The current state of space games.

[znôrt]

Frontier is a mega publisher now. The perfect mini me of EA and Activision in their own competitive niche.

sad truth, that seems to be braben's pet project now. the success of planet coaster did probably more 'damage' to ed than all flops of ed combined.

and i can't even blame the guy, people just move on, and nowaday's 'game communities' beyond some point tend to be nasty hordes one wouldn't gladly devote all his hope and energy to. so he has my total understanding but sadly those of us who wished for deep and interesting space simulation/games are orphaned again ...

then again, what's a "space game". does "space invaders" qualify? i never took sc even seriously. nms is a cool game but not my style. space engineers and specially ksp are close but too "building" oriented for me to really latch on. i saw a tiny spark of hope with hellion but sadly they didn't make it. none of those even comes close to the scale attempted by ed.

funny thing is that ed is still the one game who got furthest in that direction, if you ignore almost everything after 2016.

so ... any volunteers out there to make a new space game from scratch?

 

[Mole HD]

I'm still currently plugging away with Star Citizen...the new upcoming patch looks good, current patch is too full of bugs to play...swings and roundabouts as usual with the glacial development.

Is it worth anyone new getting into? Not really and I would never recommend it outside of folks I already know...although you can now buy ships in game with in game credits and actually keep them...as well as everything else you earn so from an initial $45, you can realistically earn most stuff in game. It takes time and patience...like we as gamers used to have once upon a time but it can now be done. Still not nearly enough to do bar basic tier 0 gameplay...with the exception of mining which is rather good...the rest, not so much.

I've been a backer for 5 years or so and have bought a few ships along the way so I have a decent enough little fleet of industrial ships to play with...but for new folks I'd still advise to steer well clear of the predatory marketing and endless development, it's really not worth it if you're not already prepared for all the palaver and expense involved.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

sad truth, that seems to be braben's pet project now. the success of planet coaster did probably more 'damage' to ed than all flops of ed combined.

and i can't even blame the guy, people just move on, and nowaday's 'game communities' beyond some point tend to be nasty hordes one wouldn't gladly devote all his hope and energy to. so he has my total understanding but sadly those of us who wished for deep and interesting space simulation/games are orphaned again ...

then again, what's a "space game". does "space invaders" qualify? i never took sc even seriously. nms is a cool game but not my style. space engineers and specially ksp are close but too "building" oriented for me to really latch on. i saw a tiny spark of hope with hellion but sadly they didn't make it. none of those even comes close to the scale attempted by ed.

funny thing is that ed is still the one game who got furthest in that direction, if you ignore almost everything after 2016.

so ... any volunteers out there to make a new space game from scratch?

That is the sad reality, the only hope I have now is that FDev won't break the game as is now for the sake of new features - i.e. we will have Elite as is for several more years to come.
I'm just curious what those alleged 100 people-strong dev team is doing. It is either the best kept secret in the industry or the biggest... dishonesty.

By the way, how great it would be to inject Elite (Frontier 2?) into Space Engine?

 

[ArAsH]

Shameless plug in this, try Vendetta Online. It’s free untill june. It’s a fun cross platform space sim that’s been around since the late 90’s. It still feels like a polished beta with the same complaints you hear everywhere, but the flight model and combat are real fun, once you get a hang of it.