by players in real time. The consequences of these things are underwhelming in Elite, but I could imagine a similar system doing wonders for Star Citizen. Having the major corporations struggle over places of interest troughout the system, while smaller player-made factions pledge allegiance to one of them and contribute to the war, or carve out some space for themselves as independent factions. As it stands, despite being really buggy, Star Citizen is a very playable game with heaps of things to do, but it feels more like a bunch of people playing single player game in the same space rather than a multiplayer experience.

[@tylersizelove7521]

There's a much broader category to the space genre. Elite Dangerous has a higher focus on space simulator flight and emphasizes the 'space craft' while others like Star Field focus on planet exploration and ground combat if it even does that.

[@MrWoofWoof03]

My biggest complaint about space games like star citizens or starbase is that the only thing you have to work towards is well money and for someone like me i dont play games to just make money thats call going to work

[@admiralkaede]

U may not enjoy it but people do why do u think it still has a player base after a decade

[@MrWoofWoof03]

@@admiralkaede lol i now reread this after 3 weeks i was harsh my biggest complaint at the time was stuff like player bases were fun to build but had lacked the depth i had desired such as player shops and stuff its fun and i enjoyed it but i cant wait for future updates

[@TheRandomYoYo]

When I see Space Game, I can't not talk about Elite Dangerous. People trash it because it's grindy, but those same people complain that Story focused games in space suck because the story ends up being short and unendless, and uninteresting. ED is a perfect example of what you should expect from a Space Game. The game play loop is what you should be there for, if you want to Travel, be a transport ship, pirate, whatever. I kinda wish they never had Solo Mode and instead put a lot of effort into making the Central Bubble extremely secure, but with cheap resources. They could have slowly added stations, to the outside of the bubble as players expanded, to get better goods, and pirates would have had real targets there. As far as I can tell that is the main problem, besides it getting Space legs, which people thought they wanted on a whim, where they had no place being there. If Frontier didn't spend 3 years of resources for those damn space legs and just finished the thargoid war quicker, people would have been much happier. The story was good, there was something new every few months that players wanted to go and investigate, only to halt it mid tracks for 3 years and switch focus fully. Space Legs could have been the big thing after that storyline ended on time, while it was still intriguing. Main thing is, Space Games are literally mostly going to ever be Truck Simulator at the core, they can't not be that. Games with a Space Setting like Prey, Starfield, Andromeda are the ones most people seem to actually want when they say "Space Games", and companies try to mix and match bits of both, making both parts eventually grindy, tedious, or boring. Even NMS, though people seem to enjoy it, is having trouble with it. When I played it recently I was seeking out the same gameplay I had in Elite, but Elite was doing it better. The part NMS did a lot better was the walking bit, the Space Setting bit. We should just set our expectations straight, until we get more games like Prey, that don't fail because of poor media management, and better games than Elite, SC and NMS, we shouldn't be expecting to see a game that mixes both those aspects in one gigantic mess.

[@oskark312]

cosmoteer is a good example of a good space game in my opinion (also the old free version)

[@Chosen1Creator]

I like how it simulates the inner workings of a spaceship instead of just putting weapons in designated slots. Also, how the crew has to move resources around is reminiscent of how ships and submarines work in the real world.

[@IsfetSolaris]

Me crying in the corner about EVE, the longest lasting space game in the world, not being mentioned ._.

[@Chooie6]

As a star citizen player of the last 12 years there is one point I must correct you said Star citizen will use AI to generate worlds and systems but that is incorrect. They are making tools to procedurally create things for the world without having to do every little detail manually, example is space stations instead of modeling every single surface placing every single piece of random garbage on the floor they are more is less building with Legos and adjusting the details with more tools to give each location a unique layout and look so while you may see the boundaries of those "blocks" on occasion the overall look of each location is still unique enough to get lost in. The same logic applies to everything they make in the game world with the exception of unique locations such as major landing zones. Now onto my actual comments the argument of what exists in the game now is fair in that everyone is always excited for the future and the now isn't that great despite in some cases being better still than some released games. That future is of course full of amazing things but one thing you aren't mentioning here is squadron 42 which is nearing release which is a narrative story driven experience from what we know. Lastly mining and doing basic box missions is only a small part of the experience which if all you do is play once a year you are not really trying much, there is more to do and more to come such as fps pve and PVP ship pve and PVP and most importantly in game events but one thing to remember is it's an MMO and the game wants you to play with others and doing so can be great fun so I'd recommend joining a active organization over just playing solo.

[@FusionTrain]

1 thing that people usually dont think about with star citizen is that MOST of the time and money goes to developing the technology that actually makes the game possible in the first place, and also Star Citizen isnt being heavily focused on as they've got Squadron 42, but now that Squadron 42 is basically finished and has entered the polishing phase, Star Citizen will get a lot more

[@Elong_Musket]

Everspace 2 is an example of a good space game. Not going full sim and just focusing on "fun" and gameplay is a big part of why it works for me. Simply flying around locations is fun when exploring when you're not in combat.

[@mysticking16]

This entire video is why Subnautica is so good. It's handcrafted world is the reason why procedural generation will never replace making a world from the ground up

[@SchubertDipDab]

That sums up how I'm beginning to feel about NMS. "It feels like a tech demo, not a game". Playing with friends can be a nice, chilled experience though.

[@neekosy2791]

Have you played Outer Wilds? I wonder how would you rate it in the context of this video.

[@andrewriker2192]

It’s funny you say NMS is a glorified tech demo. That’s actually exactly why I preordered it: I wanted to support the devs using procedural generation. That ended up being a good way to approach it since I didn’t end up being disappointed when I couldn’t play it at launch and made me pleasantly surprised (and a little proud) to have invested in what the game eventually has become. Which I agree is still a tech demo of procedural generation with a base building, exploration/survival, multiplayer MMO, farming sim, etc all slapped on top. To a large degree, Hello Games knows this too, that’s why they added the ability to toggle all these systems off or on. The meat of the game is the procedural generation, which isn’t a game by itself.

[@tommyscott8511]

So, in essence, create a strong core gameplay loop. Manage scope. Make a good game set in space, rather than a game about space.

[@tdc455]

The moment a developer realizes they can combine space exploration, factory building mechanics (think Factorio), and player driven economics, they will have the ability to create the best space game of all time.

[@KyurraOfficial]

yooo ace combat electrosphere ost spotted

[@Chareidos]

A little bit sad that there is not one single SpaceFaring or SpaceCombat centered game to jump into actual space and having fun without the need to earn your entry.

[@mcfeddle]

I love the way Factorio handles Space. It's a complete game on one planet, but it's getting an expansion to other planets with similar but varied gameplay with a lot being available in mods already to some extent. Same case unofficially with many Minecraft Space Mods. So much content at the tip of my fingers.

[@dylanprinsloo5568]

I think that star citizen needs a bit more credit. At the end of the day its still an MMO and that while you can have plenty of fun playing solo playing with a group is absolutely amazing. If you and the boys buy a hammerhead and go on a crime spree its fun killing the bounty hunters who come after you. Or holding down popular cargo buying and selling places and stealing from other players. So ye the game has issues but its still extremely fun

[@stas-peterschmitz3200]

...we were spoiled with technology from an early age...everything has to be fast and, ideally, new...and if something is boring, don't be afraid, my friend, the next distraction is just around the corner. That's why, for example, fewer people play strategy games than shooters...most gamers need the quick fix...as if a monkey craves a piece of sugar...

[@etchasketch222]

Star Citizen is one of those games that looks so good to play, so you buy it, try it and the first mission you complete feels good. Then, you eventually die, after your first few deaths you realize that it's a slog. The fun dissapears and the realization of how much of a time sink it is. Like you, I try the game once every year or two years and it feels pretty much the same, broken and boring. What we need is Mass Effect / Oldschool Star Trek story, Star Citizen ship interiors and crew gameplay with No Man's Sky space travel.

[@pixeltaco9782]

The problem is that to fill up such large spaces requires too much development time to be profitable. Starfield might actually have a shot at eventually being good because of modding and having thousands of people developing up the game and not just Bethesda alone

[@caseykoons]

First of all weird pedantic point, most games are set in space as most places are somewhere in space. I would say the difficulty in making what so many of us want in a space game is that hard science fiction is hard to make.

[@user-ok3yw7bx2h]

Just here to tell you to not give up. This video may not be doing as well as your war thunder content, but there is incredible potential. I love your style, keep up the good work.

[@kukuc96]

I think the problem of these games is that they want to be open ended games you will play for over 100 hours easily (because I guess they feel that's needed for the game to be "good value" or be a GOTY contender or whatever), but without having develop 3 times the content of a more regular game, and without having the sandbox of an actual open ended game. They want to be big, because that's how you captivate people for a long time right? It probably didn't help that some of the biggest hits in gaming were on the big and open. I think the Assassins Creed series (mainly the instalments between 2 and 4, the later ones are guilty of the very same thing the video is about) was one of the first. Two more recent examples along this line are The Witcher 3 and Baldur's Gate 3. But the thing there is that they are games with more than average content in there. There are great games that you can easily sink hundreds of hours into, but not because of the devs making hundreds of hours of very intentional content. Minecraft is probably the most famous example, but there are many other building style games where this works, like Factorio (and the whole factory building genre). You could mention Kerbal Space Program in this category too, that's a game where you can endlessly ask yourself "can I do X?", and the answer is usually yes, with enough trial and error. You mentioned FTL and this applies to the whole Roguelike genre. If one clicks for you, you will sink 200 hours into it in the blink of an eye. But Starfield, Elite: Dangerous, No Mans Sky, Star Citizen, and a million others wanted to be 3 digit hour games, without putting in the work of creating that much content or having a gameplay loop that can do that by itself. Apparently making a good 30 hours and done game is not acceptable anymore.

[@blacktigerace6687]

agree with this man, im a space enthusiast myself and ppls who said NMS already great, bros get brainwashed very clean, they didnt knew what a video "game" should look like and how it work and how it should be - i already hv every S class possible on every type of fighters, multitools, max upgraded S class capital freighter, hv my credits max out countless times, hv tons of big bases, mining, and farms, doing a lot of mid-level theorycrafting, and ingame code research and i really know that NMS has no micro-transaction + free updates - NMS still missing a lot of things, they do finished the surface level of promised features and more, also lots lots of graphic improvement, but the features themself a very far away to make sense in gameplay wise, nor enjoyable, as wide as sea, as deep as puddle, every "big" updates hyped beyond space and time - its not only NMS or most space games, most of 2005+ games are! they began a steady declines from a game, to a useless life service mechanic and features that stick to your life using your very own psychology nature passively on multiple ways possible, games CEOs is just using palpatine tactic to keep the halo effect while secretly squeezing your entire lifetime or money or both, its child slavery on the next level now most games is even worst, cringe, and straight disgusting to even look at, that even nvidia not even serious in the game market anymore, and most gaming products is just straight out scams - if those are trending games, there's underrated games, in 5% of those underrated games are actually a gem, the last light of gaming industry you will never heard of, not by ads, not by promo, but can be found only by word of mouth or by super high steam rating (97%+ overwhelming positive) with atleast 50k+ rating, multiple genres, theres space genre too to avoid being called as biased and games are fun to certain ppls because of specific genre they like, i think you should find it yourself

[@blacktigerace6687]

also, dont play world of tanks i hv pour 7 years of my time and extra 3 years to play slowly, then stop completely its even worst game than you possibly known, even from NMS or starfield community standard

[@scottwatrous]

Games that involve traveling between solar systems and relying on FTL travel mechanics, indeed tend to suffer from "too many planets" syndrome. In Space Engine, which is not really a game, you can go just anywhere in the universe and it's really awesome until none of it really matters. The best sort of space games IMO are the ones that are more like The Expanse setting, you're in a single solar system. So your journey has you traveling between many, but finite and defined, space stations and celestial bodies. You could go out into the belt and mine things perhaps, or do some exploring on some small Jovian moon for fun, but, generally will be returning to a handful of well trodden locations like Ceres, Pallas, Ganymede, etc. There would be factions and groups that all generally are plenty well spread out but still come into frequent contact as we are all inhabiting the same playground. It allows for the vastness of space to be known while keeping the sandbox a sandbox, and not a beach. " Games that are simply set in space also importantly vary between those that are inexorably defined by their setting in space, and those that truly are only incidentally set in space for flavor. I would argue that nothing about Lethal Company makes it feel like a space game from what I've seen of it. I thought it was set on Earth in fact. But FTL is decidedly mechanically based on a starship. You would have a completely different game if it was set on a ship at sea, or, some sort of other thing. And to say nothing of games that aren't even set in space but just sci-fi settings on some other planet with no space at all.

[@hopoffz]

I'm not sure what it is about star citizen that keeps me coming back. I watch a lot of videos like this one that aren't outright dunking on the game, but making very thoughtful and reasonable criticisms of it, and yet I keep finding myself coming back. There's a spark of artistry combined with new game tech that I just can't seem to let go of. Hopefully one day the game delivers on all of the small glimmers of promise its systems provide currently.

[@haleffect9011]

This sould just be another essay on how Freelancer is the perfect space-game

[@matthewl419]

Chorus is probably one of my favorite space games. Such amazing flight and combat mechanics and just fun to play. The story isn't the most connecting, but it serves as a good excuse to play and get better and ship stuff

[@ZorgKirill]

Hmm no word about Space Engineers or Empyrion galactic survival. First one has good physics and graphics, but almost empty world (so it's more like sandbox), anyway all fun is in multiplayer. The second one has bad physics and graphics, but more interesting mechanics and giant live world. Both games look the same, but it's very hard to choose which of them is better, they are like 2 halves of one good puzzle.

[@chugg159]

It seems like us space sim players are getting the idea nowadays that most actual space sims are either mediocre, or they came out 20 years ago. X4: Foundations is an exception to this rule, but even that suffers from SOME mediocrity.

[@ArtApocalypse]

Pretty f**kin cold to say no man’s sky is “not fun” considering how long they’ve been continuing to update the game FOR FREE

[@sprites4ever482]

I respect the developers for constantly updating No Man's Sky, but it's fundamentally boring and frustrating and I don't see why people like it. I arguably liked Starfield better because it has actual characters and detailed environments that weren't developed by a machine. NMS has cool mechanics, but the universe is just like something outta Stable Diffusion: Mathematically generated slop.

[@admiralroadrunner4559]

star citizen's gameplay loop sounds like a game that has already been released: Elite Dangerous, quite literally the same experience as star citizen, only there is less walking.

[@johnterpack3940]

Not even close. I have almost 600 hours in Elite. Less than an hour in SC despite having owned it twice as long.

[@combineconformist]

it’s really not the same lmao

[@samraborg8245]

I do think it's crazy that people still don't like ME Andromeda. I honestly loved it so much