Top 14 Space Simulation Games to Buy in the Steam Summer Sale! 

We really enjoy X4 Foundations! :)

X4 is an auto include. Your game is awesome!

Yea i don't even have time for any other game due to X4. 😅

I've heard its not great on the Steam Deck, gets quite chuggy and can't cope with everything going on in the background?

Love X4 !!

it is a dumpster fire with a learning curve far worse than either ED or EVE.

Yeah I recently discovered x4 and true to what everyone said, I’ve loved it more the longer I’ve played. There’s nothing quite like starting out as a miner, gunfighter, etc and growing into an entire galactic empire with multiple facets of income. 100.% recommend jumping in. The learning curve is steep but surprisingly not overwhelming if you just hop in and play. Everything falls into place

That's the problem. ED sucks and Eve online is obsolete and boring. If they combined Star Citizen, No Man's sky and Starfield it would be great.

@@zman_o7 I would have to ask if you accidentally hit a brick wall with your face. X4 is far simpler and easier to understand that both ED and EVE Online combined. Both on how to fight and how to build an empire.

I described X4 as "I wanna play Elite: Dangerous and Stellaris at the exact same time because I just can't be bothered to choose between them." lol

@@Muldaak very well said and currently amazing value!

Between X: Gold, X2, X3:R and X3:TC, I must have put 1000+ hours into the series. I don't think I'll ever recover from setting up the 100 Microchip factories for the X3 Hub quest though.

Well it's certainly here on merit and a great game. So glad we could have an impact!

Both are a great title, played a lot of them both. Elite for its ship gameplay and sound and played x4 for its simulation and huge space fleet battle.

@@VonEldrich I could not agree with both of you more. I absolutely love X4, and the detail in Elite is pretty great. 🚀

its not a simulation, more like acrade

Same here.

It's because you are old. I have T-shirts who are older then some co workers. It's a fact.

@@3komma141592653hi gramps

Same here - But I admit I really AM old (69). For me the X series (with X4: Foundations as the latest entry) is the real successor to the Elite I played on the BBC-B (and later on the Acorn Archimedes and RiscPC). I got that feeling right at the moment I played the demo of X - Beyond The Frontier that was included with a PC magazine. I remember that after playing that demo I sought several stores to finally get my hands on it. I still have the original CD by the way. Of course X4 is not the only space game I play. I like NMS for instance. Most games I play these days are JRPG's (Nihom Falcom's Trails series is my most loved one), but I still have a sweet spot for that old Elite (and X4 of course).

I still have the OG manual for Elite on the Speccy.... In fact that manual is right behind me now.

Evochron Legacy is an awesome game. It just takes some time to learn. Well I guess any Space Sim takes a lot of time haha!

I love seeing any small team games pop up and those hit that mark from what I hear. I've played other Evochron games, but not legacy, and currently the original Starbourne is game #2 I'm playing right now. lol In a different genre is Kenshi, originally a one man team, and got larger as more people bought it before full release. I think I bought it for family and friends about 10 times. lol It's currently on sale, and it should be a definite buy for any sandbox lover. Tons of mods as well.

@@Qikdraw Kenshi is so good! It's so unique and one of those cult hits that doesn't get talked about enough!

Agreed, "ΔV: Rings of Saturn" is a great game, do recommend it. 👍

Space Engineers is one of my favorites!

Starsector is an all-time favorite for sure

Starsector isn't on Steam, though, and would be a bit out of place in a video about good deals in this year's summer sale.

Space engineers is a joke, years of being cuckolded and trickle fed content by devs while the game was kept alive solely by player driven mod life support, and now that the dews started releasing a lot of content, its mostly paid DLC

Too complicated

I mean. This list includes CoaDE, so I don't think complexity is an issue... 😆

@@viktoriaalden3452 *Exactly*

Because its not worth mentioning

What about KSP

Great list....Star Valor as well

Good profits , pilot

LT Gaming approves of this comment! haha

To be honest, I am flirting with buying this game for quite some time now, but what I read about the learning curve has discouraged me so far. I even have a HOTAS, so that would be not problem, but when I read the reviews, see all those DLC and read reviews saying the game looks great but they don't even know where to start, I feel kind of disencouraged.

@@Furzkampfbomber Yep - The learning curve is steep, but there are tutorials in the game, and once you get used to it, it becomes almost a second nature to fly around and do stuff with your ship. You know what they say. You can't make a omelette without breaking a few eggs. In other words, you have to put in some effort, but there is a nice reward in the end...

@@Furzkampfbomber Don't believe the dis-hype! The X games are complex beasts UI wise, but that is because you aren't forbidden by the UI not containing a thing that you can do, but the UI "declutter" makes forbidding to access. So play the base game as just a single lone pilot. The map is therefore only to find where to go next, and very little of the UI is needed. And then try playing with orders so that a miner can mine a rich area and then you get pinged with "completed orders", and you send that, via map commands, to a place that buys that resource, and the UI is cluttered with things you never use, but are completely ignorable because you don't need it. Then sort out more miners (or traders) with commands to auto mine or auto trade or scouts to auto map for you. You will learn that the UI makes a lot of things available, but it is only a steep learning curve if you "want to" remote order, set up patrols, start wars, be a pilot, empire commander etc all on the first possible day. It isn't necessary for you to do it all right now, and those complaints of "steep learning curve!!!" are people who got used to being able to do everything possible in the first week on other games. And importantly, like the card game Solitaire or similar, you may get a set up that is doomed from the get-go, that no matter what you do, the universe will, before you can afford to "save the day" Dudley Do-Right style, fall apart and be explodified or limited well before you discover what you CAN do, but you will not be able to find out in 20 hours. That many games 20 hours is well on through what you can do is why people often give up and never come back to X4. The expectation is different from what the game allows and/or engineers to happen. Heck after 100 hours you will still be a n00b at it, but you will know how the game works, basically, yet still come across new things or methods you didn't know before. This is why, IMO, if you aren't sure, and you don't have it, get the base game first. Put at least your first game in it as just faffing about and learning the game. If you can't put 20-30 hours in (in however many restarts that takes) to just throw away, this almost definitely isn't the game for you, not because it is bad, but because, like DOTA or WoW et al, this can see you lose thousands of literal hours of your life playing, and you cannot afford that time in just one game. But be ready to throw those invested hours away, entirely, and restart yet again. If you find you like its way of being played worthwhile, get any DLCs you like to extend the game further, Egosoft intended each DLC you buy to be a restart, and whether it is on sale or not is almost irrelevant, in "dollars per hour" a DLC that costs 15 dollars but gets 200+ hours is still entirely worth it. And if you find the game isn't worth the time it requires to "get good", you're only out a small amount, the cost of the base only game on sale, and that cost is what you pay for any other game and risk not liking. If you already have it, just play it knowing IT DOESN'T MATTER that you throw away 20 hours, it doesn't "waste" anything, and if you still don't understand 90% of the UI when you restart after finding out the game is going to fail any day now, it still doesn't matter: you learned 10% of the UI, and the next play you know that and can build up and learn 20%. Etc. It isn't necessary to learn 100% of the UI, but it is necessary that the UI contain 100% of what you can do. That difference is why the complaining about "UI bad" is heard all round the place (noise, however, doesn't indicate numbers, just how loud someone can be). Just don't demand you must learn all the UI and eventually you find it is logical, just not a logic you might find in a Windows UI or a Playstation UI, etc, both of which you had to learn before you set your default ui expectation to that UI's methodology. X4's UI is meant to make what X4 can do available, and tries to be logical in presenting that, not aping Windows. As an aside, that is often what GNU Image Processing is complained at: it isn't Adobe's UI, so it MUST be bad. However, if you learned Photoshop later, although having learned GIMPs UI first, means Photoshop's UI is easier, the obverse isn't true, because Photoshop's UI is aping Windows Way, not Image Processing ways of doing things. Same for UNIX vs Windows. There's a difference in how things work, and if you learn THAT way of doing things (Multiple Document Single Interface) then Windows (Single Document Single Interface) is simpler but less logical (the old Mac way was MDSI too, the app added/changed the bar available, the document was in its own window. that is a UNIX way of doing a GUI).

HotDS such an awesome game yet 2 hour long campaign is just criminal. It's 6 hours for 3 walkthroughs and another hour to figure out survival build to autowin all stages. In the end it's just made me sad that other games somehow unable to provide as enjoyable space fighter experience as this game. Just give us longer Diaspora campaign with HotDS flight model...

Kind words! We have a lot of improvement to make and always listening :)

Yes a very fair description! We stay relaxed on genre :)

@@Drax658 now I wanna play lol

Appreciate it and glad you found value here!

Play Starsector or X4 ;)

Great that you found it through us :)

@@LTGamingRU-vid it’s like space engineers, but with actual gameplay!

Yeah something I'd like to do also 🚀

Glad you agree 😃

Awesome suggestions!

First person is the main reason I play but hey! 😂

Often what does it is the UI is complicated because it has to show 100% of what you CAN do, but you can ignore 90% of its options, you "just have to" learn the logic to discover where the 10% you need is hidden in. X4s UI IS logical, but it isn't a logic you learned using Windows and ITS UI, a UI you still had to learn ITS logic, before you could use it. But since you learned Windows UI, "you" want X4 to use that logic too, because that saves learning its UI.

@@markhackett2302 well said. Tbh the alien UI is always part of the joy for me. And overall the X4 UI is logical to me!

@@LTGamingRU-vid Aye, just not a logic that people have found before, necessarily, and so since it isn't what they are used to, claim the UI CANNOT be logical, at all, because they can't be wrong or anything, so it MUST be the UI is bad!!!! If you've had to use Maya, or a Lighttable app to deal with photo retouching, or similar, you'd know the UI has to be learned for any application. It is just that it isn't "pick up and play" like, say, Doom, and it isn't a problem either with the UI or the person playing.

@@markhackett2302 exactly this and for me when a game has new systems I just enjoy it even more. Why I enjoy a lot of Japanese strategy games. They break my conceptions of UI totally 😂

All planetside would do is change your skybox, under X, same as Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous does. SC's USP is "you can walk around a "real ship"". ED's USP is its VR abilities. X has neither the scope nor the people to chase either place, it would need 100s of millions of dollars and 200+ people working on it to compete.

Yes I bought that on GOG!

Really enjoyed it!

I bought both Chorus and Everspace 2 a while ago, and I still cannot decide witch of the two I like most. Oh hell - I like both...😁

@@jclosed2516 yeah this is the joy of gaming right. So much to enjoy 🚀 I must give Everspace 2 another go 🚀

@@jclosed2516 You can like more then one thing/game :). I never could understand people saying one game is "XY killer", two games can co-exist and people can be fan of both.

Glad you enjoyed it! and welcome to LT Gaming!

@@micheljolicoeur6094 very fun game!

Is it a Space Sim? I think I know the game you mean!

​@LTGamingRU-vid it has some space combat, but its mostly just a turn based rpg

Yes been suggested a lot here. I haven't played it enough to include!

@@iPsyte X4 is a huge game on its own without DLC. If you liked those other games you would enjoy this. Its a marquee game and at the current price we'll worth it.

I agree that the base game is a huge amount gameplay... but... all the expansions together represent a simply insane amount of additional gameplay. I would recommend playing the base game first anyway, just to become familiar with what is going on and decide if you actually intend to stick with the game long term, but once you decide you ARE liking the game I HIGHLY recommend getting expansions.

@@baneblackguard584 I ended up settling on the base game. After maybe 100hrs or so I'll def get the DLC. I know my rig can run it fine. But how many fps are you guys normally pushing? It seems like it would be pretty CPU intensive. Just curious

@@iPsyte Depending your system. If you play on Windows make sure you install Project Laso (no need to buy it) and set the game to High priority permanently. Alternative use the Xbox gamebar. GPU wise the game is OK with the likes of 5700XT/GTX1080Ti/RTX2080 level of perf (so low GPU for today's standards) at 2560x1440. Make sure you use TAA for AA, and keep Volumetric Fog OFF or on low. Basically if you have 8GB VRAM you are OK. CPU wise can get demanding. I play on Linux so it sprawls on all 16 cores of the 5950X and is faster than on Windows. If you have anything from Intel 8700K (7y old CPU)/AMD 3700X (5y old CPU) or better you should be OK. The game loves the AMD X3D CPUs like the 5800X3D/7800X3D due to the background simulator.

@@PT-rg2vo running 7700x 7900xtx

Oooops!

X4 is an amazing game, but be warned it has a fairly long and steep learning curve.

@@baneblackguard584 Tbh, that is what keeps disencouraging me from giving X4 a chance. When I read what newbies write about the game and how many express their utter confusion, not even knowing with which DLC to start (and how), I am really not sure if I should get it.

@@Furzkampfbomber Well it all depends. Is a sandbox game which at best you found yourself with a ship (Teladi start you get 2 ships and your own station/factory), while you were free to go. Ofc there is also the Fires of Defeat start from Split DLC where you start in a spacesuit starving for air, while everyone is hunting you down. With 7.0 there is in base game a guided start which get you into one of the storylines from the get go. Something that only Cradle of Humanity DLC had with the Terran Cadet start. Overall the game is amazing. There isn't any racing to the end so can take things at your own pace and there isn't a "wrong way" to do something. The ingame tutorials are great to get you going on flying which is pretty much easy, compared to Elite.

@@PT-rg2vo Thanks a lot for your insight, much appreciated! I was not aware that the DLCs offer different start points and quite different journeys at least in the beginning. Right now, Steam offers the base game and the first four DLC for 33 Euro right, I think for this money and with the info you just gave me, I give it a go.

@@baneblackguard584 Its educational bendy thingy is only there because people try to learn 100% of it as soon as possible. Eschew that, just learn the bits you need, hunt and peck, and it eventually makes logical sense (it is the same method you had to use for ANY Windows GUI), and you know then where that 10% is, and either saw in passing or can logically deduce where the next 10% you need is in the UI.

You can disable speed lines in the options menu.

I think all very fair criticism! :)

Elite is indeed centimetre deep. You can only fly a single ship, cannot build an empire, and all the missions are more or less the same. After awhile only exploration matters as the game doesn't have anything else to do. I have clocked 300 hours on it.

Yeah just more expensive on the list compared to say X4!

Yea, I do appreciate that NMS is a vast game at this point and certainly worth the money if it's your jam. I tried it during a free weekend recently and it didn't hook me unfortunately. X4 Foundations, on the other hand, IS my jam. So looking forward to get back into it.

People get weird ideas about Space Sims and then write comments. I think the key is to be flexible and not get to uptight about it. For me it has many aspects agreed!

@@LTGamingRU-vid Give me some spaceships and/or an interesting sci-fi/space themed world and generally, I am happy. As an older gamer I still miss games like the Wing Commander series or the I-War games though. Learning to control your ship in I-War, with all the newtonian physics, took some time, but felt so incredibly satisfying once you got the hang of it. The ship really felt _massive_ and flying all kinds of crazy maneuvers in later missions never gets old. (And yes, I am still _peeved_ about that cliffhanger at the end of 'Prophecy'. Thanks €A for gutting another game studio and killing off another beloved game series for just a bit more short-term profit...) Both game series are not on Steam, but can be found dirt cheap on GoG. Especially when you want something more realistic, I can't praise I-War high enough.

@@Furzkampfbomber totally agree dude! Thanks for the insightful comment 🚀

@@Furzkampfbomber Let's not forget Freespace 2. It's one of the first space games I really started modding with... Good times.

Link included! Just go for the Rings of Saturn part 🚀

Not really base game has a lot in it!

Just found an edition with the first four DLC plus all OSTs for ~44 € on Kinguin. (Which is a key reseller I really trust, I've been buying Steam keys for years here and never had any problems.)

Actually the Planetary Edition right now goes for €34 in the grey market, and includes at least all the DLCs until timelines.

@@PT-rg2vo They also sell the base game and the first four DLC for ~30 Euros during the sale. _Of course_ there is only an edition with the last (and very badly rated) DLC included, but you can still buy everything as a single item and will end up with the aforementioned 30 Euro. You can find the Planetary Edition with the OST for base game and all DLC included on Kinguin for ~45 € as well, which still is a great price in case one is interested in the OST.

You get 1000s of hours out of it. But get the base game, you can "upgrade" to most of the DLCs if you discover you love it, but it isn't necessary if you need to find out of you do love it.