Best Space Games

Why it's here: The best place to start, and the high-water mark for the space opera on PlayStation. The Legendary Edition remasters all three Mass Effect games into one package — you build Commander Shepard, recruit a crew, and make choices that carry across an entire galactic trilogy, with combat that sharpens noticeably from game to game. It's the highest-rated pick on this list (4.8 from over 31,700 players), runs on PS4 (and plays on PS5), and is rated Mature. The honest caveats players raise: the EA launcher and some performance bugs on modern hardware, and the famously divisive ending of the third game. None of that dents the verdict — for sci-fi storytelling, character and scale, nothing else here comes close.

Why it's here: The space-exploration sandbox, and by a wide margin the most-played game on this list — over 116,600 PlayStation players. You start on a random planet with a broken ship and explore a procedurally generated universe of 18 quintillion planets, mining, trading, building bases and surviving as you head for the centre of the galaxy. After years of free updates it's a genuinely deep game, on PS4 and PS5, rated Teen, with up to 32-player online co-op so you can roam together. The caveat is that all that scale can feel repetitive — planets blur together over time — but if "fly to any dot in the sky and land on it" is the fantasy, this is the one that delivers it.

Why it's here: The most special game here, and the one to play knowing as little as possible. Outer Wilds drops you into a tiny hand-built solar system trapped in a 22-minute time loop, and the only thing that carries between loops is what you've learned — there's no upgrade tree, just curiosity and a notebook of clues you piece into one of gaming's great mysteries. Rated 4.7 from over 12,700 players, on PS4 and PS5, ESRB Everyone 10+. The catch is it's a pure exploration-and-puzzle game with no combat and no hand-holding, so it won't suit everyone — but for players who click with it, it's unforgettable, which is exactly why it's a top pick rather than buried by rating alone.

Why it's here: The cinematic space-exploration story — a lonely astronaut mission to save a dying Earth. Set after an energy crisis has gone dark on the planet below, Deliver Us The Moon sends you solo to an abandoned lunar colony to find out what went wrong and restart the power, piecing the mystery together through holograms, zero-G traversal and tense, quiet set-pieces. Rated 4.3 from over 7,600 players, on PS5, ESRB Teen, and included with PlayStation Plus Extra. The honest caveat: it's short — a focused four-to-six-hour story rather than a sandbox — and the platforming can feel a touch stiff. But for atmosphere, silence and the sheer weight of being the only person for thousands of miles, it's one of the most affecting space stories here, and an easy one to start on PS Plus.

Why it's here: The hardcore space sim, for players who want the cockpit, not the cutscene. Elite Dangerous puts you in a 1:1 recreation of the Milky Way — 400 billion star systems — to trade, mine, bounty-hunt and explore in a shared online galaxy, with flight and docking that reward real skill. Rated 4.1 from over 16,400 players, on PS4, and included with PlayStation Plus Extra so many of you can try it at no extra cost. Be clear-eyed, though: the PlayStation version no longer receives the updates the PC game does, and the learning curve is steep with a lot of systems to absorb. For dedicated armchair pilots it's still the deepest space sim on console; newcomers should start gentler.

Why it's here: The space-flight sim, and the most hands-on game on this list — you don't fly the rocket so much as build it. Kerbal Space Program hands you a parts bin and real Newtonian physics, then dares you to get a crew of hapless little Kerbals into orbit, out to the Mun and home again without it all going wrong; every success is hard-won and every failure is, frankly, hilarious. Rated 3.9 from around 7,000 players, on PS5, ESRB Everyone, single-player. Be clear-eyed: that score reflects a genuinely steep learning curve and fiddlier controls on a pad than mouse-and-keyboard, so this is the most demanding pick here. But nothing else turns actual orbital mechanics into a toy box this rewarding — as the definitive build-your-own-spacecraft sim, it earns its slot on genre importance alone.

Why it's here: The witty, accessible space RPG — from Obsidian, the studio behind Fallout: New Vegas. The Outer Worlds sends you into a satirical corporate-run colony on the edge of the galaxy, choosing how to talk, sneak or shoot your way through a sharply written branching story with a memorable crew. Rated 4.5 from nearly 14,000 players, on PS4 (plays on PS5), ESRB Mature, single-player. The caveat is it's a tighter, more focused RPG than its scale suggests — more handcrafted adventure than open-universe sandbox — but that focus is the point: it's the easiest space RPG here to simply pick up and enjoy, and a great change of pace from Mass Effect's epic length.

Why it's here: The best sci-fi horror in space, full stop. The 2023 remake of Dead Space rebuilds the original on a derelict mining ship, the USG Ishimura, where you dismember mutated Necromorphs limb by limb in zero-G corridors soaked in dread — the strategic-dismemberment combat and relentless atmosphere are unmatched. Rated 4.7 from over 42,100 players, PS5 only, ESRB Mature, single-player. The only real caveat is the obvious one: it's genuinely frightening and gory, so it's not for the faint-hearted. If you want the cold isolation of deep space turned into pure terror, this is the pick.

Why it's here: The thinking player's pick — an immersive sim set on a space station. Prey puts you aboard Talos I, overrun by shapeshifting alien Typhon, and hands you a sandbox of powers, weapons and routes so that almost every problem has several solutions; the station is one interconnected space you'll learn like a map. Rated 4.5 from over 17,200 players, on PS4 (plays on PS5), ESRB Mature, single-player, and included with PlayStation Plus Extra. The caveat is its slow-burn, systems-heavy design asks patience and experimentation rather than action-game pacing — but for players who love figuring a place out, it's one of the smartest sci-fi games on PlayStation.

Why it's here: The immersive-sim landmark, finally rebuilt for modern consoles. The 25th Anniversary Remaster of System Shock 2 strands you aboard the starship Von Braun, alone with the malevolent AI SHODAN, free to hack, shoot, sneak and psionically blast your way through a story that invented half of what Prey and BioShock would later refine. Rated 4.6 from over 400 players — a small but glowing early count — on PS4 and PS5, ESRB Mature, with up to four-player online co-op. The caveat is honest: it's a faithful remaster of a 1999 game, so the structure and inventory feel old-school, and the review count is still tiny so soon after release. But for players who want the genre's roots — the place this whole tier of smart sci-fi horror came from — there is nothing here more worth playing.

Why it's here: The PS5 showcase, and the most intense game on this list. Returnal strands you as an astronaut crash-landed on a hostile alien planet caught in a roguelike time loop — every death resets the world and the pulse-pounding bullet-hell combat, while a fractured sci-fi mystery slowly unravels around you. Rated 4.4 from over 25,400 players, PS5 only, ESRB Teen, with two-player online co-op added after launch. The honest caveat: it's hard, and the roguelike structure means long runs you can lose in a moment — but it's one of the best uses of the DualSense and a flagship sci-fi PS5 exclusive for players who want a real challenge.

Why it's here: The best space-combat game here — pure starfighter action. EVERSPACE 2 is a fast, gorgeous open-world space shooter with looter-shooter hooks: you dogfight through asteroid fields and derelicts, hunt for better ships and gear, and follow a surprisingly solid story across handcrafted star systems. Rated 4.5 from around 1,700 players, PS5 only, ESRB Teen, and included with PlayStation Plus Premium so many of you can try it free. The caveat is the audience is smaller than the icons above and it's single-player only — but if what you actually want from a "space game" is to fly a ship and shoot things beautifully, nothing else on this list does it better.

Why it's here: The broadside space-combat sandbox — captain a capital ship, not a fighter. Rebel Galaxy trades dogfighting for slow, weighty naval battles among the asteroids: you trade, mine, bounty-hunt and blast pirates across an open galaxy, upgrading from a beat-up hauler to a swaggering battlecruiser to a Western-tinged soundtrack. Rated 4.1 from over 19,700 players, on PS4 (plays on PS5), ESRB Teen, and included with PlayStation Plus Extra. The caveat is that ships move on a flat 2D plane rather than full six-degrees-of-freedom flight, and the loop can get grindy late on. But it's an easy, atmospheric way into space combat — far more approachable than Elite Dangerous, and free to try if you already have PS Plus Extra.

Why it's here: The standout new release — a sci-fi survival game with a genuinely original hook. In The Alters you're a lone worker stranded on a hostile planet who survives by cloning alternate versions of himself, each shaped by a different life choice, then managing the relationships and friction between them as you keep your mobile base running. Rated 4.7 from 2,500 players, PS5 only, ESRB Mature, single-player. The caveat is it's a slower, more thoughtful blend of base-management and narrative than an action game — but as the freshest idea on this list and one of the best-reviewed recent releases, it's well worth your time.

Why it's here: The most unusual job in space — and oddly relaxing for it. Hardspace: Shipbreaker makes you a salvage worker cutting derelict spaceships apart in zero gravity, carefully slicing hulls and harvesting parts without rupturing a fuel line and blowing yourself up; there's a sharp anti-corporate streak running through the campaign. Rated 4.1 from around 1,800 players, PS5 only, ESRB Teen, single-player. The caveat is it's a deliberate, methodical sim — closer to satisfying puzzle-work than action — and the loop can get repetitive. But there's nothing else quite like the calm, dangerous craft of taking a ship apart piece by piece in orbit.

Why it's here: The most unexpectedly cosy job in space — long-haul trucking among the stars. Star Trucker drops you into the cab of a big rig crossing a sci-fi solar system, hauling cargo, managing fuel and a steadily failing truck, swapping out parts and listening to CB-radio chatter and a country soundtrack as the void rolls past your windscreen. Rated 4.5 from around 690 players, on PS5, ESRB Teen, single-player. The caveat is the obvious one — it's a niche, deliberately slow sim with a repetitive loop and a small audience, not an action game. But like Hardspace: Shipbreaker it finds a strangely human angle on space, and for players who just want to clock on, drive and unwind out past the asteroid belt, there's nothing else quite like it.

Why it's here: The indie gem, and the highest-rated game on the whole list. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is a narrative RPG built on tabletop-style dice: you play a fugitive artificial human scraping by on the edge of a star system, assembling a crew and making hard choices about who and what to risk as you run jobs to survive. Rated 4.8 from 233 players, PS5 only, ESRB Teen, single-player. The caveat is the obvious one — it's a small, text-and-dice game, not a flashy space shooter, and the player count is tiny. But for writing, atmosphere and the lived-in feel of life out on the frontier, it's the quiet standout among the big names here.