It sadly happens in single player games too... People complain loudly that parts are too hard, then the devs put out nerfs in response.
A significant number of legendary bosses from the arcade and cartridge era are probably only famous because they were dialed up too hard and couldn't be tweaked after release, and I think it's more memorable that way.
In increasing order of casualness I recommend: Elite Dangerous->X3/X4->Everspace/Everspace 2-> No Man’s Sky.
Everspace 2 is a spiritual successor to Freelancer, so probably your best bet ( Everspace 1 is more roguelike, but holds up nicely ). Speaking of Freelancer, I hear the game is still alive and has a vibrant community around it.
If you ever want to revisit Elite shoot me a message, I may help you with starting up. They say Elite doesn’t have a learning curve but a cliff, so help is usually needed. Luckily the game has the most welcoming and helpful community I’ve seen in/around a video game.
Other than these, there’s Chorus, but I haven’t played that one and it seems more story driven than open-ended.
Everspace is very cool - it’s a rouge like where you upgrade your ship as you progress with very unique skills and different branches.
I’m also in love with Cosmoteer - 2D game where you can build, rebuild, salvage enemy ships, eventually create a small fleet and experiment a lot with different designs.
If you like this type of game and want more I recommend the YouTube channel Kirk Collects. He covers boomer shooters a lot and this game was also in his latest roundup. youtube.com/
The X series (X3 and X4 in particular) might be fun. Very sandboxy. The late-game turns into more of a management game than a ‘fly around blasting stuff’ game, but you don’t have to go that route if you don’t want to.
super mario 64 is exclusively played these days just to speedrun and break the game with whacky glitches. I dont think the devs expected players to fly up the stairs and clip through a door to skip half the game
For a game that’s themed as space battles and isn’t an action game, check out Cobalt Core. It’s a deckbuilding adventure about a space crew trying to escape from a time loop. The characters and story moments are fun and combat is like a turn-based puzzle of trying to position the ship to line up with enemy weak spots or to dodge missile barrages.
I'm a very casual gamer, and not looking for an mmo, or anything particularly challenging.
Putting aside anything else, I doubt FTL meets the requirements just because it's firmly on the hard side of things. Might be a good suggestion to check out for some others reading the thread though!
The custom interiors and crew based stuff is really interesting and I want to see it as a light no fire testbed if nothing else after they said it was the same core tech as their ocean faring ships.
Unless they did a proper rework of space combat, it’ll get old fast, just like ground combat. I also remember you could pile up dozens of “Kill space pirate Whoever” from several systems, travel super far away so that you could reset the quests, reset said quests, then manage to complete ALL of them by killing only one target
Oh no, mods… If it’s anything like skyrim I’ll spend more time messing around with mods than playing the game… But a bit of reading suggests that just the HD mod is a good choice for a 1st time playthru?
I haven't really played since I was at most a teen so maybe the later battles aren't actually as hard as I remember, but if this is a bottleneck then OP may find later sections of the game's main story frustrating. I think the game itself is a good vibe fit and has broadly aged well, but something to keep in mind for OP!
If you don’t mind a bit of a grindy ARPG aspect to it and REALLY annoying progression for traversal? Everspace 2 is probably THE best space combat in a modern release… which is sad but it is still actually really good and has some great set pieces. It is basically Freelancer 2, if that helps. If you just want shooty shooty boom boom then the original Everspace may be a better fit but… there is a reason so many of us slept on 2 after trying to like 1.
If you want something that is basically a love letter to Privateer? Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. I personally don’t vibe with it but I think that is because it is too close to what I expect to be using a HOTAS with (it is very much a gamepad/m+kb game) and the “vibes” of the Rebel Galaxy series are more “space redneck” than “space western”.
I have yet to actually get around to it (just been, what, eight or nine years now?) but I hear that some of the player origins in X4 are really good for getting into combat. I sincerely doubt that because the X series has always had REALLY good combat… broken up by 10 hours of trading so you can afford repairs and the missiles you use. But worth a look.
If you don’t mind getting out of a fighter and into a corvette or even a capital ship?
I REALLY like Cosmoteer but it is pretty grindy to start with. Space Pirates and Zombies, shitty acronym aside, has much better onboarding and similar gameplay but also much less control or a sense of “this is mine”.
And it is a love it or hate it kind of pseudo-series (really more like major functionality patches sold as a sequel) but check out Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2. You control capital ships in the 40k universe and Tindalos very much understood the assignment Just understand that 40k doesn’t pretend that space combat is anything other than romanticized WW1 naval fleet combat and it really feels like you are controlling ships of the line as it were.
Lots of intresting things there! Just read some reviews for RGO and it sounds like my kinda thing! And I’m going to try out BGA2, because I do like the somewhat ponderous naval vibe to battles too. Thanks!
This was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the Tie Fighter mention. Though OP mentioned not having a joystick and I don’t have direct experience playing on controller so YYMV.
The single player campaign is short but fun and very nostalgic for enjoyers of the X-Wing/Tie Fighter era of games!
The online (if anyone even still plays) is anything but casual so I don’t necessarily recommend that unless you are super invested in it.
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