You’ll steer your civilisation through war and peace, watch alliances form and betray each other, and band together with foes to fight extra-dimensional invaders. It has all the exploration of a traditional strategy sim, but your relationships with other factions take on more weight than usual. That’s the beauty of it: you set your own goals, assign your own traits to your species, and play it however you like. Or, if you prefer, it’s about establishing a race of friendly technocrat turtles that help other species expand. Stellaris is a deep, gripping strategy game about building up a space-faring empire and squashing any foe in sight.
The Paradox team behind medieval story generator Crusader Kings 2 turn their talents skywards, and the results are stunning.
Platform(s): PC, Xbox One, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, PS5
It’s the kind of game you can spend a week playing, put it down, and then come back months later without worrying about where you left off. And if you're playing on the latest consoles, Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition is now available for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S with a free upgrade for anyone who already owns a copy. It’s a sandbox, but you’ll always have a goal to aim for. The proper rules of physics apply, and the most satisfying achievements require careful planning and attention to detail. Before long, you’re agonizing over the correct entry angle for a moon landing, or the right configuration of engines to achieve maximum thrust. But the more you play, the more you want to understand it. On the surface, it’s a game about building ridiculous rockets and launching tiny green men into space – and then watching the whole thing literally fall apart before your eyes while you giggle. Half toybox, half science project, Kerbal Space Program is the most fun you can have while learning about space. Platform(s): PC, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S Individual challenges keep you locked in for each play session, but it’s the twisting story that keeps you coming back. You navigate the station’s warren-like corridors via CCTV cameras and freely-controlled drones, using environmental clues such as schematics pinned to walls to figure out what to do next. It’s that slowly-unfolding, sinister story combined with moment-to-moment puzzling – unique puzzles with clever UIs appear once, never outstay their welcome, and then disappear, replaced with the next one – that makes Observation so unique. Except that something strange is happening, and you keep receiving the same message from an unknown source: “BRING HER”.
Everyone else is missing, and the ship is falling apart: it’s Fisher’s job, with your help, to patch it up and get back on course. You play an AI aboard a spaceship where the only person left alive is Dr Emma Fisher, the game’s hero. From No Code, the creators of Stories Untold, comes a tense sci-fi adventure that’s part slow-burning horror, part puzzle game, all wonderfully voice-acted. To prevent teams from getting a head start, entrants will receive the official rules in late July and are officially go for launch.The smallest game on this list is one of the most intriguing. Registration for the Kerbal Rocketry Challenge opens July 13 and closes on July 19. And the best part? The game is yours to keep when the competition ends! All team members will receive a free copy of KSP, but you can only submit one design and one flight. You'll receive a free copy of Kerbal Space Program to compete against teams across the country for $6,000 in prizes. Outside of the budget restrictions, you're free to design and run your program as they see fit. But there's a catch – you and your team will act as your own aerospace firm who received a fixed-price contract to make it to the 'mun' and back. Using the game's realistic orbital physics engine, you'll be tasked to recreate one of our world's crowning achievements: a crewed lunar landing. Since the 2020 American Rocketry Challenge was postponed, we're partnering with Private Division, publishers of the hit astrophysics and aerospace video game, Kerbal Space Program (KSP), to bring you a new kind of rocket contest with more cash prizes! The Kerbal Rocketry Challenge puts you in the shoes of Kerbals, a race of humanoid green aliens destined for the stars. Well, not an actual company, but one in a video game. You can also access more information here if you're interested in participating.Ĭongratulations! We've been so impressed with your rocketry skills that we're promoting you and your TARC 2020 team to lead a new aerospace company. You can read the statement from the organization below.