I’m rewatching Babylon 5 and it’s putting me in the mood for an immersive game where I get to command a spaceship and blast stuff with lasers or plasma cannons or whatever.
I fondly remember playing Tie Fighter, Elite 2 and Privateer, and I was wondering if there were good games from this side of the millennium? I’ve tried playing Tie Fighter Total Conversion, but without a joystick I found it very hard to control. I’ve played some Elite Dangerous, and enjoy a bit of trading, but the combat is a bit too hard for me.
I’m a very casual gamer, and not looking for an mmo, or anything particularly challenging. I just want to zoom around in a spaceship as epic battles rage around me, and have a bit of a power fantasy.
Any suggestions?
Even though it’s an old game, Tachyon The Fringe is a great space shooter, it’s available on GOG and well worth it.
Might be old now but Freelancer?
It has a campaign but there is also free play.
Everspace is very cool - it’s a rouge like where you upgrade your ship as you progress with very unique skills and different branches.
I’m also in love with Cosmoteer - 2D game where you can build, rebuild, salvage enemy ships, eventually create a small fleet and experiment a lot with different designs.In increasing order of casualness I recommend: Elite Dangerous->X3/X4->Everspace/Everspace 2-> No Man’s Sky.
Everspace 2 is a spiritual successor to Freelancer, so probably your best bet ( Everspace 1 is more roguelike, but holds up nicely ). Speaking of Freelancer, I hear the game is still alive and has a vibrant community around it.
If you ever want to revisit Elite shoot me a message, I may help you with starting up. They say Elite doesn’t have a learning curve but a cliff, so help is usually needed. Luckily the game has the most welcoming and helpful community I’ve seen in/around a video game.
Other than these, there’s Chorus, but I haven’t played that one and it seems more story driven than open-ended.
The X series (X3 and X4 in particular) might be fun. Very sandboxy. The late-game turns into more of a management game than a ‘fly around blasting stuff’ game, but you don’t have to go that route if you don’t want to.
Star Wars Squadrons is pretty good fun.
That looks fun! I am a sucker for games set in classic SW.
Fun in VR, too
This was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the Tie Fighter mention. Though OP mentioned not having a joystick and I don’t have direct experience playing on controller so YYMV.
The single player campaign is short but fun and very nostalgic for enjoyers of the X-Wing/Tie Fighter era of games!
The online (if anyone even still plays) is anything but casual so I don’t necessarily recommend that unless you are super invested in it.
For a game that’s themed as space battles and isn’t an action game, check out Cobalt Core. It’s a deckbuilding adventure about a space crew trying to escape from a time loop. The characters and story moments are fun and combat is like a turn-based puzzle of trying to position the ship to line up with enemy weak spots or to dodge missile barrages.
There’s a new game in early access called “Jump Space” that has been pretty fun so far. You can play it solo is more fun with others. As you work as a crew with roles such as pilot, gunner, engineering etc. It is published by EA though, so fair warning.
It’s published in EA, that is Early Access. Not by EA, the company.
Thanks for the correction
Random question about Jump Space. Is it like Sea of Thieves or Void Crew where it’s kind of only fun if you’re playing with actual friends and everyone is on mic and isn’t very functional if you’re matching up with randoms?
Been keeping an eye on this game, but have also come to realize that while I like the idea of games like SoT or Void Crew I don’t actually like playing them cuz I don’t like games that require that level of coordination with randoms who don’t know exactly what to do.
To be clear, I’m obsessed with coop games like Deep Rock Galactic and the new Mycopunk. And I’ve spent decades waiting for that perfect space shooter that transitions from ship combat to ground combat. But the bottom line is I’ll always be matching up with randoms and if this isn’t that kind of game then I’m gonna sit this one out.
Yes I think it would be frustrating if you are playing with random people. Learning is part of the gameplay so experienced players will have to teach / direct new players. For example, my group died multiple times when we had to deal with radiation just because we didn’t know what to do with irradiated material.
On mic is absolutely a requirement as coordination is a major emphasis. Granted the game is still in active development. But from what I’ve heard, the new features will require even more teamwork and coordination.
I.e. you can have fire on one side of the ship and radiation on the other, whilst in the middle of a dogfight. These elements are scaled to the size of your party and difficulty level though. If you play solo, you have an onboard bot that helps and you don’t have to juggle as much.
Thanks for the info. Exactly what I needed.
If you want bigger ships than fighters:
Rebel Galaxy(its completely different compared to RG Outlaw) - big ships, can hire a single mercenary, combat for you happens in 2D and its more of naval style with broadsides and automated turrets.
Between the Stars - you have a spaceship with a crew and can also hire 2 more ships to help you out(once you gear them), game got plenty of quests with some puzzles to boat, “ground combat” which is using dice(or can be disabled completely) and space combat takes a bit to get used to.
+1 for Rebel Galaxy.
It came out a few years ago but it’s still a really good game that I’ll pick up every now and then. The combat is surprisingly good for a space game that’s on a 2d plane.
Completely offline which is nice also.
+2
It’s also got a badass soundtrack
I like x4. It’s kind of like Elite Dangerous but the flight mechanics are a little easier and you can command much larger ships and hire NPC pilots and build fleets.
I haven’t played it in years, but I have fond memories of FreeSpace 2 and its open source community version. A quick search turned this up.
There was also a Babylon 5 mod for Free Space 2
FTL and star command come to mind.
Isn’t FTL more of a base (ship) builder than a space dogfight type game?
House Of The Dying Sun is pretty good for casual fun from what little I’ve played of it.
+1 for Rebal Galaxy
If you want something a bit closer to Starfox, rather than an all-range flight arena, try Rogue Flight. It definitely evokes the power fantasy feeling, living up the classic arcade trope of “one ship being readied on a mission to save humanity”. There’s some very big-name voice actor work in it, as well.
Another good game for the “power fantasy” trope, though it’s a bit more outside the target, is Ace Combat 7. Or, perhaps any games in the series, but this one is pretty accessible. The combat is close to what you’d get in X-Wing/Tie-Fighter, but with fighter planes. It breaks from realism a little bit where needed to make the stunts fun. And, the story very much orients around the silent player character being “scary tough” in a fight, to the point enemy fighters are retreating just from seeing your wing markings.
