Video Games That Let You Build A Spaceship

Outer space, its exploration, and especially the vessels we use to enable such exploration, spaceships, are really cool. In a sense, we’re witnessing the second coming of the Wild West from a couple hundred years ago; this is the next brand-new frontier for humanity to explore, and possibly inhabit.

The only main issue is, that an impossibly small number of people here on Earth will be able to afford and endure such an unforgiving, and largely inaccessible, galactic frontier. Thankfully, there are plenty of incredible video games to get you close to the real thing, all from the comfort of your home.

Updated December 24, 2024, by Tom Hopkins: If you jump into expansive sci-fi RPGs, you’ll want to personalise everything you can. Building the biggest ship you can or fiddling with intricate tools allows you to build something truly unique. Some recently released games even let you build ships that look just like those from other games and film franchises.

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Starfield

Bethesda’s space epic is more expansive than their other games. While you’re travelling the stars, meeting new characters and taking on the role of the character you built, it’s important to look as impressive as you can.

Right from the start of the game, you can design the perfect ship. Players have even tried to build famous ships from other sci-fi franchises, such as the iconic Millennium Falcon. Some of the designs are ridiculous, but it shows how much is possible from Starfield’s ship building tool.

12

No Man’s Sky

As more free No Man’s Sky expansions have arrived over the years, even more ways to personalise your ship have become possible. Since you’re exploring an infinite number of unique planets, you’ll want to stand out.

Thankfully, you can choose most aspects of your ship in No Man’s Sky. Most of your choices will be made when you first start the game, since role-playing isn’t a big part of the game, but you can always tinker with your craft if you want to change how it looks later on.

11

Cosmoteer: Starship Architect & Commander

If you don’t mind designing and fighting from a top-down, 2D perspective, Cosmoteer offers a fun, dynamic, ship-building experience. Once you have a ship you’re happy with, you can throw it into epic fleet battles and see where you need to improve.

You can play solo, with friends, or in online PvP lobbies. When it comes to ship crafting, you can make your vessel as large or small as you’d like, but keep in mind that crew and resource costs will scale alongside ship size.

The general premise of Starcom: Nexus is about starting small, and through exploration, ingenuity, diplomacy, combat, and perseverance, building yourself up into a formidable battlecruiser that’ll make potential enemies think twice about getting into a serious scuffle with you.

Starcom is single-player only, but it arguably makes up for that with a full, open world filled with quests, storylines, a wide variety of planets, fast-paced combat with various aliens, secrets to find, technology to research, and ways to build trade relations with factions of your choosing.

9

Avorion

Avorion is a sci-fi space exploration game on Steam featuring procedurally generated galaxies with building, fighting, mining, and trading mechanics. On top of that, there’s multiplayer co-op, plenty of customizability, ship materials, weapons, and no size limit to the ships you build.

Truly, your imagination and creativity are the only limits in Avorion. If you’re not so confident in your building skills, though, you can browse the game’s Steam Workshop to see and use space station or ship designs that other players have uploaded.

8

Starmade

Starmade is a voxel-based, space sandbox game that you can buy on Steam or the publisher’s own website. Similar to Minecraft, you’ll be building ships, space stations, or practically anything you’d need or want, piece by piece and block by block.

You can play on your own fighting AI and going at your own pace, or you can hop into a multiplayer server for a more dynamic and risky PvPvE experience. While the game is normally $15, you can sometimes catch it on sale for just a few dollars on Steam.

7

Space Engineers

While Space Engineers is very similar to the previous two entries, being a space exploration and sandbox game with building elements, it also offers quite a bit of depth in terms of survival, automation, and engineering applications.

The physics of the game helps to make things more life-like and immersive, but try not to get caught floating away in space or have one of your contraptions break, become unbalanced, or get out of control. You can pick up the game for $20 or less on Steam.

6

Minecraft

Okay, while Minecraft certainly is somewhat of an outlier in this list, it still technically counts because you can build any kind of spaceship you want. The obvious downside, though, is that anything you build in the base game will be static and likely lack many functionalities.

You do have the option, however, to explore a variety of mods that will introduce various spaceship functionalities you’d expect. The Galacticraft mod, for example, lets you build small spaceships you can ride in and visit new places with, like the moon.

5

Kerbal Space Program

It would be impossible to leave out Kerbal Space Program in a list with spaceship building and space exploration mechanics. Although it will likely take lots of tinkering on your part, KSP is a very rewarding and fun game once you get the hang of building balanced, efficient spacecraft.

What makes the game a bit different is that it places heavy emphasis on realistic, aerodynamic, and orbital physics. Once you have your first successful launch, though, you’ll be able to scan different planets, extract resources, and research new technologies.

4

Empyrion Galactic Survival

Empyrion Galactic Survival checks all the boxes you’d expect: building, exploration, combat, multiplayer, and a 3D universe to explore. There are a variety of human, alien, and otherwise biological hazards to manage, and a robust, free-roaming system to experience.

The game does a good job of emulating the diversity and vastness of space, allowing you to warp between unique planets, and even land on their moons if they have any. As a side bonus, there are also secrets to discover about each of the alien species you encounter.

3

Spore

While you won’t be able to jump into shipbuilding right away in Spore, you’ll eventually be able to. That is, after you’ve lived your life as a microscopic organism, evolved to live on land, formed a tribe, and finally, created a modern, technologically sufficient society capable of space travel.

While the graphics aren’t anything to write home about, and you won’t have systems or mechanics as robust as most games dedicated to the sci-fi exploration genre, Spore offers an impressive amount of customization, helping you capture the look you’re chasing.

2

Kingdom Hearts

Kingdom Hearts might be a bit of a surprise for you on this list. Those of you that have played Kingdom Hearts, KH2, or KH3, however, are likely familiar with Gummi ships, the game series’ main form of transportation between various worlds.

Despite being only a part of the Kingdom Hearts series, it’s still quite fun to tinker around in the Gummi Garage, constructing and modifying your ship as you see fit. If you’ve never given it a try, you’d likely be surprised how many colors, pieces, weapons, and stats you can tinker with, especially in Kingdom Hearts 2.

1

Space Haven

Space Haven is quite unique compared to the other games on this list, being an isometric, single-player-only experience with mechanics that could be compared to games such as RimWorld or Dwarf Fortress.

Sure, you’ll be building and expanding spaceships and space stations, but instead of playing as a single character, you’ll be managing a colony of people in search of a new home. As your colony grows larger, just try to make sure your oxygen, CO2, and hazardous gas levels stay in check.