Endless Sky is an open source 2D space trading and combat game inspired by the classic Escape Velocity series. Work your way up from a relatively wimpy shuttle, cargo ship, or fighter, to a highly upgraded and customized flagship or to a massive fleet of warships or freighters.
Very Positive
4,271 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | — | — | Y |
Ambrosia software fan ? Enjoyed Escape Velocity? EV Nova? EV overide?
Then your back where you belong! Its already has as much content as the first two games combined.
This game is great for fans of EV Nova.
For anyone who ever enjoyed EV Nova (Override and original EV) THIS IS THE GAME TO PLAY!
Just trust me on this.
It has everything EV Nova had + a lot of sensible qol changes and some new things that acutally add to the enjoyment of the game.
So as an EV Nova veteran I fully recommend Endless Sky! :-)
I waited so many years for something like this to come out after playing the original Escape Velocity! We used to mod the game and you would have flying plungers going around killing everybody, complete chaos!
FRAIS
Very fun so far, looking forward to sinking many hours into this game.
It's okay. I'm struggling right now because I'm supposed to be able to search for systems with certain "outfits" (what the game calls equipment for your ship) and when I search for Javelin Launcher, nothing happens.
I think this is because I haven't explored a place yet that has an outfitter that serves it. If I remember correctly from other E.V. remakes, the only reason to get a fighter early is to go pirate. I was hoping for more escort missions but I guess that's not really needed in the heart of "civilized" space where I've started out.
IMO, it's a missed opportunity, or have someone in-game explain "oh, no self-respecting freighter pilot is going to accept or ask for an escort in the core worlds..." or whatever.
I don't have any common sense, so don't tell me I have to have some.
Great storyline
Really fun, but sometimes frustrating when stuck somewhere with no planets to land on to refuel your ship.
【夹带私货恶心透顶】，别的国家就山清水秀，然后new china这里就环境恶劣污染贫困，还有一颗独立的星球叫new tibet，这是想暗示什么还是想明示什么？真恶心没法忍，玩着玩着发现了这个就像吃饭吃一半发现饭里有苍蝇一样恶心，没法玩了，准备卸载游戏。有人还在那洗，说不是每个老外都了解中国所以没办法，哦，一个陌生人不认识你所以把你描述成负面的吗？我觉得这不是正常人该有的思维吧？ 并且我倒是觉得给出差评就是办法，也是一个让这些所谓“不清楚状况的老外”能清楚状况的直接方法。哪天把上述的私货改正了，哪天改评论。
this is a hidden gem
ts can run on a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Combat speed is doodoo. Things resolve before you know what happened.
I have had this game in my library for years, but only recently have I decided to really give the game a try. I went in planning to be a freighter captain and to just chill and ply my trade between systems. However, I ended up stumbling into a civil war, becoming a war hero, capturing hundreds of pirate vessels to expand my fleet and make ridiculous profits, encountering alien civilizations, and getting spaghettified in Sagittarius A*. To say I found this game captivating is an understatement!
I certainly understand why someone may not enjoy this title; it lacks many modern conventions like background/environmental music, the 2D space combat pales in comparison to higher budget titles like No Man's Sky, and to really engage with the narrative and storylines of the game you need to do a lot of reading. All that being said, I still find this game a lot of fun! The writing is overall very good and is more similar in style to a sci-fi novel rather than video game dialogue or a screenplay. The text guides the players' imagination, and overall I thought it worked well. I found combat to be a lot more fun when you have a fleet of ships to manage rather than trying to shoot anything down yourself, and the outfitting system used to equip ships with systems and armaments allows for a ton of customization.
For those willing to do some reading and explore, this game offers a fantastic experience. I look forward to what all the various contributors have in store for us over the coming years!
Pretty good game however the only completed storyline is the free worlds I'm pretty sure we will eventually be able to side with the republic in the future it is kinda funny how they worry about an invasion fleet even tho i have large amount of escorts
I like this game.
Great remake of the original Nova game. Really glad someone did this! Thanks devs!!
I thought that this game would be a modern take on Escape Velocity, and was very excited to play it. I enjoyed the game for the first 15 or so hours I played it (some of my reported play time is idle) but it has some fundamental design issues that will be very hard to fix in an open-source game with no budget. In short:
1) The illusion of freedom. You can choose a non-fighting role and ship at the beginning of the game, but you will be hard-locked into playing an offensive fighter after you get into the story missions. You also don't get to choose sides, or play sides against each other, which is a huge lost opportunity for a game in this genre. Endless Sky is not a sandbox. Do the combat-oriented Free Worlds mission line or go home.
2) The story missions are easy to miss. Say "no" to a single one by mistake and you can be hardlocked out of the rest of the game with no ability to do anything else. You can fix this by editing save files (and I did), but that is an awful workaround for such a blatant design flaw. It is also often unclear how to trigger certain missions, with their triggers sometimes activating according to RNG (thus relying on outside guides and landing on a specific planet repeatedly, for example, can be necessary).
3) Esoteric, unintuitive, and difficult-to-use UI. No tooltips where they are really needed. It is often unclear how to get information you need. This problem in particular can easily plague long-running open-source projects (I've seen it before), as blind spots become more and more common, and things that seem obvious to people who have played and developed a game for years are anything but that to a new player.
4) Poorly balanced weapons (missiles are mostly useless, for example) and controls make combat less than fun. This ties in closely with #1 above.
I applaud the devs for working so hard and so long on this massive project, and there is indeed some writing gems to be found in the game. And I love good writing! But it is not enough to carry a game with the above design issues. Back to EV I go...
Eğer güzel bir ingilizceniz yoksa yani okuduğunuzu anlamayacak kıvamdaysanız bu oyuna hiç girişmeyin çünkü ingilizcesi o kadar karışık ve zor ki yarım ingilizce bilgimle ilk dakikalarda aşırı zorlandım ve oyunu orada noktalamak zorunda kaldım. İngilizcesi olanlar için ideal bir oyun.
yes
Endless Sky is utterly amazing. An immersive, lovingly crafted space opera, it transports the player into the Milky Way galaxy 1,000 years in the future. The galaxy is strange and mysterious, yet because of the strength of the game's writing manages to feel like home. Playing this game is like dreaming, stepping foot in a wondrous new reality. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
If you like starsector or transcendence(the game) you will like this.I got like 100hrs from the web version, and this game is just great.
fun space game to waste some time relaxing
space sim... simple to start, fun to play, hard to master
genuinely a good game. hella content. plus its free so why not?'
Yes! Brings me back to my childhood with Escape Velocity, Escape Velocity Override & Escape Velocity Nova. Big props to the developer!
I came into this blind and love space sandboxes ever since i played Starsector and Elite Dangerous, and i gotta say this one is pretty good, it's like Starsector but less action oriented, at least for me.
I was obsessed with Escape Velocity in the late 90's on Mac computers. Glad that a spiritual successor is still being updated and available to play. Very easy to play this game for hours at a time.
Endless Sky is a great game for people who enjoy reading science fiction novels or playing retro space flight games like Asteroids/Minestorm. It caters to multiple play-styles too, being a merchant is mostly just relaxing, you can make millions with one hand and just enjoy the exploration and story missions. Otherwise there's combat, which is significantly harder in the early game, but definitely feels reminiscent of Asteroids. There's fleet management mechanics, ship customization (not for how they look but for how they function), a dynamic economy where your supplying actually lowers demand, and it has a lot of entertaining reading (if you bother to read it all).
When it comes to free games this one is the king of kings, there's no paywalls, no pay-to-win mechanics, no premium skins, loot boxes, or premium currency. It's just free, and it's essentially a large space sandbox in kind of a retro gameplay style. This game is also available on android devices via a .apk package on fdroid.
It has it's challenges of course, like the default controls are *quite* cumbersome, but they can be easily improved in the settings. You also have to spend your first hour or two paying off the loan on your first ship. There are even moments where you have to re-load once or twice just to manage to survive an encounter with enemy ships.
All in all, I 100% recommend Endless Sky if you enjoy space trucking, sci-fi storytelling, the game Asteroids, or if you're just looking for some new entertainment without spending any money. The only gripe is it isn't the biggest space game out there, but it's definitely the most accessible one I've played.
I just wanted to try this game and the next thing you know 3 hrs had past.
Очень затянутая игра, вас будет тормозить все, начиная с квестов "туда-сюда-обратно отвези-поговори-привези", заканчивая износом кораблей и обвесов (купил за лям, продал за 250к), доступность некоторых кораблей только по квестам. Весь геймплей это первый минут 30 игры, ничего нового не будет. Бьют точно по флагману и не важно какой корабль (самый сильный или самый слабый) и какая пачка сопровождения, а когда вырубают корабль, случайно добивают, стреляя по другим. Только английский язык.
Very fun. Thank you!
Underrated and a hidden gem! Highly recommend. Complex lore and insane story lines. Peak.
Awesome game, great devs.
I'm only giving this a positive review because I spiritually cannot give this a negative one. I am extremely f'n grateful this exists at all and it's a miracle, honestly. And, look I know this game is free, 11 years old, and is developed by huge fans of Escape Velocity Nova on a volunteer basis, but there are some aspects of this game that work against itself and kind of disrespect the original title that I just need to point out before others sink hours into this.
Here are some of my sore spots:
- There are WAY too many pirates. It's ridiculous. Even making a trade route in the core of the Republic sphere of influence is so aggravatingly annoying because you are constantly attracting the attention of pirates. I just want to be a space trucker in the early game and there is a literal nonstop sound of the alarm blare because of an omnipresent amount of hostiles in every single occupied system. It's incredibly over tuned and is exceedingly immersion breaking. The game even passive aggressively tells you to stop doing trade routes because "there's so much more beauty to the galaxy than just doing trades" like, dude, I need to get a Falcon just to not get instantly blown up by pirates every 2 screens and this is the only meaningful way in the early game to reasonably afford that! Super annoying but not impossible to work around.
- Fleet management is an absolute nightmare. You will recruit ships that cannot leave systems and they will be on the bottom left of your screen forever until you fly back to them and commit cold murder by blowing them up just so they stop appearing on your hud - just because they don't have enough fuel, or you don't have a fighter bay, and the system doesn't have a shipyard for you to sell them at. EVN fixed this problem two decades ago by overriding their fuel needs and having them fly with you regardless of their resources. Is it less realistic? Yes. Does it play way, WAY better? Absolutely. Fleets need to be completely reworked, I think they're in a really bad state.
- The sound design. Sigh, ok, look I'm a sound designer and I have some thoughts on how it's being implemented and I am incredibly biased but I have to be upfront and just say that so much of it is just Bad. The only things that sound alright are the explosions, the reticle clicks, and the afterburner thrusts. The idle engine noise has an audible loop point, the beam lasers somehow simultaneously sound like wet newspaper and nails on a chalkboard, and the alarm blare has a noise floor with a ton of artifacts in the audio file. I would love to contribute new sound design to the game - just give me the green light.
- The text. Tiny text being forced to the side of the screen is so hard to read, why isn't it in the middle of the screen?! There isn't even anything you can do with the rest of the screen while there's dialog! Just, please, put it in the middle of the screen. I'm begging you. It will make reading the text so much more bearable.
- The perspective. I don't think the game works well in a true overhead view. EVN has a pseudo isometric perspective that gave the ships and other sprites a lot of depth and a skeuomorphic sheen that made the aesthetic of the game really come together. I actually really like a lot of the ship designs in this game but I think they fall a bit flat due to the true top-down nature. Because this game lets you zoom in and out as well, this can really provide some opportunities to make mega structures that make you feel puny in the vastness of space.
There's some other things like the writing that I'm mid about but again, it's a miracle this game exists. I'm frustrated at this game *because* I love the original so much and that this is such a niche genre that I feel like hasn't been done justice yet. It gets so, so, so close but just need a touch more love to really nail it.
This is so amazing and all for free. I do recommend to contribute to this project if you want, it's one of the best open source games out there!
An addictive way to while away time.
this one is ok.
have not encountered any bugs.
can not say it looks good because it is so damn tiny. yes you can zoom in and look at the ship, still small though and you can not see whats coming.
i feel that the game is beaten for me. i played for a while building up cash for a big warship playing in a light freighter, no weapons just better shield and faster. mad tons of cash fairly quickly too. i consider that a win.
the warship (protector) was slow, chasing cargo around was a pain, you are not rewarded for destroying pirates, for a reward - cargo or taking their ship which is hard because of the number of guns, you usually destroy it.
now i could be missing something, there might be more. i have not really left the area that you start in but, when you can become stinkin rich right there well....
6/10 from me, free is free
Something about this game made me latch on. Possibly it's because of the story in combination with its varied and unrestricted playstyle. It's incredibly open ended in terms of allowing you to play however you wish as well as having a still active modding community.
great experience love it
i liked it
One of the best games I've played, and it's free and it's still being developed by a community over a decade after its release. For awhile it sat in my library as a "I'll play this when I'm really bored of every other video game" game but when I actually started playing it for a bit I realized what I was missing out on. Great story, hundreds of hours of content, interesting ship building mechanics, and relaxing gameplay if you want it to be. There's always something new to discover with this game. It can be chill like delivering cargo from system to system or you can get really invested and find yourself making maps of uncharted space on spare notecards.
Fun, FREE space exploration and trading game. Reminds me a bit of Elite Dangerous. 10/10 so far
bad
Cool simple space exploration and trading game.
This game is perfect, even though it is 2d, the mechanics, the story and the customization is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. I have been playing this game for many years and I have never tired.
Played and replayed every year or so. Continuing updates make it worth it. My only problem with the game is that there isn't enough of it.
Very interesting.
This game is so great that I'm even playing with mods for more content. I finished most of the objectives and got good saves on my earlier devices. Though it's a hard playtime to advance greatly, it turns better the more you understand.
Great game, would pay for a game of this quality.
Mindless in a way that takes planning, and I didn't even have to ResEdit Captain Hector.
This is a really cool game. It has all the fun parts of finances, the mental process, all that, but without the stress. Makes you feel really cool!
top tier space trade game. Combat can be an enjoyable experience if you get to know the controls and fit your fleet right. surprisingly rich story. All that and its open source! 9/10, would be nice to have a fitting soundtrack.
an issue is that the asteroid mining route is tedious and not worth it. needs a few drones for any kind of efficiency, lots of asteroids move too fast, and missions ask for minerals like gold which I haven't seen yet (played the game on and off for a year before finding on steam).
not a major issue though considering its just one of a good number of ways to make money and is very optional.
10/10 I like being a space trucker
Open source escape velocity, just started it up again and loving it!
I enjoy this game. definitely some reading involved but the economy and lore and exploring and space fighting keeps me coming back!
Freaking outstanding game. Huge galaxy to explore, engaging storylines, tons of ships and systems to find and unlock. Huge recomend.
Don't waste any time on Endless Sky. It's pathetic.
Why waste time on a game when the result is _always_ an OP enemy slapdown ?
Every playthrough. The only variation is how much time is wasted trying to get to where you can buy a survivable ship.
And if you do manage to make it that far, the Devs will just throw more powerful OP enemies at you and destroy your 'better' ship.
Because the Devs want to 'challenge' players by wiping them out with no chance to escape.
Same lame 'game theory' garbage : throw OP enemies and enemy mobs to destroy the player with no chance to escape, in order to 'motivate' the player to work on the game.
Wrong.
What this actually does is motivate players to dump the game as the garbage that it is.
Endless Sky is that kind of garbage.
On my last playthrough attempt, and that was my _last_ attempt, I got blasted by two OP enemy mobs - on my 3rd trip.
The first enemy mob had low-level blasters...okay, I can make it thru the absurdly slow ship-turning to the Jump.
But no. The second enemy mob pops in two seconds later, with massive OP blasters.
It would have taken two seconds to complete that turn to the Jump. Not possible.
No chance to do anything, just watch while my first ship was destroyed on my third trip.
Well, I actually can do something : dump this lame game.
And warn others against wasting any time on Endless Sky.
Une vraie merveille de l'open source
Absolutely fantastic game, especially with it being free. I haven't played recently but updates are still coming out 11 years later which is incredible. Highly recommend!
Yes.
I can hardly wait for my third play through in a couple years...
Yeah try it if ya want :3
Its pretty enjoyable if ya like this type o-o
fun low tempo game
Giving Escape Velocity realness in the best and worst ways.
If you want to play this game entirely 100% blind, its pretty good. If you want to look up how to start a convoluted questline, be prepared to suffer to find out. The community behind this game seems allergic to explaining things, if you get stuck in a quest and try to ask or search how to start or finish or go to the next step, be prepared to simply be told to do the quest you do not know how to do.
look the game is fun just the aspect of hardcore is just anoying considering the first 7 hours is just grind to get a good ship. you could be 3 hours in and find a person a bit to strong and all you progress is gone, happend to me twice. so no dont play it unless you are a person who likes grinding when its hard and puishing
Soothing repetitious 2Dness fun and it's free. The controls took like half an hour to figure out, but watching a tutorial online helped a lot. It's not a complicated game, it's fun in the exploration, trying to figure out strategies to make cash, its relaxing in it's own way.
Absolutely great. If you loved the EV games (EV Override, EV Nova, etc), then this game will be right up your alley. The universe is vast and wondrous. :)
Love this game. If you like trade sims then you'll love this one. Great presentation and really sucks you in.
absurdly fun. stumbled across it while trying to find an alternative to EVE that i didnt have to pay for. not that but very fun
Very fun, hope the updates keep coming.
10 years ago, as a 16 year old with their first gaming pc and no money left, I resorted to free games and this was the first one. I enjoyed it for it's simplicity and it kept me open to playing smaller indie games from that point forward. So glad to see this one is still getting updates and being played.
good game
Very good and fun game.
I am absolutely stunned that this game is free. I'd happily pay for this.
So simple on the surface and so deep in so many ways otherwise - and from what I can tell I've still not even scratched the surface of it.
10/10
Easy to pick up and easy to set down. Great way to kill some time and will run on just about any hardware. Controls can be a little difficult to master but game-play is engaging and supports different play-styles. I always find myself coming back when I want to just hop into something without worrying about large updates or being interrupted.
It's all the best Escape Velocity gave me in my childhood and much more. Highly recommend this game, and it's hard to beat the price with what you get.
If you're bored.
This is awesome! They did a great job capturing the feel and look of EV Override.
Zatím nejlepší hra tohoto žánru. Kam se hrabou MMORPGčka s přešukaným GUIčkem. Jestli chcete experience cestovatelství a volnosti jako z Mandaloriana a Starboundu, tahle hra je pro vás. Loď jde pokonfigurovat tak jak potřebujete (podle toho jestli hrajete spíš převozníka než dobyvatele, a naopak), a světy a ekonomika jsou živý. Jestli máte rádi vesmírný věci s loděma, tohle je povinnost. Nechápu proč to nejzábavnější ze žánrů vždy najdu ve free hrách co mají max pár set MB. Možná protože se tvůrci snažily neudělat sračku? Kdo ví.
Simple game. Fun. Playing :)
Great little nostalgic game with lots of heart and soul
Underrated game, this is awesome
Good campaigns
Miss a little lore at the start
I would put a 9,5/10 only because it miss languages change
Awesome, community driven game!
Just enjoy attempting to move further on in the game. At a point though where I can't expand without plug ins which I have no knowledge of.
i dont know the words to express how i feel about the game
An incredible game at its core, sometimes the more simple things offer the most. I keep coming back to this game after so many years.
I liked the large variety of ships and different species and exploring the galaxy. I enjoyed the varietty of play styles and ship customization.
I wish the font size of the quest dialog was adjustable (larger). I would also like more details in the quest log to make it easier to follow quests, i would get lost often trying to find next steps in quests and get sidetracked and spoil quests without realizing.
As a Successor game of the Escape Velocity trilogy from the 90s and early 2000s... This game is ALMOST up to what Escape Velocity was back in the day... but FREE.
If you're looking for a CHALLENGING game that makes you WORK for your success... without any actual PvP to annoy you... but you still have factions you can choose to work with/for and fight others.... THIS GAME IS FOR YOU. Sure... it's more or less got 2D/3D visuals, and it's top-down spaceship game. But like it's forebears before it, lends to it a modular system. You don't get to color your ships and nor what-have-you, but what you put on your ships does matter.
Now if you're a cheater, wanting in on getting a hyper battleship and all the best mods, or so many that you're all-but invincible, but you're just here for the stories that are being told... then this free game is ALSO for you! You can pretty much do and feel to do what you want... INCLUDING skipping out on any story, and just making yourself rich and powerful. Go God Mode on this game, you amazing cheaters! You can also freely MOD this game, adding your own twist to it!
Honestly since Ambrosia Software all-but died, leaving the OG Escape Velocity games in limbo for all time, if you were an old-time fan who grew up on this series as a child, this will bring back amazing memories, and make new ones with you. Like Escape Velocity rising from the grave, not as an evil zombie/spirit, but as the friendly and loving spirit... who will stab you in the back by laughing at you as your convoy of hauler ships are gunned down and then you are as well. You'll be immediately reminded of all the times pirates came after you, made you bribe them, and also killed your ship and sending you back to the Main Menu.
If you're new to this type of game, then welcome to a great game in the making(as of this review). I pray that the devs stay as loving and faithful to this game as they continue to develop it. Now I just need to find out if they've got a patreon or something, where I can toss them some well-earned cash for giving me all those years' memories as a child back. As a kid, I used to love sitting around and playing Escape Velocity, especially the final installment "NOVA". This game has all the love and heart that Nova gave us all those years ago...
its absolutly amazing i love its built by a community and is still supported to this day
Añoro Escape Velocity. Le daré una segunda oportunidad.
I love owning so many ships i can obliterate anything that is on my screen
Didnt dislike anything very cool 2D Space game
The game is amazing and all, but until there's a storyline for the republic navy, I refuse to involve myself in space communism.
the best job simulator ever
definitely a game worth getting in to
i have more than 400 hrs on this game. im planning on another 400 hrs
Peak gaming
I never have enough time to play this game all the way through.
This is a very fun strategy game where you fly around and deliver cargo and travelers.
