Hi everyone, here’s my list of Medium-sized, “Rise of the RTS” list:
Top-5 Space Games
Honorable Mentions
Space-adjacent Games
I’ve added the last category because there are a lot of games that are in space-centric settings, but which do not directly deal with outer space itself (i.e. games on alien planets, in which the ‘alien’ part is very important, but you never really deal with space itself as part of the game). I won’t give detailed descriptions, but I will put links to them all.
A space RTS, where you command fleets of ships against rival… *ahem* Empires. If you like RTSes, but in a shorter, simpler, faster format, Sins is a great series to consider, especially since the sub-genre of Space RTSes has been pretty dead for a long while in mainstream, AAA games. Rebellion was a standalone ‘expansion’ to SoaSE, which from what I gather most people just now recommend to get in lieu of getting the original + expansions.
I would probably swap this out with Imperium Galactica 2 (see below), but I think it’s age may make it too inaccessible for many players.
On the dead-opposite end from an RTS, comes a first-person, multiplayer game about being the people who actually build all those ships you’re commanding in other games. Space Engineers is really unique in that you are basically playing Minecraft, but building spaceships. You can start on a planet, find a frozen lake, start mining and refining nearby iron, nickel, etc, and before (too) long launch your first horribly ugly spaceship, maybe even into space!
There are tons and tons of mods, including mods that add NPC factions and new weapon and block types, and lots of very engineering-focused content to let you do complex pseudo-automations. If you’re like me, you’ll always play on the sandbox solar system start, manage to get off the Earthlike planet, make a base on one of the asteroids nearby, and promptly die to NPC pirates. But it’s fun!
The One and Only Homeworld, one of the most famous space games of all time. This was the pinnacle of mission-based RTS in 1999, and still holds up well today (at least in the space genre). Amazingly, a year later we also got Ground Control and Earth 2150, so truly the turn of the millennium was a special time for RTSes.
This is a game that really showed a love of the beauty and awe of space. Though it couldn’t always convey it perfectly, it always tried. This is not a base-builder RTS (a la StarCraft, C&C, etc), which can turn a lot of people off, but if you really just love bite-sized, tactical, crunchy combat, with the added verticality of 3D space, Homeworld set the gold standard for years.
So much ink has been spilled about KSP, it’s hard to know what to write that isn’t common knowledge, but in case you’ve never heard of it or looked into it, Kerbal Space Program is a physics-based rocket-building and space exploration game, where you operate a space organization analogous to NASA, on the planet Kerbin. It has a plethora of systems to engage with, like conducting research and performing experiments under specific conditions to unlock new tech, doing contract missions for money, trying for difficult achievements, or even just trying to actually reach the distant and unusual planets and moons. You can literally play it for years and never successfully land a ship on many of the planets or moons, much less get home afterwards. It also has a sandbox mode if you’re not interested in the money and tech management, and just want to build and test rockets.
It has mods out the wazoo, including many which help the less mathematically-inclined of us, such as MechJeb (basically a highly-configurable auto-pilot system). It won’t save you from yourself, but it will often save you from the vagaries of the physics engine.
You may commence the head-scratching or the mouth-foaming!
Distant Worlds: Universe is a sandbox RTS / 4X game where you simply usher a space-faring civilization through whatever comes.
Where it stands apart, and what makes it completely different and unique from basically any other game I can think of, is that you can granularly elect for any parts of your empire’s control to be automated.
You can literally have the game play itself, if you so desire.
Or you can just control the fleets. Or just the research. Or maybe you only choose the government policies, roleplaying congress, with no actual control over how those policies play out. Or maybe you just play it like a normal 4X RTS, but getting rid of the micromanagement of planets. Or maybe you have the AI ask you permission for certain choices, and treat it as basically a smart advisor.
It’s a really special and unique game, and it also has so many mods and so much content that you can change it up, or do total conversions. Wanna just turn it into Star Wars, or Stargate, or Babylon5, or Warhammer 40k, or Eve Offline, or Battlestar Galactica, or Macross, or (obviously) Star Trek? You can!
A long-running series from Stardock, a classic name in TBS (turn-based strategy) games. I personally love 2 and 3, but I have heard very positive things about 4 as well. It is more… cartoonish? and lighthearted than many other 4X games, but that doesn’t mean they’re less difficult; it’s very tactical, and has a good blend of straight empire-control-jockeying and random events to spice things up. In many ways I’d call it a predecessor to Stellaris.
The oldest game that will appear on any of these lists, Pax Imperia is an RTS from 1997, that still holds up strong today. You can create a custom species to play as, or choose from some presets. You can customize ships extensively, and there is a massive research tree. The combat is engaging and tactical, and it really feels like FLEETS fighting, not just little individual ships all skirmishing in the same place. Plus, it has one of the COOLEST opening cinematics for a video game. THIS THING SLAPS.
The classic Descent series from Volition (RIP) moved out of asteroids, and into space wars! This is a mission-based space combat game, in which you played as humans fighting against a new and deadly alien species invading both you and the other hostile alien species humans were already at war with (the Vasudans). It really does a great job of making you feel… helpless in space. You’re not really some badass, you’re a single pilot in a great big war, and you’re struggling to hold on and pull through alive.
This is probably the game I actually come back to the most on this list of Medium-sized games. It is a really great RTS / 4X, with 3 main factions with campaigns, and a bunch of minor factions you can play in skirmish scenarios with.
It’s got everything:
Ship customization
Planet-side city planning (and invasions! You actually get to land tanks on enemy planets and assault their structures, and they your’s).
Spying, and counter-intelligence, and framing other empires, and stealing tech, and assassinating leaders, and hiring different species of aliens as spies to be more effective for certain missions, or against their own factions, or even forcing spies you capture to be double-agents! Holy hell!
An alien race that (contrary to the literal name of the game) cannot conduct diplomacy at all, and just wants to murder everyone, and has superweapons!
As the final Honorable Mention, we have a complete swerve from the rest of the list. Take On Mars is a Mars exploration sim from Bohemia Interactive. Literally playing as essentially NASA, you build rovers, land them, and carry out science missions. Like, “land here, drive the rover to this rock formation, take sample, launch sample-return vehicle/ transmit spectrometer data”, etc. I think it also has missions where you build a base for people, but I never bother with those. It’s a true sim, so it’s slow, and methodical, and you can drive a rover for 30 minutes only to get frustrated and drive too fast and hit a rock and fuck up your rover’s wheels and have to start all over… though you get to keep your job, unlike IRL.
If you enjoy relaxing simulation games, this one is really nice.
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No love for the old classic Alpha Centauri? The drones need you …
I do love Alpha Centauri! I’d probably add that under “space-adjacent” games.