Best Space Sim Games on Steam
Simulations of spacecraft, trading, piloting, combat, exploration, or orbital life.
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1Kerbal Space Program - In Kerbal Space Program, take charge of the space program for the alien race known as the Kerbals. You have access to an array of parts to assemble fully-functional spacecraft that flies (or doesn’t) based on realistic aerodynamic and orbital physics.
Apr 27, 2015
In this game, you can…
- spot a tiny gray dot in the sky, zoom out, and discover there's an entire star system to explore.
- dock engines onto an orbiting space station to turn it into a ship, then fly it to a gas giant and tour its moons.
- build and fly totally different vehicles from the same parts: rockets, planes, rovers, shuttles, and even boats.
- build a rocket, reach orbit, then realize you have to learn moon navigation next.
- turn a stranded moon mission into learning docking, then snowball into landing on another planet and returning.
- send ten separate rescue planes to the same crash site, then finally pull off a pickup after hours of attempts.
- build a relay network of satellites, run experiments from orbital stations, and mine resources from a moon base.
- land on the moon with your kid after they hit the separation buttons, turning the mission into a hands-on moon lesson.
2Oxygen Not Included - Oxygen Not Included is a space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive.
Jul 30, 2019
In this game, you can…
- see gases behave like real layers, with oxygen drifting, carbon dioxide sinking, and rooms turning into live pressure puzzles.
- build a closed-loop bathroom where toilets flush into a tank, sewage gets treated, and the whole colony runs on recycled waste.
- turn a steam vent, a cold biome, or a magma lake into an engine: melt ice by accident, boil sewage into steam on purpose, and pull clean water back out.
- trigger a domino disaster by digging one wrong tile and watching your water supply flood straight into sewage.
- run out of oxygen, switch to water-based oxygen, add coal for power, then pile on more machines that eat that same water and power until everything depends on everything.
- move heat around the asteroid with cooling loops, pump super-cold liquid through walls, and redesign farms when rising temperature starts killing crops.
- launch a rocket to space after hundreds of cycles of building, surviving, automating, and finally reaching the top of the asteroid.
3Dyson Sphere Program - Build the most efficient intergalactic factory in space simulation strategy game Dyson Sphere Program! Harness the power of stars, collect resources, plan and design production lines and develop your interstellar factory from a small space workshop to a galaxy-wide industrial empire.
Jan 20, 2021
In this game, you can…
- lift off a planet and fly to another one with no loading screens.
- launch parts into space and watch a Dyson Sphere grow around a star, layer by layer, until it's visible from the ground.
- set up drones and ships that automatically move parts between planets while you build elsewhere.
- cover an entire planet in factories, then move on to build whole specialized production planets in the same system.
- wrap a belt line all the way around a planet's equator and let it feed projects on the far side.
- build solar panel rings and then fill orbit with thousands of solar sails.
- unlock warp travel and jump to other star systems, visit a black hole, then return with rare resources.
- save a factory layout as a blueprint and stamp the same module down across planet after planet.
4FTL: Faster Than Light - This "spaceship simulation roguelike-like" allows you to take your ship and crew on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy filled with glory and bitter defeat.
Sep 14, 2012
In this game, you can…
- vent rooms into space to suffocate boarders or put out fires.
- reach the final boss, win the fight, then learn it has three phases and the battle keeps escalating.
- teleport your crew onto an enemy ship to sabotage systems and fight room-to-room, then lose them if the ship explodes first.
- hit a wrecked ship system again to open hull breaches that keep repair crews dying inside.
- pause mid-fight to queue repairs, reroute power, and fire weapons, then unpause for a second to let the plan land.
- get a run-ending chain reaction where fires, breaches, no oxygen, and boarders all happen at once.
- hack or mind-control enemy systems so their own doors trap their crew while your weapons tear the ship apart.
5Universe Sandbox - Create & destroy on an unimaginable scale with a realistic physics-based space simulator. Explore the beauty of our universe and the fragility of our planet. Use science to bend the laws of gravity, collide planets, boil away oceans, fire epic space lasers, and customize your universe.
Aug 24, 2015
In this game, you can…
- turn Earth into a star, crash it into the Sun, and erase the solar system in two days.
- place two black holes on opposite sides of Earth and watch them fight over it, then feed your custom solar system to the winner.
- turn Pluto into a world-eater, shred Jupiter into orbiting fragments, then ram the result into the Sun until it becomes a nebula.
- throw extra moons into Earth's orbit so they collide, explode into debris, and the fragments finish the planet off.
- make a banana as heavy as the Sun, then use it to blow up Earth on repeat.
- build a solar system from scratch, add moons and rings, then watch everything reshape itself under gravity in real time.
- remove all CO2 from Earth to trigger a full snowball planet, then warm it back up by shooting the Moon into it.
- crank a star's mass until it collapses, then watch it explode into a supernova you can observe step by step.
6Sins of a Solar Empire®: Rebellion - Command a space-faring empire in Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, the new stand-alone expansion that combines 4X depth with real-time strategy gameplay.
Jun 12, 2012
In this game, you can…
- drop a phase gate with your titan and instantly warp your whole armada in to counter an attack
- hire space pirates with bounties, then watch them raid whoever has the highest bid on their head
- strip conquered planets down to the core for resources, then pour it into even more capital ships and fleet power
- zoom from individual fighters to commanding multiple star systems in one view
- level up capital ships through combat until they unlock a level-6 ultimate ability
- build a starbase on a chokepoint, bait an enemy armada into it, and hold while wave after wave crashes into your defenses
- unleash a titan super-ship that can swing a war, then march it into the decisive fleet clash
- explore a huge map with around 150 planets across five solar systems while racing scouts and colony ships to claim territory
7SpaceEngine - The world's first science-based photorealistic interactive 3D planetarium that models the entire Universe, using procedural generation for uncharted areas.
Jun 11, 2019
In this game, you can…
- land on a planet in Andromeda and look up to see the Milky Way as a tiny spiral overhead.
- fly toward a black hole and watch the whole scene warp and shift colors as the light changes with your speed and distance.
- find the exact Apollo 11 landing site by searching the Moon for its real coordinates and walking yourself to the spot.
- stand on a planet around a real cataloged star and look back to see Sol as a dim point in the distance.
- drift until Earth disappears, click a faint red dot, and land on an Earth-sized airless world in a whole new star system.
- leave the solar system, keep zooming out, and scroll from planets to galaxies to the universe without hitting an end.
- stand on an icy moon in Saturn's rings, speed up time to watch the sun loop around Saturn, then shrink the entire system to something you can hold.
- stand on Saturn's rings, examine the particles up close, then dive underwater on another world because oceans have depth and terrain.
8Avorion - A procedural co-op space sandbox where players can build their own space ships out of dynamically scalable blocks. Fight epic space battles, explore, mine, trade, wage wars and build your own empire to save your galaxy from being torn apart by an unknown enemy.
Mar 9, 2020
In this game, you can…
- watch enemy ships break apart exactly where you hit them, then scoop the flying wreckage up as loot.
- set up autonomous mining ships that jump around, refine ore, and keep collecting resources while you're away.
- sell weapons to both sides of a faction war, then loot the battlefield when they're done fighting.
- shape your first real ship block by block from a tiny mining cube.
- command fleet battles where dozens of your ships warp in while AI captains handle mining, escorting, and fighting.
- claim a huge asteroid, turn it into a mine, and start generating serious income from it.
- build factories, shipyards, and supply chains that generate money in the background across multiple sectors.
- lose a ship, then rebuild the exact design instantly from a saved blueprint and get back in the fight.
9Cosmoteer: Starship Architect & Commander - Design and simulate the starships of your dreams! Command your ship or fleet in epic battles and manage your crew while exploring a dangerous galaxy. Play alone or with friends, test your ships in online PvP, and let your imagination reach for the stars!
Oct 24, 2022
In this game, you can…
- shove an entire asteroid field into a harvest pile with a giant front plow.
- design a tractor-beam ship that pushes or pulls other ships or stations into a star.
- host your single-player ship, extrude a barely-attached new hull, blow it in half, and hand a friend control of the fragment.
- iterate a railgun ship from 2 rails to 10 rails and 500 crew, while an unarmed collector trails behind vacuuming the debris.
- use one ship to soak enemy fire while another flanks, snipes the cockpit, boards the wreck, repairs it, and keeps it as a new ship.
- tear ships apart by targeting reactors, engines, weapons, and cockpits, then rebuild from the wreckage you just made.
- watch your crew physically run batteries and ammo through the corridors to keep guns, engines, and factories working.
- stumble into two NPC fleets fighting, wait it out, then salvage the whole battlefield into upgrades.
10Spaceflight Simulator - In Spaceflight Simulator, you will get to build your rockets, plan launches and flights, attempt landings, deploy payloads and explore new worlds.
Feb 17, 2022
In this game, you can…
- launch an expedition in pieces, dock everything in orbit, swap control between vehicles, and pump fuel from a main ship into probes.
- survive the Sun, burn an engine forever, or try to fly through Jupiter until gravity stops working.
- deorbit Earth into the Sun and use your space program to do ridiculous, destructive experiments.
- design a multistage rocket, reach the Moon, then slam into it at 10,000 km/s.
- build a space station module-by-module, keep expanding it over time, and recreate things like the ISS in your own orbit.
- build rockets so huge they can crash your phone or overload your PC.
- fly to Jupiter and its moons, then hit a moon at 50,000 km/s after hours of planning and burning fuel.
- visit every planet, set up colonies, stations, rovers, and even build a reusable starship.
- miss a docking or re-entry and turn a perfect mission into a two-hour crash landing.
