2016 is arguably the best year ever for space games. The genre is seeing a huge resurgence with tons of great titles but at the forefront are Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, and No Man's Sky.
Personally I'm really interested in all three titles and the genre in general, so I thought it'd be fun to compare and contrast the games. Each one is going after a unique audience so this isn't about determining an overall winner. For starters, here's the latest trailer for each game.
Multiplayer
Realism
Planet Sizes
Star Citizen and NMS have to tie for second since both are too close to call. Star Citizen showed off a 1,000 KM planet in this video:
which matches pretty close to what I calculated the size of NMS planets shown in trailers. These planets are still huge, but for reference they're less than half the size of Pluto or roughly the size of Ceres (the smallest dwarf planet).
How unique planets are
Things outside flying your ship
Game features/elements
"Personality"
Personalization
Future
So which game are you most interest in? What are your thoughts? Did I get any of my info wrong?
Personally I'm really interested in all three titles and the genre in general, so I thought it'd be fun to compare and contrast the games. Each one is going after a unique audience so this isn't about determining an overall winner. For starters, here's the latest trailer for each game.
No Man's Sky
Elite Dangerous
Star Citizen
Now how about some rankings:
Universe Size
- NMS is a procedural universe with essentially infinite planets.
- Elite Dangerous is a semi procedural galaxy with trillions of planets.
- Star Citizen is a handcrafted with hundreds of planets.
Multiplayer
- Star Citizen is essentially multiplayer only, and is online only. You will always be interacting with other humans. Can fly ships with friends.
- Elite Dangerous is online only, but can be played in a "solo" mode. Can fly ships with friends.
- NMS can be played offline. Apart from seeing things named by other players, it is a single player game.
Realism
- Elite Dangerous is as realistic as possible with its universe, while arcady with game mechanics and ship combat.
- Star Citizen uses the rule of cool for everything except ship combat. For flying, it simulates every ship thruster individually.
- NMS doesn't care about realism.
Planet Sizes
- Elite has 1 to 1 sized planets, with the largest landable ones being ~6 times the size of Earth.
Star Citizen and NMS have to tie for second since both are too close to call. Star Citizen showed off a 1,000 KM planet in this video:
which matches pretty close to what I calculated the size of NMS planets shown in trailers. These planets are still huge, but for reference they're less than half the size of Pluto or roughly the size of Ceres (the smallest dwarf planet).
How unique planets are
- No Man's Sky has planets actually worth checking out. Tons of unique flora and fauna.
- Star Citizen has hand made parts on each planet, but the surfaces themselves are pretty comparable.
- Elite Dangerous. See one planet, you've seen them all.
Things outside flying your ship
- Star Citizen is always you playing as you. When piloting a ship, your character is stuck inside that ship pressing buttons. You can stand up and walk around, jump out into space, shoot a hole in an enemy's cockpit with your pistol, float into that hole and finish the player off with hand to hand combat, fly their ship down to the planet, run to the nearest pub, and hand out with friends while telling them a story.
- In NMS once your ship has landed, you can get out and walk around exploring on foot. Shoot and collect stuff.
- Elite has no "space legs," but you can switch to a rover and drive around planets.
Game features/elements
- In Elite you can be a space pirate, a bounty hunter, a miner, a trader, a peace keeper, a spy, a gas truck, a racer, a hitman, a paper boy, an explorer, a crafter, etc. Tons of variety where you can role play however you want.
- NMS has combat, exploration, and trading.
- Star Citizen pretty much just has combat and trading.
"Personality"
- Star Citizen has tons of characters and story.
- NMS has no story, but everything feels alive.
- Elite Dangerous is essentially a text adventure game. They are working to change this, but right now it's pretty "spreadsheet" feeling.
Personalization
- Star Citizen has a full character creator as well as ship and outfit customization. You can have many ships and many characters at a time.
- Elite allows custom paint jobs to be bought, as well as hood ornaments like bobble heads. You can have many ships.
- NMS has zero Personalization, and only one ship at a time. If you find a ship you like, then you better keep it.
Future
- Elite has huge ambitions with $40 season passes each year. They plan to add space legs, FPS, big game alien hunting, etc. In 2015 they are adding crafting, NPCs, character creation, multiple people per ship, and passengers.
- Star Citizen is planned to release this year, but they will also be releasing a single player campaign.
- NMS will not change post launch.
So which game are you most interest in? What are your thoughts? Did I get any of my info wrong?