Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few years, you probably know about the UK based Indie developer, Hello Games' upcoming video game No Man's Sky which offers a greater than life simulation of space; complete with its own star systems, 18 quintillion (read, 1.8x1018) procedurally generated planets and alien life forms (flora and fauna) that will apparently take billions of years to traverse.
Needless to say, the epic scope for something like this has piqued the interest of sci-fi fanatics and super-nerds alike since the day we got our first glimpse of this alien universe as early as the VGX award show in 2013.
Games predating No Man’s Sky, ones that offer huge, meticulously crafted virtual worlds that were considered ahead of its time like Fallout 4, Skyrim and Grand theft Auto V are sure to pale in comparison to the grand scheme of No Man's Sky when it finally launches on August 9th and 10th in North America and Europe respectively on PS4 and on August 12th worldwide for PC.
So my humble question to you is: can't wait to jump into the procedurally generated universe of No Man's Sky? Okay, then. Here are 5 games to satisfy your space exploration fantasies in the virtual world of video games till you get you your hands on No Man’s Sky.
5. Rodina (2014)
I must admit, the first time I laid eyes on Elliptic Games’ Steam early access title, Rodina, I immediately thought of No Man’s Sky. It is a first-person space exploration RPG where you fly between different planets with your spacecraft, take down enemy ships, look around for supply caches and generally wreak havoc on the game’s A.I. Although the graphics aren’t the best, the gameplay more than makes up for it.
One thing I admire about both Rodina and No Man’s Sky is the seamless approach to exploration, i.e. zero loading screens in between planets. I can’t even begin to describe my frustration with loading screens in games; especially newer self-proclaimed current-gen titles like GTA V and Fallout 4. It ruins your immersion and reminds you that you’re playing a video game.
Rodina does justice to the space simulator experience and is worth your time; but only if you choose to ignore the blocky textures and focus only on the core game mechanics like exploration and spacecraft based combat.
4. FTL - Faster Than Light (2012)
FTL is a top-down turn-based roguelike space combat simulation with procedurally generated events akin to older RPG's. The player chooses from an array of spaceships with different perks and must travel through eight procedurally generated sectors to reach their objective. In the process of this, however, the player's ship will constantly be under attack from rebel forces out to destroy them while the game's perma-death system keeps the pressure on at all times.
As difficult as that might sound, the game involves you pausing the game to evaluate the situation, strategically operating systems on the ship, controlling your crew members to repair and man specific stations and distributing power wherever it's needed. You unlock upgrades and crew members for your ship and even new classes of ships as you progress.
In itself, FTL promises a short but intense experience of defending your precious spacecraft and the lives of your crewmembers under constant attack, without the safety net of the checkpoint system that we are familiar with in modern games. It offers an incredibly high replay value since you never know what might be at the end of a faster than light jump into the endless void of space.
FTL is also notable for being one of the first big kick-starter successes raising over 20 times what they had pledged, with the developers then putting the extra budget into better art, music and story; all of which make this game a brilliant and unique experience.
3. Spore (2008)
Spore is a game that's hard to categorize into one single genre. It has multiple stages of strategy based gameplay focused on character creation and city building. In my mind, it’s equal parts, Agar.io, Civilisation, Kerbal Space Program and last but not the least, No Man's Sky.
You start as a single celled organism and based on how you develop your species, slowly progress as a fearsome predator or a friendly herbivore. Once out of the water world where the game starts, you gradually evolve towards building a tribe, then a civilisation; right up to where you build a nation complete with vehicles, aircraft and then finally take the final plunge into space with your very own spacecraft.
This space stage of Spore is the only game of its time that comes the closest to No Man's Sky in terms of vastness where you have to upgrade your ship to travel to distant star systems, use black holes to travel to different corners of the Milky Way like galaxy, encounter beings and either work with them or just obliterate them.
The game even lets you colonise planets, hunt for resources and abduct animals or collect plant samples which you can then drop off in different planets in order to grow an ecosystem. You can even start terraforming barren planets to make them habitable, carve rivers, mountains, and lakes and if you’re feeling particularly peachy, change the colour of the atmosphere, water or even the land itself.
The goal for the players in the space stage of Spore is the same as that of No Man's Sky: to reach the centre of the galaxy no matter what stands in your way. It is no easy feat in this game, though, as you have to fight your way into the centre. A good way to go around it is to form alliances with other space-faring alien races who would potentially donate their ships to form your own fleet to fight and explore alongside you.
The Galactic Adventures DLC even allowed the ship’s commander; i.e. the player, to beam down into alien planets to partake in scripted missions for new parts, abilities, and XP.
2. The Solus Project (2016)
The Solus Project is a survival game at it's core which puts you in the shoes of a scientist in search of a habitable planet after Earth itself meets a very violent end. It starts with you crashing onto an alien planet which on the surface seems quite beautiful but has its own share of inhospitable weather conditions, strange geography and very peculiar cave systems that you must explore while crafting all that you need to stay alive.
The game quite definitely sets the mood early, giving the player a very tense and uncomfortable experience of not knowing what's happening around them. As you explore this new frontier at your own leisure, things soon start to go awry
This is a game that I first played a big chunk of when it was in pre-alpha, and it has come a long way since then. I remember being quite surprised when I started a new game after I got my final release copy, as it had ambient music now; something that adds even more to the beautifully made environments and the very subtle but interesting story.
Did I mention that the game also has native VR support for the HTC Vive and Occulus Rift? Although you can play this on a monitor, this would be phenomenally immersive on a VR headset and I would love to try this out for myself. I haven't played it till the end, but if you do, please send me a tweet for I'd be very interested to find out what happens.
1. Elite: Dangerous (2014)
In December 2014, after almost 9 years since the release of Frontier: First Encounters, came one of the most ambitious space exploration simulators in decades. Elite: Dangerous, the fourth game in the Elite series, takes advantage of the generation's graphics capabilities and combines it with near seamless MMO style gameplay and tight space flight controls to give us one of the most satisfying and realistic space simulators to have ever existed; until No Man's Sky at least.
The game offers a 1:1 scale fully open world galaxy that has been modelled after our very own Milky Way galaxy and you tend to travel through empty space for the most part of your experience.This makes the satisfaction of finding that rare trading post or space station or even a fellow player that much exciting.
You can, of course pick your play style and partake in trading, mining, exploration and bounty hunting missions, but be weary of the fact that the moment you attack another player, even if by accident, you accrue bounty and other players or even NPCs (non-playable characters) will try to hunt you down.
All in all, this is a sci-fi lover's delight and on many occasions I found myself pretending to be Han Solo on a mission to hunt down the space equivalent of John Dillinger. This is easily my favourite pick in this list; not just for the graphical fidelity, but for the incredibly open-ended choose-your-own-story style gameplay.
Honourable mentions
I intentionally kept big AAA titles like Mass Effect and Starcraft out of this list because you’ve probably played them already and my goal is to inform you about lesser known older or Indie games that you probably have never come across. Here are some space based games that didn’t quite make the list but deserve a few words anyway.
Universe Sandbox2 (2014)
Just in case you haven’t heard of this low-key astrophysics simulator, Universe Sandbox2 is exactly what the title of the game suggests: a sandbox style universe where you can do whatever might tickle your fancy.
Want to spawn a black hole in the middle of our solar system and watch the planets slowly drift away from their orbits? Why the hell not? Want to watch the moon slowly crash into the earth? Go for it. Want to watch our sun collide into another copy of itself causing a fiery supernova of gas and plasma? Hell yeah! You can even spawn planet-sized objects like a kettle, or a bowling ball!
The possibilities here are endless and only limited by your imagination or your computer’s rendering capabilities, whichever runs out first.
Kerbal Space Program (2015)
Kerbal Space Program puts you in control of a spacecraft building program controlled by Kerbals, little green humanoid aliens probably at the peak of their technological progress. The gameplay involves building a craft with the huge supply of parts and then testing it in a launch pad while trying to avoid catastrophic explosions or failures in the machinery. The aim is to come up with a technologically sound spacecraft design that you can safely launch and manoeuvre around nearby celestial bodies.
While this is not the most realistic physics simulator by far, it still has a sizeable cult following and has earned praise from the likes of NASA and Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX.
Do you know of a game that should be on this list but isn’t? Tweet me at @doobierain to tell me what you’re playing right now or if you think there’s a game that I really should play.
