15 Best Sci-Fi Games of All Time

EVE Online

We’ll begin this list with something really big. If you’re looking for a complex space sim/MMORPG, you probably won’t find anything better than EVE Online.

Yup, it’s overwhelming in scope and extremely detailed. There’s just a single, shared world where players engage with other players in terms of economy, war, and politics. Just talking about the complexity of this title is headache-inducing, not to mention actually delving into the game and starting your adventure there.

Let the tale of the Battle of B-R5RB be a testament to the greatness of EVE Online. This one was probably the biggest PVP battle in the history of gaming. Lasting 21 hours, it saw thousands of players fight for control over the star system B-R5RB. The destruction was immense, as thousands of ships were destroyed, including 75 Titans, the largest vessels that you can obtain in the game. The developers commemorated the battle with a monument erected in the system and named it The Titanomachy.

Titanfall 2

If you love giant mecha, then you won’t find many games better than Titanfall 2. This fresh and innovative FPS made by the veterans of the genre is one of the most overlooked gems on the market.

Titanfall 2 improves on its predecessor in every possible way. It features a robust single-player campaign which puts you in the shoes of Jack Cooper, a member of the Frontier Militia who bonds with his deceased mentor’s Titan (a giant mecha-style robot) and seeks to stop the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation from destroying the Militia planet Harmony.

Image credit: Respawn Entertainment

One thing’s for sure: the missions are large and designed to offer players different ways to complete the objectives, as well as some fresh gameplay mechanics, including time travel. It’s kind of like the old Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, but done right. Couple that with excellent multiplayer and community support and you have a fantastic shooter that you will most likely love.

Titanfall 2

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Fallout (series)

War, war never changes. The Fallout series is pretty much the most famous video game example of post-apocalyptic science fiction.

A spiritual successor to Wasteland which seems to have been strongly influenced by the Mad Max movie, the series has captured the hearts of RPG fans all over the world.

Image credit: Bethesda Game Studios

The first two Fallout games are classic isometric RPGs with turn-based combat. Your task in the first Fallout is to recover a water chip in order to save your home, Vault 13. This later pits you against super mutants led by the Master. In the second game, your objective is to save your village, Arroyo, which has you come to grips with the Enclave.

Starting from Fallout 3 , the series was taken over by Bethesda. The biggest changes include full 3D, first/third-person perspective, and action-oriented combat instead of a turn-based one. There’s also a bunch of spin-offs, including New Vegas (made by Obsidian), which is considered to be the best Fallout since the 90s, Fallout 76, the series’ first multiplayer game, and Brotherhood of Steel, a tactical game released in 2001.

Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition

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Fallout 3 - Game of the Year Edition

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Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition

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Halo (series)

Fans of military science fiction know which series in this genre is probably the best one. Halo, Xbox’s killer app and a major critical and commercial success back in the day, is one of the greatest franchises of all time.

The series began with Halo: Combat Evolved, released in 2001. Set in the 26th century, it depicts a conflict between humans and an alien collective known as the Covenant. As a super soldier known as Master Chief, you crash land on a strange ringworld and embark on a mission to discover its secrets.

Image credit: 343 Industries

The game spawned an entire franchise, including a bunch of sequels and a couple of spin-offs. Among the latter are Halo Wars 1 and 2, a fun RTS series, as well as Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike, twin-stick shooters made by 343 Industries and Vanguard Games. The latest installment is Halo: Infinite, released in 2021. It’s considered a return to the series’ form.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection

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Portal (series)

Now, this one puts science back in science fiction. The Portal series is a clever application of physics in order to create a fascinating series of mind-bending puzzles.

The first Portal game puts you in the shoes of Chell, a woman forced to complete various tests by GLaDOS, a malicious AI controlling the mysterious facility where the protagonist is stuck in. Most of these involve using the so-called portal gun to manipulate various objects or traverse the area by creating wormholes connecting two flat surfaces, but there are also other interesting puzzles to solve.

Image credit: Valve

The sequel, Portal 2, introduced more mechanics and a co-operative mode where you play as two robots, Atlas and P-Body. There are also some special editions of the games. If you love puzzle games, this series is one of the best choices around.

Portal

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Portal 2

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Stellaris

Starting the list with a bang, Stellaris is easily one of the most complex sci-fi games out there. It’s a grand strategy playing on a gorgeous, 3D map of a galaxy filled with all the amazing vistas that space has to offer.

Your primary goal is to advance your civilization beyond their native star system through clever diplomacy, technological supremacy, or just a good ol’ military conquest.

Image credit: Paradox Development Studio

Before you begin your galactic exploits, Stellaris gives you a very robust system which allows you to create your starting civilization, from the general appearance down to the nitty gritty, like political doctrines and ideals. The game has evolved significantly since release, and currently stands as a wonderfully complex and, somehow accessible, grand strategy/4X mix.

Stellaris

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Half-Life 2

An absolute classic, one of the most beloved games in history, a sequel to a legend, and one of the best science fiction first-person shooters you could ever hope for.

It should be absolutely no surprise that Half-Life 2 made this list. Starring the “strong silent type” Gordon Freeman, once again asked to face the interdimensional Combine invaders and do the G-Man’s mysterious bidding.

Image credit: Valve

What awaits you is a tightly polished FPS taking place in a city dominated by dimensional aliens and featuring both normal weapons and creative tools, such as the famous Gravity Gun. Half-Life 2 is almost twenty years old, but it still holds up wonderfully, and truly, if you’re looking for SF shooters, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t check it out.

Half-Life 2

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XCOM 2

XCOM 2 takes place twenty years after the events of the original game. The aliens have won, and control virtually the entire world, ruling by propaganda and the ADVENT military/police.

Only the few scattered resistance groups, including the remnants of the original XCOM, still fight for humanity. That’s the cyberpunk reality presented to you in XCOM 2, before you even start to play in earnest.

Image credit: Feral Interactive (Linux)

XCOM 2 is a turn-based tactics game with an additional strategic layer about managing your mobile base of operations and flying around the globe to address crises and exploit opportunities. You are given four classes by default, with more unlocked in the story and through DLCs, including the game-changing War of the Chosen expansion. Aliens, robots, energy weapons, psionics. Everything is here!

XCOM 2

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Outer Wilds

One of the highest rated games on Steam, Outer Wilds is a fascinating game about being caught in a time loop in an unstable star system. You have 22 minutes before the loop restarts, but you do retain the knowledge of what you discovered on the previous run.

Your task is to figure out why the time loop is happening, why is the nearby star going supernova, and what aliens have to do with it.

Image credit: Mobius Digital

Much of the game revolves around exploration and logic puzzles. The environment of the system is often shifting, which might block or reveal different areas in each loop. Outer Wilds is a great mix of a science fiction story with captivating gameplay which rewards logical thinking and the ability to use previously gained knowledge to uncover more of the lingering mystery of that weird star system.

Outer Wilds

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Dead Space

Dead Space (soon to receive a remake) is one of the finest SF horrors in video games. The year is 2508, engineer Isaac Clarke travels to a mining ship USG Ishimura, following a message from his girlfriends, the craft’s medical officer.

Unfortunately, Ishimura is malfunctioning, and mostly deserted, unless we count undead, warped, grotesque monstrosities which seemingly killed everyone else.

Image credit: EA Redwood Shores

Dead Space takes the setting inspired by Alien, adds monsters inspired by The Thing, and uses them to create a terrifying, tense story and gameplay. You don’t even get proper weapons, mostly just repurposed tools, the best of which is the plasma cutter, which can dismember the necromorphs. It’s an excellent horror, has a great, immersive SF setting, and a suitably weird, unsettling storyline.

Dead Space

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Alien Isolation

Two horrors back-to-back, Alien: Isolation is a spin-off from the renowned series of movies, following Ellen Ripley’s daughter, Amanda. She is looking for her mother, at the time lost in space, and the search brings her to a space station, which has fallen silent, because it turns out that there’s a xenomorph on board, making short work of the crew. A bad time to look for one’s mother.

Image credit: Creative Assembly

Alien: Isolation is a special treat to fans of the original movie: developer Creative Assembly took great pains to recreate the appearance of environments and technology, down to neat details. You’ll spend a lot of time hiding from the surprisingly smart Alien roaming the levels. You do have access to weapons, but they do a better job against regular enemies than against the xenomorph.

Alien Isolation

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Death Stranding

Created by Hideo Kojima, Death Stranding is a weird, but fascinating game about reforging connections in a post-cataclysmic, barren version of the United States.

You’re playing as Sam Porter Bridges, a courier specializing in transporting good on long distances across the US troubled both by bandits and by extradimensional creatures related to the afterlife.

Image credit: Kojima Productions

While DS does touch upon the metaphysics, there’s also plenty of neat science fiction stuff everywhere, especially in the tools and gadgets used by Bridges to make deliveries. Between universal fabricator, a semi-transforming bike, and sensors detecting the extradimensional creatures, Death Stranding is on point as far as science fiction trappings go.

Death Stranding

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Homeworld (series)

Homeworld is an all-time classic science fiction real-time strategy. Planet Kharak was destroyed, but its people managed to escape in a hastily built fleet. Now they have to move across the galaxy, seeking their ancestors’ homeworld.

Unlike many RTSs, Homeworld preserves the state of your fleet between mission, so a rough battle might make the next mission significantly more challenging.

Image credit: Aspyr (Mac)

Although the original HW launched back in 1999, it has since received a remaster in 2015, and, unsurprisingly, it still can look gorgeous. Homeworld is one of the rare RTSs that offer fully 3D space combat (instead of just putting all ships on the same plane) which opens the way for interesting tactics. The series lives on and has its second sequel slated for release in late 2022.

Homeworld (series)

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Mass Effect (series)

This list couldn’t hope to be complete without the Mass Effect series. The famous trilogy takes place in a galaxy filled with alien civilizations, highly advanced technology, and more respect for physics than you’d expect.

The series follows Commander Shepard, the first human special agent of a galactic government, who comes across a threat that the Council refuses to acknowledge until it’s too late.

Image credit: BioWare

One of the biggest draws of the series is that your choices as Shepard have far-reaching consequences, and many play out later in the trilogy. In 2020 the games received a Legendary Edition, bringing all the games together, improving the slightly dated graphics, and smoothing over the appearance and choice import process. It’s certainly the definitive way to enjoy this amazing series.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition

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Deus Ex (series)

Deus Ex presents a rough, cyberpunk future world filled with cybernetic augmentations, world-spanning conspiracies, and experiments bridging the gap between nature and technology.

Whether you’re playing as JC Denton, one of the first nano-augmented people, or Adam Jensen, whose life was saved thanks to extensive cybernetic replacements, you’re in for a tense SF plotline.

Image credit: Ion Storm

Even the less-popular Invisible War has many interesting concepts and is a solid SF game in its own right. What all DE games have in common is an immersive environment creating opportunities you can exploit by using your tech-fueled superpowers. There are always several ways to complete any task, often only limited by your imagination and tools at your disposal.

Deus Ex: GOTY

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