Space is wildly dangerous and infinitely mysterious, which is why some of the best video games of the past have used space as their setting. It provides a blank slate where great storytellers can create unique lifeforms, space operas, and lead up to some of the most intense fights players can’t really experience in any other setting.
Space combat games have come a long way, evolving from pixelated dogfights to cinematic clashes between massive starships. I’ve played a lot of space games in my time, and seeing a bunch of warships suddenly jettison into a battlefield never fails to give me goosebumps.
Not every space game delivers a great combat experience, though. Some suffer from performance issues, with lag basically killing any enjoyment of the battle. Others don’t provide enough story or reason for the fight, making the experience feel as though it’s just an aim-and-shoot simulator with no real stakes or punch.
I’m always in search of the next best space game with great combat to give me another rush of goosebumps, and I believe the games on this list deliver that experience.
10 Starfield
VATS-Targeted Firing System Is Way Fun
Let me preface this entry by saying I am not good at space combat in Starfield. This is largely because my poor PC is barely capable of playing it.
Even so, I find space combat in Starfield to be a lot of fun, primarily because of its very helpful VATS mechanic. Granted, the game doesn’t call it VATS. That’s from Bethesda’s other hit franchise, Fallout.
It’s basically the same mechanic, though, where players can pause time to focus on hitting certain parts of the ship. I’m always one to go for the shields and then the engines, myself.
It’s using this mechanic that brings a lot of fun to space combat because it allows the player to approach the fight how they want. You can definitely not use it and just go guns blazing, but you can also play a bit more strategically by aiming directly for their shield generator, and then going all out.
Another element of Starfield that makes for some fun space combat is the ability to create whatever sort of ship you want. You can make something sleek and fast or go all-in on heavy guns and tank up your ride. The ability to customize your ship from the ground up means you can enter a space battle primed and ready to go.
9 No Man's Sky
Tons Of Ships And Procedural Enemies
No Man’s Sky is honestly one of the best games for anyone who loves space. It captures the weirdness of it, but most importantly, it allows players to do the one thing most people want from a space game—exploration.
That holds true for space fights, too. No Man’s Sky uses its procedural generation feature to surprise players. You never really know if you’re going to warp directly into a fight between pirates and a freighter ship, for example.
Dogfighting is fun, too, with the right amount of challenge and grit. There are customization options a player can put on their ship, too, to ensure they’re always coming out of a fight with a win.
Speaking of ships, No Man’s Sky has tons. Players can build their own, buy from a merchant, or even go on missions to find living ships that they can grow from an egg.
No Man’s Sky expanded on its ship fighting, too, bringing in Outlaw systems where challenging pirate fights are common. And although PVP isn’t the core focus of the game, it is an option for players who want to become pirates themselves.
8 House Of The Dying Sun
Take Your Vows And Vengeance To The Stars
Sometimes, the greatest space games with the best combat are simplistic in nature. There’s an old saying that holds true for House of the Dying Sun—if it’s not broke, then don’t fix it.
That basically sums up the mission that House of the Dying Sun had in mind when they created the game. They wanted to bring back the old and simplistic dogfights of older, pixelated, games and polish them up for a new generation.
In House of the Dying Sun, you’re one of the last frightening survivors after a devastating attack on the empire you serve. You’re left with one order—to destroy your empire’s enemies.
The rest of the game is pretty straightforward. You hunt down those responsible for attacking the empire, and you take them down.
That said, the game provides quite a few fun features to aid your pursuit. For one, you don’t have to destroy the enemies alone. You can control a fleet and have them perform certain attacks in your stead. The game really makes you feel like you’re some crown prince who spent their life in the seat of a cockpit just waiting for this moment to do their empire proud.
There’s no busy UI during the fights, which is extremely helpful for someone like me who is always trying to read all the information on the screen at once. Instead, it’s just you, your targeting system, and the enemy dead ahead of you.
7 Star Conflict
Almost Like An RPG But You're A Ship
Star Conflict isn’t an RPG, admittedly, but it has a sort of progression system that feels like an RPG, which I think makes it a lot of fun.
In Star Conflict, players can choose from the following types of ships:
- Interceptors
- Fighters
- Frigates
- Destroyers
Each one has something that it’s good at and something that it’s not so good at. In a way, it’s sort of like a class in an RPG.
After deciding which ship a player wants to use, they can enter a ton of different game modes, both PVP and PVE. As the player defeats enemies and completes missions, they rank up and can unlock new abilities with their ships. Once more, not unlike an RPG.
It’s because of this progression system that Star Conflict is a great space game with great combat. It makes the player feel rewarded after making it through a dogfight. It isn’t like they just move on to the next fight and rinse and repeat the process. You actually feel like you’re developing or contributing to something.
Speaking of, the game modes are plenty of fun, too. Players can engage in PVP with each other, where they’re split into different teams and have to either destroy each other or capture all the beacons before the other team does.
There are also huge fights where players can join corporations, which basically act like guilds, and take on other corporations. In these particular fights, the real goal is to create a dreadnought before the other team, since it can utterly wipe out the entire team if they’re not ready.
For PVE folk like myself, there’s also a PVE mode where you team up with other players to fight NPC pirates or aliens. There are even boss fights that really test a player’s reflexes and skills. Star Conflict has a lot going for it, which is why, even years later, it’s still a pretty popular game among space enthusiasts.
6 Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
An Accessible Space Outlaw Simulator With Great Vibes
As a big fan of space outlaws and smugglers, I feel like Rebel Galaxy Outlaw was made just for me. It literally tickles all my fancies.
In Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, you’re someone living on the fringe and trying to get by in a tough world. The best way to make your dreams come true is by taking on odd jobs with your beat-up ship.
The game lets you choose how you want to earn your money, providing jobs like bounty hunting, fighting off pirates, turning pirate yourself, doing supply runs, or even just doing a bit of mining and trading. It really feels like you’re out in space just hustling.
The combat is strictly dog-fighting, and it’s pretty tough at the start. Enemies tend to have faster ships and more powerful weapons. The good news is that all that hard-earned money can go toward upgrading your ship. Better weapons, faster engines, and other customization options can make you become a real player in the galaxy.
One of the coolest aspects, besides the story and combat, is that players on Windows can actually add detailed paint to their ship. Some players have even called it similar to Adobe Photoshop, with the amount of detail you can get.
So, if you want to paint Shrek on your ship and become the pirate queen of the galaxy, it’s certainly doable.
5 Eve Online
Massive Battles With Massive Stakes
Eve Online is one of the best space games with great combat because of its sheer size. If you want to succeed in Eve Online, you need to be ready to commit a lot of your time to it. It’s an MMORPG set in space where players have absolute freedom to do whatever they want. You can become a pirate, a long-distance freighter carrier, or an emperor of trade.
You just need to be ready to defend yourself against others who are looking to take everything you own. Eve Online has made history in the past, primarily with the infamous Bloodbath of B-R5RB.
During this battle, thousands of players all came together in a single star system to fight against each other. The actual factions involved were the CFC and Russian alliances against the N3 and PL factions.
The battle lasted for over 21 hours and carried an in-game cost of loss of around 11 trillion Interstellar Kredit. It’s the sort of combat and stakes that really only exist in Eve Online.
Combat, itself, is also realistic. Players can’t manually target their enemies and instead have to rely on good ole physics and the strength and power of their ship to overcome others. Basically, if you’re showing up to a fight in a rust bucket, things aren’t going to go well for you.
Eve Online is a lifestyle more than a game. If you’re ready for that sort of challenge and love space games with realism, then this is definitely a game to consider trying.
4 Chorus
Sentient Spacecraft Makes Combat Feel More Meaningful
One problem I sometimes have with space games, especially those that focus on space battles or dogfights, is that they can feel impersonal. Sure, there may be a story or objective, but I don’t always feel connected or immersed in it.
Chorus solves that problem by making its ship, Forsaken, sentient. In the game, you play Nara, who comes across the sentient ship and uses it to battle against a cult led by The Great Prophet.
In true cult fashion, The Great Prophet wants to dominate the whole universe. Nara and Forsaken have to find new ways to work together, which typically means the player has to solve puzzles in order to get new abilities which Forsaken can use.
I’m a big fan of The Rite of The Hunt ability, which lets me warp the ship behind enemies to take them out. It’s a really unique way to add some flavor and fun to space combat. Chorus isn’t just an aim and fire sort of game. With the abilities that Nara can unlock, it offers new methods and, honestly, a lot of fun for dogfights.
If you’re feeling like traditional space dogfights are getting a little stale, then you should really check out Chorus. Its innovation and focus on a sentient ship makes entering each battle have slightly more risk to it.
After all, it’s a lot harder to take risks when you know your ship is going to feel it physically.
3 FreeSpace 2
So Fun And Popular It's Open Source And Still Running
Not every game gets a great first start. That was the case for FreeSpace 2, even though it would later garner tons of positive reviews from players and critics alike. The crazy thing is that FreeSpace 2 was released in 1999. Despite that, the game still has a devoted fanbase, thanks to the developers’ open-source release of the code.
By basically giving the game to the players, modders have kept the game alive since, with some even creating their own games from it based on hit shows like Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica, which is, technically, how I originally became aware of it.
In FreeSpace 2, players find themselves battling the Shivans once more, but they also get caught up in a rebellion that they need to help put down. To conquer the aliens, players will be fighting in their ship, which they can choose before the mission starts.
As you progress through the game, you have more ships that you can choose from, as well as weapons. Some missions, however, select the ship for you, and you can bet they’re not always the best for the job, which provides quite a challenge in itself.
Combat is pretty straightforward, but the fun aspect is that you have to really monitor where your power is going. While the game doesn’t rely too heavily on Newtonian physics, it does care about power supply.
If you put all that power toward your weapons, for example, you won’t have enough to keep you safe with your shields. It forces you to become a bit more strategic in every battle instead of just heading in guns blazing.
2 Star Wars: Squadrons
Live Out Your Star Wars X-Wing Fighter Fantasy
I think many of us can owe our dreams of exploring space to growing up with Star Wars. The space fights in the movies have always been some of the best and most action-packed scenes.
I had my first taste of Star Wars dogfighting in Star Wars: Battlefront II, and it was an absolute riot. EA clearly saw there was a demand for space combat in the Star Wars universe and released Star Wars: Squadrons to satisfy that demand.
In Squadrons, players have the option of playing through a single-player story or engaging in PVP multiplayer. The story has players take on the role of Captain Lindon Javes, an Imperial turned Rebel, who has to protect the Rebel Alliance’s secret project, called Starhawk.
It’s a pretty fun story and even has a great cameo of General Hera Syndulla. Most players typically play for the PVP, though, which offers the same fast-paced and deadly battles players coming from Battlefront II will recognize. The only reason Squadrons isn’t at the top of the list is because of its lack of content. While fun, there are only two game modes for multiplayer.
You have your choice of typical dogfights and then Fleet Battles, where players have the goal of destroying each other’s Capital Ships. Those modes are enjoyable and really capture the sort of chaos a space battle should have. It’s just a pity the game wasn’t given as much love as it should have.
1 Elite Dangerous
Perfect For Realistic Space Battles And Space Life Sim Fans
Fans of Eve Online will likely feel right at home with Elite Dangerous. It has the same sort of persistent world-building as Eve Online, in that how the world develops is entirely up to player actions.
The reason Elite Dangerous edges out Eve Online, though, is that it has a single-player mode and still manages to be open-ended. The game also takes realism seriously.
The world is 1:1 scale and relies on Newtonian Physics, so flying your ship feels like you’re actually piloting it in space. I love some realism in my space games, so I find that Elite Dangerous really scratches that itch. For example, Elite Dangerous uses actual astronomical data to simulate things like gravity, planetary collisions, and tidal forces.
It’s a dangerous world out there, though, so players will want to keep updating their ships or even buying new ones to keep up with the competition. There’s a lot of freedom with how you go about earning that money, too.
You can become a space pirate, an assassin, transport passengers, or even become a miner and trader. Regardless of what you choose, you’ll want to watch out for others who want to take your hard-earned money or valuables.
Elite Dangerous is the best space game with great combat because of its realistic approach to dogfights and space simulation. For a lot of us, it will be the st thing we get to experiencing real space combat.
