I tend to like Space Games and played many of them during the 90's, such as Star Wars Tie Fighter and Wing Commander series, but then the genre sort of died out. Until about 10 years ago, when it was resurrected by a couple of game studios.
Today, I must say my favorite game of all times is a current game, not yet released to the public: Star Citizen.
It's a Space Simulator game but spans several other genres, among them Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing (MMORPG), First-Person Shooter (FPS), Racing and others. More genres will be added later, among them Real-Time Strategy (RTS) and Simulation (SIM), where you can run a farm or a factory. Because the game spans many genres and is in many ways not genre-typic either, the creator, Cloud Imperium Games (CIG), call it a First Person Universe game. For instance, skill levels doesn't exist in Star Citizen and you cannot ascend to a higher level in the game artificially. Instead, you learn personal skills through training in your occupation/profession, just as you would in real life. Because of this, an occupation isn't easy to master in a flash. You can start with easy stuff but it takes training to become good at it, whether you're bounty hunting, mining, or other things. There's also no "win" situation. Your character progress through skills and achievements and there's no end goal.
Star Citizen is still in Alpha (v 3.18 currently) but is open for all with a game account -- if you don't mind experiencing some bugs. It contains many things to do, such as shoot-em-up, trading and cargo hauling, bounty hunting, exploring, mining, salvaging, and more. You can also choose to be an outlaw and prey on other players. Star Citizen is known for its massive and beautiful planets, where you can freely fly, park your ship and walk around. There are no skyboxes. When you stand on a planet and look up towards a moon, you see the moon as it is in relation to the planet and you can fly from the planet to the moon without taking your eyes off it and land on the moon. Planets and moons also have day/night cycles. Persistence ensures you can place a crate in the woods for someone else to pick up (or others to accidently find).
The core of the game is a space simulator though and you can fly your own ship with a crew of friends, if you like. While you pilot the ship, your friends can man the turrets or manage shields, for example. In Star Citizen you can fly seamlessly from space down to a planet or moon, walk from the ship and into an area with "enemies" you can FPS with. All is seamless with no scene changes. Or you can do Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) from your ship and board other ships through the vacuum of space, then continue FPS inside the other ship and perhaps take it over. Inside your ship you can walk around seamlessly from cockpit to all other parts of the ship. Explorer type ships have a bed you can use to log out, and when you log in again later you wake up in the same bed at the same location where you parked your ship. The game has alien races and alien ships.
CIG is simultaneously developing a single-player version, called Star Citizen Squadron 42. This game will most probably be released first, then the MMO later. There's no release date for either games at this time.
Do ask me if you wonder about something in Star Citizen. 👍
Star Citizen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RobertsSpaceInd
