The return of the space game

[Volatar]

Is it just me, or is there a resurgence of space games being announced by indies or on kickstarter? We have had a serious lack of space games for years now. Suddenly more and more keep getting announced.

I love it. I have always loved space games, no matter then genre of the gameplay. It's good to see them coming back, despite the refusal of publishers to fund them. I always knew that space was still in the minds of many. 

[keith.lamothe]

Some of us want them, and the threshold for a game idea to get on kickstarter is low enough for that to be sufficient.  But yea, I don't think publishers are very enthused about them in general.

Though honestly I've seen quite a few space game releases over the past couple years, both on and off steam.  Though I guess a lot of them have been indie games.

[orzelek]

Space genre at least in 4x area had few.. mishaps of large scale recently and I think publishers are afraid of that genre. Endless Space is one of recent ones that ended up well - mainly thanks to being quite simple.

We'll see what few more incoming titles will bring - and they are mostly indie or kickstarter based (Star Drive still in production, recent M.O.R.E.).

[Volatar]

Planetary Annihilation counts I would say. That was a wildly successful Kickstarter.

We also see an active Kickstarter for Nexus 2.

And X: Rebirth is in development. That's not indie nor kickstarter, but neither is it funded by any of the big publishers.

[keith.lamothe]

I would think of Planetary Annihilation as not really a space-game, per se.  Space is involved, but it appears to be almost entirely a means of connecting different planetary environments.  They've said several times that they can't do full-fledged starship combat or whatnot in the game because it would require such a different... well, game.

There's orbital units, though.

[icepick37]

I noticed the same thing. Spaz and starfarer were my most recent loves, then ftl. Backed PA. Missed a couple more ks spacey games.

It's nuts.

[orzelek]

Fact I forgot Spaz and Drox Operative which will be completed soon I guess. For me it's better than Starfarer since I prefer the lone wolf play than fleet fights. I'm leaving obvious exception for Nexus 2 ofc (I did not finish first one.. it was damn hard)