BlizzCon 2026 delivered big gaming news over the weekend, including Diablo 5 and a new Warcraft 3 expansion announcement, but sci-fi lovers were the ones with the most cause to celebrate, as we learned that StarCraft will return in 2030. It's not coming back as a sci-fi strategy game this time, though.

16 years after StarCraft 2's initial launch and after months of rumors, Blizzard Entertainment has unveiled StarCraft, the next chapter in the franchise. Provisional title or not ('Dominion' is just the trailer's moniker), we know that it's set roughly 70 years after the events of the SC2 trilogy and that it's been envisioned as a "narrative-driven open world shooter" without seasonal or live-service elements, at least at the time of writing.

Creative director Dan Hay's (known for his work on the modern Far Cry games) teased a game that's quite different from what's shown in the first CG trailer above. Humans are still fighting against the Zerg, a ruthless hive-like species infesting the stars, and we get to see thousands (if not millions) of marines being thrown into the meat grinder... literally.

We've seen this story before, but the trailer's condensed tale of an eager young man getting turned into ground meat during his first encounter with the Zerg is chilling. It's all well and good when you're floating above the carnage, but the average StarCraft battle looks way more brutal from a boots-on-the-ground point of view.

From the cinematic, you'd think StarCraft is more of a Helldivers-like game, but it seems the focus will be on single-player gameplay with a strong story. I wouldn't rule out some form of co-op or multiplayer, though.

Other hot bits of info straight from BlizzCon confirm it's a third-person shooter, meaning players can customize and see the character and their equipment in action as battles rage on. A fantastic choice given how iconic the StarCraft marine armor is.

It's hard to imagine how the full thing will come together without any gameplay footage to look at — and a lot can change between now and the tentative 2030 release window — but we must admit it's a rather attractive pitch, especially after Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 did something similar (but with linear levels).

Let's just hope the powers that be haven't completely forgotten about making a third mainline StarCraft game too.

I'm a pretty thrifty guy; no one will ever accuse me of being a hoarder or a bulk shopper. You won’t ever see me at a Costco lugging around 48-count packs of toilet paper, hernia-inducing apple bags, or ginormous 5-pound boxes of Goldfish Crackers.

But after tinkering around with "The Last Starship" for a while, I think I could be converted into a doomsday prepper; someone who loads up on necessary supplies and has a keen sense of the proper protocol for acquiring stockpiles of food, water, ammo, and —if I were stuck out in deep space — oxygen.

After being available in early access for nearly three years, "The Last Starship" 1.0 was finally released on Feb. 6, 2026, for PC from Introversion Software, the same inventive creators of "Prison Architect". It's hardly a new release at this point, but I've been absorbed by it for the last few months, and it's definitely one that space game fans should check out.

This engaging indie sci-fi video game teaches single-player gamers how to strategically operate an interstellar shipping and trading conglomerate. It does this by repeatedly driving home the importance of planning ahead while operating in the cold vacuum of outer space and fortifying your sturdy spaceship.

Oh, and watch out for space pirates!

Introversion's "The Last Starship" is officially classified as a 2D space construction and simulation game, where you design, build, and upgrade your very own working starship. Once it’s in operational order, you strike out into the starfields to investigate colorful solar systems, discover rare resources, and even stumble upon arcane secrets.

There's a dreamy, meditative element to "The Last Starship" that can’t be denied, even in this middle-aged gamer’s attitude of flying by the seat of my pants and holding an advanced degree in procrastination from Cambridge University.

You get a sense of genuine pride in accomplishing goals, fine-tuning your interstellar trading operations, and seeing them flourish before you.

Just as in real life, your specific choices will dictate your personal odyssey, whether you’re a brave soul itching to become a pirate hunter, a working joe looking to get into salvaging, mining, or transport delivery, or a visionary scientist like the Stargate engineer.

First, choose an appropriate spaceship hull, then boost its propulsion system with engines, add critical life support systems, external sensors, thrusters. Then, supply your crew with tasty chow, and some bristling lasers and autocannons to test your might on the battlefield against space buccaneers. Rescue crews and civilians in peril, or go into business for yourself organizing an asteroid mining camp for profit. The choice is yours.

And for my fellow right-brained individuals who can barely fathom how a basic kitchen toaster works, this indie gem is a real eye-opener to the planning and engineering know-how that goes into such fantastic machines.

Once you’re up and running and your dutiful crew is bustling about carrying out various operational tasks, you're free to explore the galaxy in your new cosmic ride as its proud captain, picking up missions.

Gliding around the cosmos as the master of your own epic domain with your starship humming happily beneath you provides a supreme sense of satisfaction. Mostly you’ll be hopping around the open-world environment, building and customizing your vessel, and grabbing contracts for a variety of legitimate and illegitimate enterprises to fatten your alien-skin wallet.

Feeling ambitious? Become a hustler as a commercial spacebus driver or strike out excavating and smelting minerals for profit to sell and bolster your bank account to purchase even larger starships or equipment upgrades. Feeling lazy? Just play around and create cool ships while traversing the universe!

For intrepid commanders, the game’s procedurally generated map delivers missions and meteor storms featuring a multitude of characters inhabiting their own storylines waiting to be uncovered.

Managing your resources will be of the utmost importance, but organizational aptitude and drone deployment will exponentially increase your survivability in the final frontier. Intense space combat sessions do remind me of some of the cooler "close quarters battle" scenes in "The Expanse."

On the slight downside, "The Last Starship" might be a bit rudimentary for gamers seeking more challenging logistical endeavors, as I've found it's pretty easy to build up your spaceship. Obstacles are usually solved easily by slapping on another module or installing more reactors and managing your oxygen and CO2.

Despite that, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable initial iteration that’s constantly receiving attentive updates and patches, so hang with it, ye gallant captains.

"The Last Starship" is an excellent 2D open-world, spaceship-building game that offers tons of strategy fun in a nostalgic visual package. If you’re an "F.T.L." fanatic, you’ll absolutely dig it!

"The Last Starship" is available for purchase on Steam, Humble Store, and GOG for Windows and macOS. Oh, and there's a free demo you can check out if you're on the fence.

Exodus' journey so far has been quite transparent, with publisher Wizards of the Coast and developer Archetype Entertainment giving us a surprising number of updates and looks at the sci-fi action RPG over the years. Now, at Gamescom 2026, they've finally given us the release date and a striking hands-on demo.

I was able to play a 50-minute demo that takes protagonist Jun Aslan (who you can customize Commander Shepard-style) and their companions to Khonsu, a huge orbital space platform above the world of Lidon, where a population of Awakened frogs – genetically modified animals that are natural to this universe – are keeping more than a few critical systems in working order. I won't get into story spoilers here, but their connection to Lidon's people makes them valuable allies who must be protected from certain evildoers...

For the most part, Exodus plays exactly like you think it does after looking at the gameplay videos, and I mean that as a compliment. In many ways, it feels like an evolution of Mass Effect – one that's fiercer and more dynamic. The gunplay is punchy and satisfying; Jun and their NPC companions are more agile; and the arsenal of both sci-fi weapons and ancient powers (magic in a sci-fi trench coat) gives players a richer selection of tools to neutralize enemies with.

On top of my hands-on time with the game, I was able to sit down and chat with three members of the development team: Chad Robertson (producer), Chris King (director), and Drew Karpyshyn (writer). If those names sound familiar, it's because they all come from a BioWare background*, so they know their way around sprawling space operas.

*Archetype houses more triple-A talent from other iconic studios like Naughty Dog

The following interview has been edited for better flow.

"One of the tenets was that we wanted to be developing an IP that could stand the test of time, and we needed something in the science fiction space for the benefit of Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. They're very interested in developing an IP that could be owned and be science fiction," Robertson said of the project's beginnings years ago.

Archetype was founded in 2019, so Exodus has been brewing and evolving for quite some time. The backing of Hasbro and Wizards could be felt throughout the whole demo; Exodus is an expensive game with a stunning visual look.

"We've been able to stick with that without having to worry about money and financing and being able to execute on that vision," Robertson added. This also extends to how all the exploration and combat feel even at this stage. While the demo wasn't ready for the public yet, it was a compelling vertical slice with most of the systems and assets in pretty good shape.

The more you dig into Exodus' universe-building, the bolder it becomes, throwing concepts like the Awakened or time dilation into the mix. Still, it's very much a game ideated by BioWare veterans.

"It's sort of natural that we ended up with an RPG set in an epic sci-fi universe with strong player agency and heavy companion content... Yeah, I could've guessed that's where we would end up," said Karpyshyn. While the KOTOR and Mass Effect veteran led on the narrative front, sci-fi author Peter F. Hamilton added to the "core" of the universe and wrote two big sequel novels that also serve as our first proper step into Exodus' universe.

"He was very collaborative, but we also wanted to give him a free hand to tell the story he wanted to tell. So he took the elements that he was most interested in and expanded on them, and that allowed us to take some of the ideas and bring them into the game," Karpyshyn explained. Plenty of time (roughly 40,000 years) and space (it's set in the Omega Centauri cluster) separate Exodus from being a look at humanity's immediate future, so Archetype is looking at the universe as a place "that will tell many different stories" over time.

Well ahead of the game's launch, Wizards of the Coast is betting big on the IP, with tabletop adventures, novels, and a Secret Level short introducing RPG fanatics to its universe. How do you rein all that ambition in when working on a huge video game? According to Robertson, setting reasonable limits happened naturally: "We wanted to build a player experience that was cohesive and complete enough. Over the course of the first couple of years, I think we kinda naturally figured it out." He admitted there's "plenty of other stories" they want to tell, though.

A highlight of the demo was how fluid the tone in Exodus seems. It's playful — and often comedic — but never too much, and even as a separate, isolated chunk of the game, it presents high stakes and dilemmas I personally cared about. Again, it reminded me of Mass Effect at its best – especially the second one. I was impressed by how grounded it all felt despite heavily featuring a bunch of talking frogs and an armored bear who was also insulting me during a boss fight.

King mentioned the Awakened are "a really interesting example", as it's a concept that pushed them to explore "different ways to present them and what the tone would be". In fact, he revealed they made them "a bit too serious" early on (some of that can even be felt in the earlier lore videos on them). Eventually, the team found a balance between Jun's progression, which "has a lot of heavy, even dark themes", and other elements and characters that you run into. "They're meant to provide a counterbalance to that. You do have lighthearted moments."

Inevitably, I had to ask about the matter of romances, and that human emotion we call love. Many players show up for these RPGs looking for hilarious, dramatic, and spicy romantic relationships.

The first thing Karpyshyn did was shoot down the possibility of a Salt (the combat mech-piloting octopus) romance: "Salt isn't really into humans. She thinks they're kind of gross. But there are many other romances. You can play as male or female Jun, and we don't lock any of the romances out based on gender choice. But you do have to pursue and work for them. They're not gonna happen by accident."

His reply then led to some brief talk about the tension between Jun and the members of the crew: "All your companions have their own goals, wants, and needs. They don't get along with each other always. We're constantly putting you into these conflict situations where you have to decide how to navigate... As a player, you have to decide, 'Do I want to risk annoying the romance character?' and maybe the romance ends... Life is messy, and we wanted the game to be messy and complicated."

Indeed, the hands-on preview mission ended with a heavy choice that no doubt would have major consequences down the line. Even if my save game meant nothing at this stage, I was still conflicted, and the developers mentioned it was interesting to finally get this game in front of people outside the studio and see their reactions to certain story beats.

On that front, I also had to ask the trio about the voice acting (some voices were really familiar) and the music in the game, which are totally top-notch. "I'm tempted to ask which ones you recognize," Robertson said before stating they're not ready to elaborate on those yet. "The marketing team would shoot us in the head."

During our chat, the team wanted to get some quick feedback on a specific zero-gravity section — shooting and platforming are involved — which they described as "revelatory" after getting the sound FX right. I agree with them. Whereas many space walks in video games feel too fantasy-like or realistic to be truly exciting, Exodus appears to find a fine balance between the space opera spectacle we're showing up for and the harsh coldness of the void out there. There are certain sound FX still giving you feedback, but muffled shootouts are refreshingly scary.

When asked about customization options and character build – as in abilities and skills – possibilities, King answered that "philosophically, what we want to do is give players interesting choices and figure out what they like playing the most".

It's not a hard class system like in the original Mass Effect games. "We let you sort of express and figure out what you like in the skill tree... Layered on top of that, there are mastery levels on classes, and then depending on your choices, it unlocks hybrid trees," explains King.

Combined with the many types of guns and suits available — each with different firing modes and upgrades — it all creates a familiar yet deeper progression structure.

Speaking about the game as a whole and what he's particularly proud of, King circled back to "player agency" and what he calls "water cooler moments", as you can discuss with friends at work or online what your and their choices were and what happened. At least, that's what the team hopes will happen with some of the story beats.

Robertson added to his answer: "The first time we had enough pieces together... and you could feel the music and cinematics coming together, and the emotional weight behind it, that's what these games are about. Where you have that angst over a decision and feel the anxiety of what just happened. 'I should have chosen something different.' I think we're super proud of those. There's a bunch of moments in the game like that." At this point, I can already see what the team means, which is why I sincerely believe there might be something special to Exodus.

Exodus is releasing on PC (Steam & Epic Games Store), PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on April 7, 2027.

It's hard to downplay excitement for Alien: Isolation 2 after a first menacing teaser and promising early previews. Alien video games are in a good spot right now thanks to bangers like Aliens Dark Descent and Fireteam Elite 2, but nothing has hit quite like Creative Assembly's 2014 survival horror classic.

Now, after a thrilling Gamescom hands-on demo, it looks like the studio has nailed it once again, bringing Xenomorph-shaped scares to the next generation. At least that's what its breezy prologue section I played at Gamescom suggests.

As the earliest possible section of the game, no new mechanics were present, and the larger ideas and structure are still a big mystery. Instead, Sega and Creative Assembly have bet on pure atmosphere, dread that runs deeper thanks to more detailed graphics and audio, and of course, letting everyone know the Xenomorph's dynamic AI has evolved too.

Though it'd been mentioned before, the biggest shocker comes with the immediate reveal that Amanda Ripley is no longer the protagonist. Even if I wouldn't close the door on her showing up one way or another in Alien: Isolation 2, her story was continued elsewhere after all hope for a sequel was lost a few years ago. (Look at us now).

Instead, we play as Blake, a gal from Earth who seems eager to please her employers, even if that bothers Cole and Otto, two rugged workers under her command.

Still, the game smartly kicks off with a quick rundown of what went down in the first Isolation, narrated by Ripley, who was responsible for the destruction of the infested Sevastopol station. The nightmare was over... until it wasn't. The bad news is that part of Sevastopol was ejected as an emergency measure, probably to preserve the lab inside and the horrors within it. It's a similar setup to Alien: Romulus' "the Company went and recovered a chunk of the Nostromo", but it gets the job done.

Our interview with Creative Director Al Hope revealed that "Alien: Isolation 2 picks up a few months after the first game". The nature of the colony-planet we're on remains a mystery, but it seems the terraforming process is going well, with plenty of vegetation and trees scattered about. Shame about the remarkably bad weather though.

During the prologue, the ground vehicle is forced to stop during the beginning of a terrible storm, and that makes visibility once Blake steps out of the vehicle an issue. Hope also confirmed that these inclement weather conditions will play an actual role in how the survival gameplay evolves over the course of the game, but for now the prologue keeps things mostly on-rails.

In any case, the rainy and windy weather is a fantastic showcase of the game's visuals and sound FX work. It's fairly stressful even without a Xenomorph haunting the place (yet), so I can only imagine how intense Alien: Isolation 2 will get once things ramp up. After wandering around the area and spotting a crashed structure, Blake decides to play the hero and goes into the trashed remnants of the Sevastopol despite Cole's persistent warnings about the rising water level of the river. Who knows, that guy might make it out alive thanks to his "I'm not getting paid enough for this" mentality.

Inside the messy lab, malfunctioning doors are the first obstacle. It seems I was meant to use my only two flares to roam around the dark corridors and look for pieces of scrap that Blake can use to fix some circuits. Instead, I used them outside and went "oooh" at the lighting, wasting them. This made the first step into this haunted house trickier than it needed to be, but I eventually made it into its inner sections, restoring some of the power and also awakening the beast.

Creative Assembly thought it made no sense to keep the Xenomorph in the shadows for long. It's a trick the studio pulled off once, but 12 years later, it'd have been silly to tease us with limited glimpses of a creature everyone already knows and fears. Instead, the Xenomorph drops down right in front of Blake, who's lucky enough to be able to duck under a table the moment it shows up, offering us a glimpse at its glorious new model.

After that point, the goal in the demo is simple: Get the hell out of there. With obstacles like fire coming out of pipes and blocked doors, survival comes down to chucking small items like bottles across the room to keep the Xenomorph off Blake's back while trying to find a way forward. No motion tracker, no flamethrower, no anything. Just crawling on one's knees and making the right move at the right moment. Needless to say, poor Blake was impaled and "kissed" by the alien drone more than a few times before my time was up.

At this stage, it's impossible to discern how Alien: Isolation 2 differs from the original beyond the more advanced tech powering it, the new cast of characters, and the desolate planetary setting. What this demo achieved, however, was making the main Xenomorph threat even livelier. Its patrols were more unpredictable, and the reaction times shocked me more than once.

Muscle memory and knowledge of the previous aliens' behaviors in the 2014 original won't save you here. Even staying inside the vents for too long made it search every nook and cranny before eventually finding and grabbing me. There's no easy way out even when you're silent, and I suspect Creative Assembly wants to push players to be on the move always.

There's a clear opportunity here to create a bolder sequel that borrows more from the recent Resident Evil entries — which were themselves partially shaped by Alien: Isolation's first-person horror — to keep players on their toes, always readjusting to environments and non-Xeno threats. It's a full circle moment for the dev team, and the final confirmation that the first game is now a bona fide classic.

Creative Assembly's Survival Team has gotten back in the saddle like nothing happened, and now I'm just excited to see the twists and turns that elevate its basic tried and tested formula.

Alien: Isolation 2 is releasing on PC (Steam), PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 in the near future. A release window hasn't been locked yet.

Microsoft and Xbox are currently facing all sorts of troubles (many of their own doing) in the shape of sweeping layoffs, studio cuts, and calls to boycott their products, to name a few. Extremely talented developers (who deserve much better) still put out exciting video games regardless, and with the remake of Halo: Combat Evolved out now, we look to Gears of War: E-Day, the series' first mainline entry since 2019.

While there are plenty of upcoming space games worth keeping tabs on, Gears of War's return feels special for a number of reasons. Although Gears 5 was not a flop – quite the opposite – there was a growing sentiment among the fanbase that Gears of War needed to reevaluate its future by revisiting its past. After a solid remaster of the original game last year, this next chapter is taking us back to where it all started: Emergence Day.

With gameplay systems, mechanics, controls, and visuals fully rebuilt on Unreal Engine 5, The Coalition aims to deliver the ultimate Gears of War experience with E-Day, and at least the atmosphere and tone seem pitch-perfect. But with nostalgia taking so many beloved franchises a few steps back in recent times, we must wonder if there's more to E-Day than reliving the series' glory days? Here's everything you should know about Gears of War: E-Day ahead of its launch.

When is Gears of War: E-Day coming out?

Gears of War: E-Day launches on October 6, 2026.

After a gameplay-less reveal in summer 2024, The Coalition went silent to continue work on the prequel. It was finally during the Xbox Games Showcase 2026 that we received confirmation Gears of War: E-Day would arrive before the year's end.

Is Gears of War: E-Day coming to PlayStation 5?

No, Gears of War: E-Day won't be releasing on PS5 despite last year's remaster of the first game marking the series' debut on Sony consoles.

Though rumors and leaked materials pointed to Gears of War: E-Day launching on Sony's console alongside Xbox, the full reveal in summer 2026 underlined it was an Xbox Series X/S console exclusive. It will, however, also launch on Windows via the Xbox app and Steam. As usual, Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will also get access to it day one.

Three editions will be available at launch, and you can pre-order them already:

• Standard ($69.99 / £59.99 / €69.99) – Base game.
• Premium ($99.99 / £89.99 / €99.99) – Base game with up to five days of early access, Bravo Squad Signature Weapon Pack, Emergence Customization Pack, Four Seasonal Customization Packs (released post-launch), and 1,000 iron (the game's premium in-game currency). A separate upgrade for Standard will also be sold.
• Collector's ($299.99 / variable regional pricing) – Everything in the Premium Edition plus physical items, including a collector's display box, a 15" statue, replica COG tags, an exclusive steelbook case, an art piece, and an art print & thank-you note from the studio.

All editions also benefit from pre-order bonuses that include open beta early access (on August 6), the Exfil weapon set, and Exfil Dom legendary character skin.

Gears of War: E-Day trailers

Xbox and The Coalition are sharing all sorts of short videos in the lead-up to launch, but if you want to only watch the trailers and gameplay demos, we have them right here:

Is Gears of War: E-Day the first game in the timeline?

Gears of War: E-Day is the first chapter in the Gears timeline. It tells the story of how the humans on the Earth-like planet of Sera came in contact with the bloodthirsty and relentless Locust Horde on what would later be called Emergence Day.

If you're planning to play the Gears of War games in order, this would be the perfect place to start moving forward. Though the original game and Judgment (a spinoff that was released for Xbox 360) gave us information on what happened during E-Day, we never really had a Rogue One-like prequel similar to Halo: Reach. Now, both veterans and newcomers will be able to experience the struggle humanity faced as a new conflict erupted.

Alongside a supporting cast of new and familiar faces, the story follows original trilogy protagonists Marcus Fenix and Dominic 'Dom' Santiago as they battle through the chaos of E-Day and push back against the subterranean invaders. For additional context, the war against the Locust kicks off only a few weeks after the 79-year conflict between human factions known as the Pendulum Wars, which explains why the COG wasn't in the best of conditions when the monsters attacked.

Will Gears of War: E-Day have co-op and competitive multiplayer?

Gears of War: E-Day is a third-person, cover-based shooter in the style of the previous games and, as such, both co-op and competitive multiplayer are back alongside the single-player experience.

The main story campaign can be played in single-player, or with up to four players online or two players locally via split screen. It must be noted the PC version of the game won't feature local co-op. These player counts also apply to the series' famous Horde Siege PvE survival mode, which pits players against waves of enemies as they select different classes and loadouts.

Versus PvP multiplayer for online competition also returns with all-new maps and both Social and Ranked matches. While the post-launch support hasn't been fully detailed, it feels likely more maps will be added in the future at no extra cost.

Is there a Gears of War: E-Day demo?

There's no Gears of War: E-Day demo announced at the time of writing. However, players can look forward to a multiplayer open beta happening in the coming weeks. More specifically, those who pre-order or have active Game Pass Ultimate subs can access the test early, from August 6 to 10. The second – and fully open – weekend will happen at a later date, probably the following week.

While Hardspace: Shipbreaker does an excellent job of capturing the dystopian perils of unchecked hypercapitalism, the real fun in this space game comes from carving up massive capital ships with space lasers and explosives.

Floating in zero gravity, players slice derelict spacecraft into salvageable chunks, while also contending with unruly physics, pressure, and profit margins. It's a compelling fantasy: orbital blue-collar labor, where yesterday's spacecraft become tomorrow's raw materials.

As satisfying as the simulation is, the real-world challenge of space debris removal is both more constrained and more urgent.

Christian Steimle is the Project Manager of the European Space Agency's (ESA) ClearSpace-1 mission, the first ever aimed at removing a piece of debris (in this case, a satellite called PROBA-1) from low-Earth orbit.

We spoke to him to get a sense of how actual space junk removal will happen in the future, and how it stacks up to the representations we see in sci-fi games like Shipbreaker.

The fantasy of orbital demolition

Games like Hardspace: Shipbreaker, ΔV: Rings of Saturn, and other space cleanup simulators tend to emphasize three core ideas: that debris can be dismantled piece by piece, that tools can safely cut or break apart structures in orbit, and that salvage is economically driven and scalable.

While they may be necessary assumptions to make for engaging gameplay, they diverge pretty significantly from current realities.

The main issue is fragmentation. Breaking apart a defunct satellite, even under the most carefully controlled and monitored conditions, risks generating thousands of high-velocity fragments. Some of those generated would be too small to feasibly track, yet large enough to destroy operational spacecraft, satellites, or stations. This is the nightmare scenario behind the Kessler syndrome, a cascading chain of collisions that could render entire orbital pathways unusable.

As Christian Steimle, Project Manager for the European Space Agency's ClearSpace-1 mission, explains, "The common agreement between all of these missions is that objects to be removed shall not be broken up or damaged… especially to avoid creating smaller debris which is more difficult to track."

That means that the core mechanic of many space salvage games (cutting or exploding things into smaller bits) is precisely what real missions are designed to avoid.

How real debris removal works

ClearSpace-1 takes a more holistic approach. Instead of dismantling debris, the mission aims to capture PROBA-1 with as little initial damage as possible, then guide it to destruction in Earth's atmosphere.

"ClearSpace-1 will be launched into a position slightly below PROBA-1 by a dedicated launch," Steimle says. "After successful commissioning, the ClearSpace-1 servicer will inspect PROBA-1 in a number of fly-around manoeuvres."

These inspection passes are not just reconnaissance. They validate visual navigation systems and analyze how the target object is tumbling so the capture vehicle can respond appropriately.

The capture itself is a delicate operation. "The ClearSpace-developed capture system will encompass the client satellite, first forming a cage around PROBA-1, then closing the cage carefully to avoid damaging the client," Steimle explains.

Once secured, the combined spacecraft must be stabilized before any orbital change. Only then can the system lower its orbit, ensuring both objects burn up safely during re-entry. "ClearSpace-1 is designed to demise during re-entry, ensuring on-ground safety and disposal at the same time."

The process more closely resembles a surgical extraction of potentially hazardous material than scrapyard demolition.

What games get right

Despite their liberties, space cleanup games do hit the mark in a number of areas. One is the importance of orbital mechanics. Many games emphasize inertia, momentum, and the difficulty of stopping or redirecting large masses. Real active debris removal (ADR) missions face similar constraints, where even small velocity mismatches can lead to mission failure or damage to the capture vehicle or target.

The danger of uncontrolled motion is also well represented. Tumbling objects are among the hardest targets in space operations. Synchronizing with them requires precise, multi-axis propulsion and control systems. As Steimle notes, future vehicles must "synchronise [their] motion with a potentially tumbling space object and apply the proper control to detumble." One of the main challenges in games like Shipbreaker is avoiding being clobbered by moving debris, especially after you've detonated some explosives, or matching the speed of a rotating component long enough to cut it apart.

Third, specialization is key. Your toolkit and how you use it in games like Shipbreaker is key, and real missions rely on highly tailored capture systems. Each target may require a different approach, from robotic arms to nets, harpoons, or enclosure systems like ClearSpace's.

Where the simulations fall short

The biggest gap between games and reality isn't the tech, it's risk tolerance.

In games, mistakes are recoverable. In orbit, a single error can generate long-lived debris fields traveling at roughly 7–8 kilometers per second, turning tiny fragments into deadly kinetic weapons.

Games also tend to assume an eventual salvage economy, where materials are recovered and reused in space. While in-orbit manufacturing and recycling are active areas of research, current debris removal efforts aren't about profit. They're about mitigation.

"The overarching requirement is to preserve the space environment around the Earth for use by future generations," Steimle says. "Removing large objects before first collisions occur is key."

There are also orbital regime differences that games rarely address. In geostationary orbit (GEO), for instance, debris is not deorbited but moved to a higher "graveyard orbit" due to the prohibitive energy cost of re-entry. This kind of orbital zoning has no real analogue in most gameplay systems.

The future of orbital cleanup

Looking ahead, the field of in-orbit servicing and debris removal is diversifying rapidly. Steimle says agencies and private companies across Europe, the United States and Japan are developing competing capture technologies and mission architectures.

Low-Earth orbit operations will likely favor agile, highly maneuverable vehicles capable of complex rendezvous and stabilization tasks. GEO missions, by contrast, will involve larger, less dynamic spacecraft performing long-duration servicing and relocation.

What remains consistent is the guiding principle: do no harm to the orbital environment. There's little room for the improvisational cutting and explosive decompression you see in most space salvage games. Instead, the future of orbital cleanup will depend on autonomy, precision guidance, and tightly controlled interactions with fragile, often unpredictable objects.

Fiction vs. necessity

Perhaps tellingly, most space cleanup games focus on the economy of salvage. You're tasked with generating profit, or feeding it into a progression system to purchase new tools or more efficient methods of destruction. In reality, the immediate challenge is more conservative and more urgent: preventing a runaway cascade of collisions that could close off access to space altogether.

If anything, the contrast highlights just how precarious Earth's orbital environment has become. The fantasy is not that we can break things apart in space; it's that we can continue to use space safely without cleaning up the vast constellations of trash we've already left behind.

Space is incomprehensibly vast. So huge that the human mind struggles to even conceptualize it. The observable universe spans roughly 93 billion light-years. Even our own humble galaxy, the Milky Way — a few tiny stitches of the universal canvas — stretches across 100,000 light-years and contains hundreds of billions of stars.

It's no wonder, then, that space video games struggle so mightily with anything approaching a "realistic" interpretation of those incredible distances, especially in an age where we have yet to invent a technology that can traverse them in a reasonable time.

The Artemis 2 mission's Orion module got up to speeds of around 25,000 mph during its trans lunar injection burn. Ignoring fuel and safety concerns, at those speeds, it would still take us at least 80,000 years to reach our nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri.

So how do game developers manage to distill some of the awe of the vastness of space while making it feel like a manageable space? How do they shrink space to a navigable size without making it feel small or claustrophobic?

I spoke to astrophysicist Dr. Jeffrey Bennett, founder of Big Kid Science and author of "The Scale of the Universe", to get a sense of the scope of the problem.

The true scale of space

"On a 1 to 10 billion scale — which makes the Sun about the size of a large grapefruit — Earth is smaller than the ball point in a pen and located about 15 meters (49 feet) away from the Sun," explains Bennett. "On that same scale, the Moon — the farthest a human being has ever traveled — lies only about 4 centimeters (1½ inches) away from us. The planets of our solar system are much farther, though you can still walk to the outermost planets in only 10 minutes or so."

Bennett said most science fiction films and games get the scale wrong by making long-distance travel look too easy. Considering the above 1-to-10 billion-scale representation, for instance, and given that reaching the outermost planets in our system — far further than any human being has ever travelled — would take ten minutes, "to reach the nearest stars, you’d have to walk the distance across the United States."

Just simulating a small part of the existing universe would push current hardware to its limits, even with crutches like procedural generation. Developers use various techniques, like level-of-detail scaling, instancing, and streaming, to create the illusion of vastness without melting hardware.

Bennett also talks about how scale works in the case of interstellar objects like asteroids and maneuvering around them.

Films and games, he says, "tend to make it look very difficult to avoid collisions with asteroids, with spacecraft having to dart this way and that to pass through an asteroid region safely. In fact, while there are many millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt of our solar system, the full region is so large that it would take incredibly bad luck to crash into an asteroid by accident. That is why spacecraft studies of asteroids require careful planning to get a spacecraft close enough to any asteroid to get photos and other data."

The reality is that even in its most populated regions, asteroids are typically hundreds of thousands to millions of kilometers apart in our system's asteroid belt. Standing on one of the asteroids, it would be incredibly unlikely that you'd be able to see even one of the largest other asteroids with the naked eye.

How games cope with the enormity of space

"This absolutely IS a design conflict that all space games have to solve," said Bernd Lehahn, Founder and Managing Director of Egosoft, the company that makes the successful X franchise of space simulators (most recently X4: Foundations).

"On the one hand, space must feel very large, or else players will feel cheated. Space and sci-fi have always been about the dream of infinite distances and exploration in a seemingly endless universe. At the same time, most games, the X games included, do not want to force players through unnecessarily long flight times or, god forbid, boredom."

Lehahn says his studio tries to strike a balance between areas that feel more content dense with regions that feel more like an unsettled frontier, to impart a sense of the true emptiness of space.

"There should be room for both extremes: dense, highly populated regions, often with artificial means of transportation that allow the player to find and visit many important places relatively quickly, but also the empty, remote, fringe areas of space, where the experience is much slower, but where exploration happens, and the uncharted map allows for mystery and secrets."

Finding a solution to modeling and traversing the vastness of space has been an issue for Egosoft from the release of the original X game back in 1999, and continues to be something the studio grapples with today. The reality is that most of space is empty, so empty that you don't even have visual cues to indicate you're moving through it. Traveling through it without some kind of cheat or compression would involve unimaginable stretches of black emptiness with nothing happening, but too much compression begins to feel artificial.

"X4: Foundations probably has the most sophisticated solution to this conflict," Lehahn said. For the latest game, the team combines a number of solutions. It starts with scaled tiers of engine technologies with increasingly limited steering. Faster, more powerful engines allow for increasingly speedy, but more straight-line or on-rails travel.

The team also uses the conceit of "jump gates" to leap across huge swaths of the universe in a blink, as well as teleportation and time acceleration to similarly compress travel. There are also space highways with slipstream acceleration to hurry things along.

Importantly, the X games also often give players things to do during the downtime of space travel. Giving players minor, uneventful tasks or other distractions can help fill out long stretches of uninterrupted travel. Above all else, Lehahn wants to ensure players are enjoying themselves.

"X4: Foundations is still a game. We want it to feel as realistic as possible—allow players to experience the universe and truly believe the 'sectors' are endless, planets are real size, and you can move in relation to planets and even larger celestial objects. But sometimes, if there is a conflict between fun gameplay and realism, then we may have to compromise on realism a bit."

A different approach

Rather than compress space into a manageable slice, the Elite Dangerous team at Frontier Developments takes on a much more ambitious challenge.

"We have a 1:1 scale Milky Way," says Executive Producer Gauthier Verquerre. "Roughly 400 billion star systems."

To create that vast canvas, the team uses a technology called the Stellar Forge, which uses real astronomical catalog data and models phenomena like the collision of stellar systems and the way stars and planets form to procedurally generate systems. The systems are generated once when a system is discovered and regenerated in the same way whenever a player visits them.

One of the most daunting challenges Elite Dangerous faces is that the game doesn't just model the galaxy on a macro scale. It also has to generate planetary surfaces and space station interiors for players to explore.

"Throughout the universe, we have these spectacular stellar phenomena which players are out there discovering every day," said Verquerre. "The flip side of that is that we have players meeting in the same star systems, or on the planetary surface. We have to represent both the huge 1:1 scale of space that we have in the game for interstellar elements like Lagrange clouds or nebulae, and the personal scale of 'I'm on foot in a planetary settlement.'"

Despite releasing way back in 2014, only a tiny fraction of the space the game simulates has been explored by players.

According to Verquerre, "There's still over 99% of the universe out there, waiting to be explored, where any Commander can be the first to add their name to the system and say 'I was the first one to see this'. We also added System Colonisation last year, allowing our players to construct space stations and planetary settlements. That's been really rewarding for us, seeing the rate at which the bubble has expanded."

To empower players to explore that nearly infinite playground, Elite Dangerous (like X4) takes a tiered approach. Three methods of travel provide increasing compression of space/travel time.

"There's Deep Space, where ships move at ‘slow’ speeds (around 300m/s, under Mach 1) to access individual gameplay actions like combat or mining," Verquerre told me, "Supercruise, which is essentially a form of FTL travel within a system useful for scanning systems, and Hyperspace, where players travel between star systems through a tunnel."

The game also recently introduced a fourth tier of movement, dubbed Supercruise Overcharge, which allows players to navigate star systems at a much greater speed. Even with these many systems for speeding up transit, however, traversing such unimaginably vast distances can eat up a huge amount of time, and Frontier has tried to ensure that travel is peppered with events and resource management to keep players engaged.

"It's all about the player," Verquerre explains. "Explorers often want a little solitude, or an unexpected encounter, whilst our traders are considering the risk of what they're carrying. Fuel and heat management tend to be primary considerations; no one wants to be marooned out in deep space! There are also interdictions, where a Commander can be pulled out of a jump and find themselves hunted."

"Additionally, those long trips that our players are taking out into deep space mean that small damage adds up, canopy cracks and moments of tension take the beauty of space and translate it almost instantly into abject fear."

The magic and awe of the staggering scope of space is a core part of the Elite Dangerous mystique, and it's not lost on Verquerre.

"I remember a journey I once made to Beagle Point, one of the most remote star systems found in Elite Dangerous, which I’d consider to be one of the most memorable gaming moments in my life. The sense of achievement in reaching a system that you’ve plotted out at the end of a journey is something very tangible, and it always makes me look forward to the next adventure."

A (nearly) infinite challenge

Space games don't fail to simulate the scale of the cosmos because developers lack ambition or imagination.

The reality is that the universe operates on scales that challenge not only the capacity of the human behind them, but also that of our machines to reproduce them. Bridging that gap requires not just bigger maps, but smarter design, and a recognition that sometimes, the awe of the infinite matters more than the numbers behind it.

"X4: Foundations" and "Elite Dangerous" are both available to play now on PC. You can also pick up Dr Bennett's book, "The Scale of the Universe", on Amazon.

You certainly can't accuse Remedy Entertainment of playing it safe and sticking to what they know.

2019's Control was a third-person shooter, last year's multiplayer spin-off, FBC: Firebreak, was a first-person shooter, and now this year's direct follow-up, Control Resonant, is a melee-focused action game. Despite the genre flip, though, it's undeniably Control — a freaky sci-fi horror mash-up that's dripping with atmosphere.

We played 40 minutes of Control Resonant at Summer Games Fest, and spoke with lead level designer Anne-Marie Grönroos about the new enemy designs, architecture, and sci-fi influences. Here's what we learned about one of this year's most anticipated upcoming sci-fi games.

"Control Resonant" has a new protagonist, but we're keeping things in the family as we take the reins of Dylan Faden, troubled brother of "Control" protagonist Jesse. Dylan Faden wakes up inside the Oldest House — a paranormal, space-defying skyscraper in the center of New York that acts as the headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC).

Jesse promptly stabs Dylan, who wakes up surrounded by blood, death, and the massacred bodies of his FBC jailers. With no idea what's going on, Dylan flees the FBC to find that the Hiss — otherworldly crimson monsters from another dimension — have overrun Manhattan.

To fight these monsters, Dylan wields a unique weapon called the Aberrant (which just so happens to be the bar that Jesse stabbed him with). Much like Jesse's Service Weapon in the original, Aberrant can morph into multiple kinds of weapons, such as dual swords, an axe, and a scythe.

As a third-person action game (or spectacle fighter), Control Resonant feels like a toned-down version of Devil May Cry. It's just a bit slower and a bit more reserved, but it's still exhilarating to pull off combos and beat the snot out of the Hiss.

Combat is usually locked into arenas, locking you into an encounter until you've killed the Hiss. Larger enemies need to be prioritised, as the smaller Hiss will keep respawning until they're destroyed.

The Hiss are even more grotesque than I remembered from the first game; an observation that Grönroos was happy to confirm. "The enemies are a lot more mutated than they were in the first game," he notes. “They aren't just dudes shooting guns at you. A lot less human and more monstrous."

While Jesse was confined to the Oldest House, Dylan now has the freedom to roam Manhattan to find his sister. The first game's aesthetic was defined by the Brutalist architecture of FBC's surreal headquarters, and while you’ll certainly see that style here in place, Resonant pulls from a much wider pool.

"The further away you get from either the Oldest house or the Field Office, the less and less of that you'll see," explains Grönroos. "But when you see Brutalist architecture, that's also a sign that the FBC has a pretty strong presence here."

Manhattan has been well explored in video games — from Insomniac's Spider-Man and Tom Clancy's The Division through to "inspired by" titles like GTA IV — but Control Resonant's version of New York is a much more self-contained, streamlined version of the city that never sleeps.

Instead of an open world, we get a more linear platforming experience as Dylan navigates the rooftops like platforms, climbing, dashing, and double-jumping his way through the twisted landscape. This, combined with the psychedelic colors and trippy atmosphere, creates a uniquely surreal vibe that we really dig.

The Control universe is rife with sci-fi influences, with the fictional SCP Foundation sitting at the heart. The FBC investigates Altered World Events, where supernatural forces descend into reality and warp it. These lead directly to the creation of Altered Items, which are just objects infused with paranormal powers. It's all dressed up in a sort of 60s and 70s retrofuturism aesthetic, reflecting the space age and rise of media like Star Wars.

Beyond those obvious touchstones, though, there are surprising influences for this latest game. During our interview, Director Mikael Kasurinen mentioned Neon Genesis Evangelion as an influence for Control Resonant, with Grönroos adding that it heavily impacted the geometrical patterning in the game. "We also always have Inception as a reference. When you look at the city environments, this is the most Inception that we can get."

My demo ended with me facing off in a boss fight against a giant floating head with its jaw missing. Throughout the fight, it kept trying to sling rocks at me while keeping its distance, but I was able to keep up with its pace. Eventually, I managed to take it down, and then was taken to The Gap, a mysterious hub area where Dylan could upgrade his abilities.

He has plenty of upgrades to choose from, such as being able to telekinetically throw rocks, use them to form a shield, or conjure up this Aberrant into other weapons like a whip and hammer. I took a quick peek at each of the weapons and skill trees, and it seems like the combo system will definitely get more intricate later on.

There's a huge amount of variety in how to mix and match different weapons to dictate the pace and flow of battle. You can start your combo with a flurry of quick attacks from dual swords, and then come crashing down with a slow but mighty hammer at the end.

The action feels so different from the gunplay of the first game, and yet eerily familiar. Control Resonant also takes a page from Kingdom Hearts' playbook with flashy finishers. Dylan has access to a variety of them, our favorite being using the giant hammer to smash the Hiss into pieces.

Grönroos said that the biggest lesson that Remedy learned throughout developing its recent games, from Control, Alan Wake 2, FBC: Firebreak, and now Control, is giving players more freedom and agency. "Before Control, we used to just make these linear games," she explained. "Control was actually our first game where you could even backtrack, and Alan Wake 2 took that a little bit further, and now Control Resonant as well."

One of the highlights of the first Control game was the Ashtray Maze, a level where players had to fight against waves of enemies as they ran through a kaleidoscope of constantly shifting rooms and layouts. It was an adrenaline-fueled combat gauntlet that was equally exciting as it was fantastical. Grönroos was one of the minds behind designing it.

Can we expect something similar in Control Resonant? "There are definitely surprises," teases Grönroos. "Of course, I can't say what they are, but I think what made the Ashtray Maze really work was how unexpected it was. So I think there's stuff like in Control Resonant that's like that for sure."

Control Resonant launches on September 24 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.