Either you want to micro-manage the entire faction of the galaxy to build an awesome empire or want to completely obliterate enemy ships in the comfort of your cockpit. The game mentioned below will provide you with your wildest galactic fantasy fight.
Best Space Combat Games
No game is complete without story progression, so these games are not only “point and shoot” but also have their interdimensional galaxies to explore, resources to collect and build, customization of ships, and so much more. Here are the fourteen best space combat games you can play right now.
Eve-Online
Eve Online is Overwhelmingly big, and I am not even exaggerating. I mean big in every aspect of the game, such as political factions, player-controlled economy, online trade, building ships, and many more. Many players spend hundreds of hours and barely scratch the surface; it’s that vast. It’s a massive online sandbox universe where anything is possible if you have the right tools and people. The longest-running space MMO game has improved in every aspect for players to experience true online games. However, the theft and robbery of newcomers for their resources is a common norm here. Literally, thousands of real players fight against each other for territory and resources. If you want to survive for a long, then joining a player’s cooperation is recommended. It’s not average space combat that you can pick up and play. The game requires focus and commitment to rise and thrive on forming an empire of your own space.
War Tech Fighters
An intensely fast pace combat game where you take control of Gundam-like mecha and slash enemies with your tech sword. The war against colonies and take the fight to space with high-tech lasers and spacecraft, but nothing is matched against the overpowered giant mech robots. Customize your war mech suit to its full potential and take them into space battle as you slay, shoot, and defeat your enemies. You have swords for close-range combat, turrets mounted on your mech shoulder to shoot far enemies, and the fun part is, that all this action happens in the open space while you maneuver your mech like a plane in arcade games.
Star Wars: Squadrons
You must have seen the epic dog fight held against an enemy ship in the Star Wars franchise. If you want to experience the battle firsthand, then Star Wars: Squadrons will give you the immersion and intensity of chase or escape from space combat. Star Wars will love the settings and stories taking place in space. With its reference and familiar faces, it becomes a welcome addition to Star Wars games that players come to love. Much effort has been given to carefully crafting the interiors of the cockpit, which is more admirable while playing in VR. While the single-player campaign is more focused on storytelling, it’s the multiplayer feature where space pilots can put their skills to the test by improving not only in combat but also customizing their ship to full defense or heavy-hitting offense.
Elite: Dangerous
Launch your ship into the vast space of the entire galaxy to explore its hidden secrets. You will never know what you might encounter along your journey but be prepared to dwell in some of the epic space combat if you see a huge spaceship. You can trade, accept missions or go on a hunt for lost treasures. Due to its exact replication of the Milkyway galaxy, traveling sometimes feels tedious, but the sense of discovery along the journey can make traveling all worthwhile. It gives you a sense of accomplishment when it finally clicks, and you actually know what you’re doing after hours of research and trial and error.
House Of The Dying Sun
It’s a galactic shooting simulation where you control your space fighter jet from a first-person view and experience the emersion from space with Virtual Reality. With its beautiful art style and amazing sound design, you feel like you’re actually piloting your space fighter plane into the galaxy. The tactical-pause mechanic makes things fresh for this genre. And it has one of the best dogfighting gameplays that many space fighting games fail to capture.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
Have a blast exploding the enemy ship into oblivion as you hunt pirates and outlaws for some bounties. Then you can purchase new and improved space jets to go on challenging missions. When you are not flying your vehicle into space, you can relax in the doge sectors with people playing lucky draws and pools. Roll the dice and spend your money on mini-games. What makes Rebel Galaxy Outlaw special from others is its auto-aim system where players don’t have to constantly shift the view trying to calibrate the target. The game automatically locks on the target and becomes easier to chase enemies into the vast open galaxy. Simply press the left trigger, and the ship will automatically home in on the target. But if you want to experience true arcade combat without auto-lock, then you can disable the assist mode completely.
Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
It’s a space strategy combat game where you have to command several spaceships to lead them into battle. Its detailed combat and freedom to customize the spacecraft range make the game fresh from playing. The game keeps you invested with its exceptional storytelling. It has beautiful atmospheric graphics with all the space elements and still holds a place in space adventure games with top-notch visuals.
FreeSpace 2
Even after twenty years, FreeSpace 2 still holds dear to space combat fans worldwide. Because of its open-source project distributed by the developer Volition, programmers are now able to enhance the gameplay and visual aesthetic of the game. FreeSpace Open, as it is called now, has improved on several aspects of the game by giving players the freedom to explore space at their own pace. Several other elements, including its own storyline, have given a unique taste to the already appreciated game. Along with its gameplay and graphics aspect, the additional storyline of FreeSpace 2 has improved and even surpassed the traditional story we can find in the main campaign of the game.
Everspace
The rogue-like space combat game is so exquisitely balanced between fun and challenging gameplay. The game lets you live on the edge as you are so close to death but succeed in making that perfect run. Everspace demands your sheer focus as adrenaline rushes through your body to give you a perfect dose of pleasure when you achieve the impossible. An experience to live down memory lane for a long. The gameplay has a different approach than that of a typical space combat game where you can open the throttle to set speed. Everspace has you pilot your ship like a typical arcade-style shooting game. This might seem odd at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a pleasure to play as you have so much control over your ship’s maneuverability.
Freelancer
Almost two decades later, Freelancer still holds up to the best space shooting combat, thanks to its modding community constantly updating its visuals and gameplay to give players a refined space experience. It also has a multiplayer mode where a hundred and twenty-eight players join together in a fierce space combat battle. Cruse, your ship through asteroid debris and progress through the story to learn about the space war set hundred years ago between the Coalition and the Alliance.
Star Citizen
The amount of detail put into every aspect of the game, from interior to exterior and how it interacts with dynamic lighting is astounding. The visual aspect of this game is mind-blowing as you cruise your ship’s planets to the space station. The game leans more towards realism with detailed designs of ship cockpits and the way they work accordingly. The detail, the lore, the freedom, the game mechanics, and the variety. If you are a fan of Star Wars and Star Trek movies, this game will probably be this game, but it has steep learning that will require some dedication to play once you set on a mission; it’s a blast to fly your ship into the battle. Star Citizen had a rough start at the beginning, but with its constant updates and contents, this game has become one of the space games.
No Man’s Sky
With its new Outlaw Update, Space combat has become more intense with pirates, rogues, and outlaws of the galaxy. No Man’s Sky lets players smuggle dangerous items and do illegal supplies across the universe. You can risk a lot to get rewarded with plenty of rare items. Just like Rebel Galaxy Outlaw’s ability to lock on enemy ships while chasing, the Outlaws update has made the feature of locking targets available. You can now call for aid with the addition of a new Squadron. Battle with your comrade side by side and complete tasks that otherwise seem impossible. Expand your squadron to fight and defend against enemies as you traverse with important illegal supplies on your ship.
EVE Valkyrie
EVE Valkyrie is an online VR experience where you and your team engage in an intense space dogfight. It’s an amazing experience to view the galaxy and fight in your cockpit and shoot enemies with a head tracker that is new and unique to the gameplay. There is a single-player campaign, but the exciting elements are always online, where you and your friends join together to play game modes such as arena, carrier assault, point capture, and many more. The game creates memorable moments when you and your team harmonize together to take down the deadliest and most powerful opponent teams. It’s the sheer amount of bonding together to launch perfect offense is where the game’s strong point is. And with VR immersion, it truly feels like winning a war in real life.
Star Trek Online
After many iterations and updates, Star Trek Online has become a great massively multiplayer online game with really good space combat and a deep story that introduces the history of Star Trek. Star Trek Online has a small portion of ground that is not much focused on. Rather the feature of crew customization and Starfleet command-style space combat is refined to make players get the best of fight in space. It’s a sweet treat for Star Trek fans to experience the open world of the Star Trek universe and dwell on its ever-engaging story.
