Eve Online and Elite Dangerous not withstanding, What games released in the past 7 years have the most epic space battles? Games that are not cartoony, and have lots of consequential action taking place outside of your own ship. kinda like this:
AI War 2 I guess, although it’s a different scale. Or Starsector if you like the detailed art.
But I have a hard time thinking of something that can beat what was done in the early 2ks.
Strike Suit Zero
I’m cheating since it’s a remaster of an oldie, but it was technically released within the past 7 years: Homeworld Remastered
It still makes the hair on my neck prickle. If the names Chris Foss and John Harris mean anything to you, you owe it to yourself to play these games if you haven’t already. I don’t think either were directly involved but both games are as close to stepping inside one of their paintings as you’re likely to ever find.
Turn-based: Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. After each side submits their move orders, the results can be shown as a BSG-like cutscene.
Real-time: Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2. Because what is more epic than ramming one cruiser into another?
Space sim: Maybe Star Wars Battlefront 2?
I’m going to go to bat for a dark horse candidate, one that a lot of people might not have ever heard of, let alone played. There’s a pretty good reason for that though - Project Sylpheed was only released on Xbox 360 and didn’t make much of a splash and isn’t (yet - fingers crossed) backwards compatible with the Xbone. Unlike most of the games listed so far, it plays at the micro level. You’re a fighter pilot, a small cog in a larger war effort. So it’s more like an updated X-Wing or Wing Commander than anything else. But I really enjoyed it - it gave you access to multiple loadouts on your ship, put you in various combat situations, against fighters, bombers, capital ships, even some nods to Newtonian physics that allows you to whip around and change direction.
As far as downsides go, I mentioned it’s a little hard to find and play. It’s also a Japanese game with some anime tropes, the overly dramatic cutscenes and teen protagonists. But that stuff is pretty easy to ignore. Here’s the start of a playthrough to give you an idea of how it works:
Star Citizen
One, why the last seven years? Because Freespace 2, duh.
Two. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is great at this, as is Hypergate, if we HAAAAAVE to stay in the last seven years, which makes no fucking sense to me but whatever.
Three, Freespace 2. Motherfuckers.
Project Sylpheed is one of my top five space games.
I played through it repeatedly, and would again if I could do so now.
I just acquired a used Xbox 360 from a friend. If it works, it sounds like I’ll have to pick this one up.
Ugh, Vendetta Online.
It’s… older than 7 years (but it has been worked on throughout that time), and you may end up playing for dozens or even a hundred hours before getting to something like…:
The devs are quite active, and it runs in VR. There are plenty of economic threads going on in the background, including organized player groups trying to maintain control of the means of production. I just learned today it’s completely free until June 1st.
The best combat, though, is in duels between two players that are dialed in and have some skill. Reactions in the millisecond range matter, as well as general knowledge of combat vis a vis ‘how fast can my ship go from 30 m/s in one direction to the other based on my current loadout’ or ‘what is the optimal range where I can hit my opponent while minimizing her chances of hitting me’.
I flyered my neighborhood about it because it’s an old vibrant soul.
Sins and mp homeworld cataclysm, 4v4 was awesome
Because I already played all the good stuff from a decade ago plus, and the other part is I wanted to go all graphic whore :)
WELL PLAY THEM AGAIN SIR.
I remember Colony Wars on the PS1 fondly. Fantastic musical score, great graohics at the time, challenging combat, good mission variety and i think it had branching paths based on mission success.
I installed this last year but couldn’t get it to work with the Thrustmaster T-16000M properly.
Do you have multiple controllers installed? Being an older game it only runs from the first controller, best being the only controller.
I don’t get it because I’ve played the game probably using five different sticks, the most current being a Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 from the early 2000s, so there’s no reason a more modern stick shouldn’t work with the thing.
I may have had an xbox gamepad connected. I’ll give it another go and disconnect it first. Always wanted to play this game.
Yeah it needs the stick to be the primary controller and to be safe, go into the USB game controller applet and set the stick as default for older games in the advanced options.
Do you know how to install the Freespace Open enhancements?
I really loved the battles in the original Swords of the Stars. I can’t think of too many others that had that range of ship builds while conveying the size differences between the smallest and the largest ships.