Todd Howard's latest masterpiece makes me very excited to play in an expansive space sandbox with procedural content and emergent storylines
... yep, firing up X4 again.
What I really want to see in a space game is a sense of scale and vastness - and so few manage it (EVE Online, Elite Dangerous, a few others - haven't played the X games, do they have it?). Not that a game without that is unplayable, but no matter what virtues it may otherwise have (e.g. Freelancer's fun shooting and exploration, Stellar Tactics' enjoyable tactical combat) if it doesn't have a sense of scale, it's missing out on the potentially biggest selling point of a space game.
Let me feel the vastness, let me feel lost in an abyss of vastness, let me feel my tiny ship as a home, a beacon, a brave little boat sustaining me and my crew. Let me feel planets as alien and unpredictable, needing science to understand; but let the capabilities of my ship and armaments match all but the biggest, most unaccountable threats. Then you've got a space game.
It hasn't really been made yet - only bits of it in different games.
Yeah it's a tough nut to crack.
I'm a fan of the X games; X4 does have huge sector maps, and tons of them, and the game can give you a feeling of "whoa, that's big" when you fly near a big ship or a station--player built stations can get truly nuts, potentially filling a 20x20x20 kilometer plot. You can also amass and assemble a ludicrous number of ships; I own over 2,000 in my latest play through--but I don't know that the game conveys the
vastness of space especially well. X4 can also be intimidating to new players, but it is an engrossing experience once you get used to the arcane UI. In fact, it's almost too engrossing: X4 truly allows you to pursue any path you desire, as long as that path involves a heavy dose of autism. And it has fantastic mod support, though a number of the good ones are only available on the Steam Workshop. Best not to buy the game elsewhere.
Certainly Elite does the "vastness of space" much better; unfortunately Elite's game play is shallow and extremely grindy. I'm actually grinding my teeth right now just thinking about my many hours in that game. No Man's Sky, from what I hear, is also huge but shallow. Spacebourne 2 looks promising, but it's an Early Access game built by a single developer; adjust expectations accordingly. I've heard good things about Empyrion, though it sounds like that game requires a level of autism that goes beyond even the average X4 player's. Then there's Avorion, which looks like the love child of X4 and Minecraft, not sure how I feel about that. Otherwise I'm drawing a blank.
It really is a shame about Starfield. I didn't follow the game prior to reading this thread, but I had vague hopes for it. Sounds like Bethesda did manage a near impossible achievement, though--they released a space game that makes the infamous pixel pyramid scheme, Star Citizen, look somewhat appealing by comparison. Kudos for that, Todd. I don't know that you can even count on the modding community here; Starfield's "sandbox" seems far more constraining than, say, Skyrim's. I guess modders could make pretty loading screen wallpapers, perhaps printed with tips for finding better games.
