# What is the best space exploration video game of all time?

> Space exploration games have taken players to the far reaches of the universe. Which one offers the ultimate cosmic adventure?

*By YPB Team · Published May 24, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-space-exploration-video-game-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Outer Wilds**
   The 2019 mystery set inside a 22-minute time loop across a handcrafted solar system, celebrated as one of the most profound gaming experiences ever made.
2. **No Man's Sky**
   Hello Games' 2016 procedurally generated universe with billions of planets, transformed by years of free updates into one of gaming's greatest redemption stories.
3. **Kerbal Space Program**
   The beloved physics-based 2015 rocket-building simulator where players must engineer real spacecraft and navigate actual orbital mechanics.
4. **Elite Dangerous**
   Frontier's 2014 massively multiplayer galaxy simulation with 1:1 scale Milky Way to explore, trade in, and fight across.
5. **EVE Online**
   CCP's landmark 2003 MMO featuring a player-driven galaxy economy, massive fleet battles, and emergent political intrigue spanning two decades.
6. **Starfield**
   Bethesda's 2023 open-world RPG set across a handcrafted galaxy of 1,000+ planets, delivering the studio's most ambitious worldbuilding.
7. **Star Citizen**
   Roberts Space Industries' 2013 crowdfunded universe that surpassed $1 billion in funding, promising the most detailed space simulation ever attempted.
8. **Mass Effect**
   BioWare's 2007 trilogy-launching RPG that set the standard for narrative space opera in games with unforgettable crew relationships.
9. **FTL: Faster Than Light**
   Subset Games' 2012 roguelite that made spaceship management and crew decisions feel tense, meaningful, and infinitely replayable.
10. **Homeworld**
   Relic Entertainment's 1999 real-time strategy classic set entirely in three-dimensional space, pioneering a genre and telling a heartbreaking story.
11. **The Outer Worlds**
   Obsidian's 2019 satirical space RPG combining classic Fallout DNA with dark humour about corporate colonialism across the Halcyon star system.
12. **X4: Foundations**
   Egosoft's 2018 deep-space economy simulator offering unrivalled complexity in fleet management, trade, and station building.
13. **Wing Commander IV**
   Origin Systems' 1996 space-combat epic starring Mark Hamill, blending live-action cinematics with dogfighting in a morally complex narrative.

Tags: games, 2020s, adventure, sci-fi, space, rpg, 2010s