Best Games Like No Man’s Sky [2025 List] - GamingScan (2024)

Following a turbulent launch in 2016, No Man’s Sky has gone on to become one of the most remarkable redemption stories in the gaming world.

Developer Hello Games has remained committed to delivering on their original promise—a vast space exploration game filled with mysteries to unravel and opportunities to interact with other players.

Here, we’ve highlighted a selection of games that manage to satisfy that same cosmic itch as NMS.

We’ll be updating this catalog in the future with additional titles, so make sure to check back.

Astroneer is akin to NMS is many ways; the two share many of the same exploration, base-building, and survival mechanics in addition to having an alien setting.

The game sees players colonizing an alien planet and mining its resources to craft various tools and vehicles. While it may not have an official story aside or any scripted events, there’s still plenty of opportunities to carve out your own exploits.

This is where the game’s online multiplayer proves beneficial, with up to four players able to join-up and set goals for themselves. Fans of NMS will appreciate Astroneer‘s vivid and colorful visuals which blend nicely with its low-poly graphics.

Additionally, a recent 1.0 update added a fresh solar system to explore in addition to new environmental hazards, suits, vehicles, and novel items to craft.

Elite Dangerous is a space sim set in a realistic recreation of the Milky Way galaxy. At the start, players are given a humble starship, a few credits, and the opportunity to carve out their own galactic adventures across an array of different activities.

While the game may not include the ability to land on planets and explore their surfaces in-depth like NMS, it makes up for this by having a broad selection of quests and enormous, multiplayer-supported environments.

Whether you enjoy exploring star systems, trading with other players, transporting passengers, mining resources, or entering full-scale dogfights with other ships, Elite Dangerous always has something to offer.

Subnautica is essentially No Man’s Sky, except set almost entirely underwater. Players are still tasked with managing their oxygen usage and maintaining hunger/thirst levels while exploring an alien planet.

In Subnautica, resource gathering is vital for upgrading tools, expanding your base, and crafting submersibles that allow you to reach new areas.

Similar to NMS, the game allows you total freedom to invest in the activities you prefer the most, whether it is exploring the sea, progressing through the main plot, or building bases and undersea vehicles.

If you don’t mind sporadic run-ins with giant squids or schools of piranhas, Subnautica is definitely worth checking out.

Outer Wilds is a mysterious game that sees your character trapped in a continuous Groundhog Day-style time-loop.

In it, you play as the newest recruit of Outer Wilds Ventures, an emerging space program looking to expand its knowledge of the solar system and its ancestors. Your journey sees you explore historically-significant planets with distinctive weather conditions and concealed locations to discover.

However, unraveling the mysteries of your alien ancestors won’t be easy as black holes, oxygen scarcity, and other environmental dangers are all part of this reality.

While it may not have as many planets to explore as NMS, the game’s unique story and hand-crafted universe do an admirable job at creating a strong sense of atmosphere.

Space Engineers is a sturdy alternative for players who enjoy the base-building component of NMS. While there are some survival mechanics, a majority of the game is spent gathering resources in order to build an assortment of varied spaceships, wheeled vehicles, stations, and planetary outposts using a volumetric-based physics engine that lets you destroy and rebuild every structure you encounter.

Although the game’s dedication to realism can feel a bit overwhelming for anyone deeply entrenched in NMS‘ sci-fi inspired alien universe, it makes for an overall more immersive experience.

If you enjoy building things with other players and setting unique goals for yourself, Space Engineers may be the perfect game for you.

Out There is a Roguelike space exploration game that, much like NMS, has players managing resources and exploring a randomly-generated galaxy filled with a variety of peculiar and interesting alien planets.

In it, you take on the role of an astronaut awaking from cryonics only to discover you’ve left your initial solar system and are now adrift in the vast cosmos.

In order to survive, you’ll have to keep an eye out for valuable materials floating in space such as oxygen and fuel tanks, while also engaging with diverse forms of alien life.

The game doesn’t include any conflict, however, every decision you make carries a vast amount of significance and can ultimately determine whether your astronaut lives or dies.

Void Bastards is a Roguelike, strategy first-person shooter with a remarkable cel-shaded, comic book presentation. In it, players are tasked with planning a space prison escape by exploring deserted spaceships and scavenging for any supplies they have to offer.

Although it doesn’t offer as much liberty as NMS when it comes to exploration, it does place a substantial emphasis on resource management.

How much time you remain alive is entirely dependent on your ability to gather essential items to restore health, enhance and fabricate new tools, and capitalize on each character’s distinct attributes.

Unlike most shooters, Void Bastards doesn’t require you to approach every battle “guns blazing”; a number of traps and tools prove advantageous for distracting or deterring enemies, allowing you to slip past them without spilling a single drop of alien blood.

Surviving Mars is a sci-fi strategy title that’s equal parts survival game and metropolis-builder. In it, you are tasked with establishing and raising a colony on Mars.

The game takes the base-building features of a game like NMS and cranks it up to 11, allowing you to construct massive superstructures to house colonists, factories for managing resources and production, and commercial buildings for researching innovative technologies.

Each of your colonists is a unique individual with strengths and weaknesses that can either accelerate or impede your progress and have an enduring impact on the rest of the community.

Although the game doesn’t give you multiple planets to explore like NMS, the sheer quantity of different technologies to unlock, and strategies for developing your colony provides a feeling of wonder and discovery with every decision made.