Looking for new space opera games
December 20, 2014 10:55 PM   Subscribe

My favourite games in the world are Ur-quan Masters, EV Nova, FTL and Out There. What other Mac, PC, or iOS games like this should I be playing?
posted by Dag Maggot to Technology (11 answers total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Oh, that is a genre I like very much, and which is sadly underrepresented. Some suggestions:
posted by Zarkonnen at 12:37 AM on December 21, 2014


You might like Dungeon of the Endless. It's kind of like FTL meets tower defense.
posted by strangecargo at 12:48 AM on December 21, 2014


Hmm. Looks like MeFi doesn't like Steam links. Here is a link to the Dungeon of the Endless developer's page on the game.
posted by strangecargo at 2:48 AM on December 21, 2014


Transcendence is an awesome game that scratches my EV Nova itch. Free download, and every year or so I check there seems to be an update.
posted by HFSH at 2:52 AM on December 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Transcendence looks very EVNovaish, I'll give that a go.
posted by Dag Maggot at 5:48 AM on December 21, 2014


Oolite is a free Elite clone. In color! Does not demand a powerful computer at all.
posted by vogon_poet at 6:06 AM on December 21, 2014


Freespace 2 (with Free Space Open mods)
posted by Muttoneer at 9:04 AM on December 21, 2014


Space Rangers HD: A War Apart another relatively obscure gem. It's got SPAZ/Transcendence/SC2 style combat, text adventures, planetary RTS battles, trading, upgrading, questing, weird aliens, the whole shebang. Currently cheap on Steam, too. Probably the closest thing to Ur-Quan Masters.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 2:09 PM on December 21, 2014


OMG Transcendence is so good!

Also, this is the obligatory post asking if you have looked into EVE Online.
posted by 256 at 4:31 PM on December 21, 2014


It's rough - an open-source alpha - but Naev is about as close as I've found to a modern Escape Velocity game.

3030 Deathwar can be a lot of fun as well.
posted by ZaphodB at 8:56 PM on December 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Distant Worlds is expensive ($60, but sometimes on sale for $40) but is definitely my favorite game in the 4X genre (Rock Paper Shotgun agrees with me). The game is along the same lineage as Master of Orion 2 and Galactic Civilizations, except it adds a dizzying amount of depth and complexity.

You can generate a galaxy of 1,500 solar systems, and introduce about 40 different races each vying for their own objectives. This means you can have significant conflict involving billions of people and you would have no idea what was going on in your corner of the universe. The game eases the amount of micromanagement by introducing largely capable automation. The private sector (mining ships, passengers, tourism, etc) is always out of your control, but you can also delegate entire tasks to the AI. In fact, you could delegate everything completely to the AI and just watch things progress or maybe just control a single ship in the entire universe. It's a fascinating game to watch, even if you never learn how to play it.

Another option, and maybe the hallmark of space opera, is also quite possibly the most complicated game ever. Aurora started out as a hobby project specifically as a tool to build complex narratives. The internet got a hold of it and you know the rest. I've never touched this game, and I'm very comfortable with Dwarf Fortress for example. But the sheer scale is dizzying, and you might well be served reading one of the LPs in order to get a grasp on it. It's free, except it'll take you forever to wrap your head around it.
posted by bouchacha at 9:10 AM on December 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


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