Best Spaceship Games for PS5 & PS4

Why it's here: The best spaceship game on PS5 right now, and the one I would start with. Everspace 2 is a handcrafted open-world dogfighter with looter hooks: you dodge, roll and boost through asteroid fields and derelicts hunting the next ship and gear drop across seven star systems. The recurring complaint in Steam reviews is inventory and upgrade management, which gets fussy once the loot piles up. It holds 4.55 stars from 1,747 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen, with a trial included on PS Plus Premium. If you want pure starfighter action over simulation, this is the pick.

Why it's here: The space sim for pilots who want the real thing. Elite Dangerous models the Milky Way at 1:1 scale, 400 billion systems, and makes flying, docking and navigating genuine skills you earn. The catch, and Steam reviews are blunt about it, is a steep, unintuitive learning curve and a grind that can burn you out without a clear payoff, plus the console version stopped getting the PC game's updates. 4.11 stars from 16,671 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen, included with PS Plus Extra. Give it ten hours before you judge it.

Why it's here: The open-world spaceship game with no loading seams: you lift off from a planet surface, fly into orbit and jump systems without a cut, across a procedurally generated galaxy. Years of free updates rebuilt it from a thin 2016 launch into a game with base building, fleets, trading and 32-player online play. Steam reviewers still call the core loop repetitive, and that is the honest caveat. 4.02 stars from 116,645 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen, the biggest rating pool on this list. If you want one spaceship game to sink hundreds of hours into, this is it.

Why it's here: The cockpit dogfighter. Star Wars: Squadrons never leaves the pilot seat, so you divert power between engines, shields and lasers mid-fight in an X-wing or TIE, and it supports PS VR for the full cockpit. The single-player story holds up as a self-contained run; the sticking point in Steam reviews is longevity, with a thin content offering and a multiplayer base that thinned out after EA ended support. 3.94 stars from 16,019 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen. Buy it for the story missions and the VR, not for a live multiplayer scene.

Why it's here: The most expressive combat on this list. Chorus bonds you to a sentient starfighter and hands you rites that let you drift through turns and blink behind enemies, so fights thread debris fields as often as open space. The flying is the reason to play; the split in Steam reviews is over the story and the voice work, which some find earnest and others a distraction between fights. 4.24 stars from 2,998 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen, on PS4 and PS5. Pick it if you want dogfights with more identity than Everspace's loot loop.

Why it's here: The only spaceship game on PS5 with a proper ship builder, and the biggest asterisk on this list. Starfield lets you bolt together your own vessel piece by piece, then fly it into dogfights across a Bethesda-scale universe of quests and planets. The 3.64 stars from 9,977 PlayStation ratings tell the story: Steam reviews praise the depth and the post-launch updates and criticise repetitive exploration, loading screens and bugs in equal measure. Rated Mature. If the ship builder is what you are after, it is worth the price; if you want flight feel first, start with Everspace 2.

Why it's here: The Privateer revival. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw puts you in a fighter cockpit as Juno Markev, paying off debts through dogfights, cargo runs and bounties across a gritty outlaw galaxy, with bar games and a blues-rock soundtrack between jobs. Nostalgia is the draw, and Steam reviews name Wing Commander and Privateer directly; the recurring complaint there is difficulty scaling that swings from easy to brutal. 4.15 stars from 591 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen. Play it after Rebel Galaxy if you want the nimble-fighter version of that game's trading loop.

Why it's here: Flying a spaceship as a job, not a war, and the highest-rated game here after Everspace 2. Star Trucker hands you a heavy space rig and a solar system of stations to haul between, while you swap parts, watch oxygen and fuel, and listen to CB chatter over a country soundtrack. The recurring complaint in Steam reviews is thin guidance for new drivers and handling that takes patience to learn. 4.47 stars from 691 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen. Start here if you want the void to feel like a long night shift rather than a battlefield.

Why it's here: The engineering toy box. Kerbal Space Program gives you real orbital physics and a parts catalogue, then asks you to design, launch and pilot rockets until one actually reaches orbit or the Mun. The sense of accomplishment when a contraption finally flies is why Steam users rate it so highly; the console-specific complaint from PlayStation Store reviewers is tiny on-screen text and slow camera controls. 3.92 stars from 6,983 PlayStation ratings, rated Everyone. It is the one game on this list that teaches you rocket science by accident, so budget for the learning curve.

Why it's here: The crew sim. Star Trek: Bridge Crew seats four of you at captain, helm, tactical and engineering on one bridge, playable in PS VR or flat, and runs procedurally generated missions where the ship only moves when the crew talks. Steam reviews rate the co-op immersion highly and are equally consistent that Ubisoft abandoned the game early, with mic detection problems never fixed. 4.27 stars from 2,600 PlayStation ratings, rated Everyone 10+, included with PS Plus Extra. Grab three friends and a headset; solo with AI crew it is a much thinner game.

Why it's here: The best couch co-op spaceship on PlayStation. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime crams two to four of you inside one round ship with turrets, a yoke, a shield and a map console, none of which runs itself, so every fight is a relay of sprinting between posts and shouting. Steam reviewers call it one of the best local co-op games available, and the one wish that keeps coming up is online play, which it does not have. 4.17 stars from 6,984 PlayStation ratings, rated Everyone 10+. Get it if the crew is on the same sofa.

Why it's here: The modern Bridge Crew, with real combat. Void Crew puts up to six of you on one spacecraft, switching between piloting, turrets, repairs and spacewalks mid-mission against the alien Hollow and human scavengers, with ship upgrades between runs. Steam reviews rate it Very Positive, and the split is over solo play: the recurring complaint is that it depends on a full crew and suffers from bugs and a missing proper save system. 4.15 stars from 144 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen, the smallest rating pool on this list. Bring a full crew or skip it.

Why it's here: Broadsides, not dogfights. Rebel Galaxy swaps nimble starfighters for naval-style battles, one growing warship trading, mining and running bounties across an open galaxy to a swaggering blues-rock soundtrack. It asks very little of newcomers, which is its strength and its limit: the consistent Steam criticism is simple combat on a flat plane and a trade-and-fight loop that turns repetitive over a long run. 4.12 stars from 19,746 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen. The right first spaceship game for someone who found Elite Dangerous too demanding.

Why it's here: The one to hand a ten-year-old. Starlink: Battle for Atlas lets you fly seamlessly from orbit down to a planet surface across the Atlas system, swapping wings and weapons on the fly, with two-player split-screen so a parent can ride along. Steam reviews praise the visuals and the combat and are consistently angry about Ubisoft's DRM and support, a complaint that matters far less on PS4 than on PC. 4.22 stars from 1,403 PlayStation ratings, rated Everyone 10+, included with PS Plus Extra. As a first spaceship game for a family, nothing else here comes close.

Why it's here: The roguelike. The first Everspace trades the sequel's open world for runs: you jump sector to sector, die, spend what you salvaged on permanent upgrades and go again, with the story unfolding between deaths. Steam reviews call the loop addictive and the visuals stunning, with steep difficulty spikes and a resource grind as the consistent complaint. 4.05 stars from 2,200 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen. Play the sequel first unless you specifically want the run-based structure; on PS4, where Everspace 2 is not available, this is the Everspace you can buy.

Why it's here: It costs nothing, and the ship combat is real. Star Trek Online is a free-to-play MMO where you captain your own Federation, Klingon or Romulan ship through space battles and ground missions, and the ship battles are the part players consistently name as the reason to stay. The recurring complaint in Steam reviews is a confusing interface for new captains and microtransactions that push toward pay-to-win. 4.01 stars from 30,398 PlayStation ratings, rated Teen. Try it for an evening as a Star Trek fan; the paid ships are where I would stop.