Something that's always a lot of fun and

very interesting when it comes to the

Steam NextFest is that a lot of

developers out there always are willing

to experiment. And that means we've got

a bunch of space games here where the

developers are testing out different

angles and different approaches to what

can make a space game fun, engaging, or

even immersive. There's a whole

selection of different titles here and

every single one of them has a demo

available. So yeah, if you feel like

trying out a few different space games

at no cost to you whatsoever, now is a

perfect time for that. And here are a

few great examples. We start with Space

Fleet Heat Death. This is a strategy

RPG. It's a hybrid. It's set in the 23rd

century where orbital spaces clogged

with debris from constant conflict and

competing actions. Now, it's all about

competing fleet management here, orbital

maneuvers, and full 3D combat. It's also

mentioned as very heavy focus on heat

here, such as managing power hungry

systems and keeping radiators intact.

This is mentioned as essential to the

game and it makes sense with a title

like heat death. Right now, combat here

uses lasers, rail guns, missiles

alongside squadron level command and

damage control. Interestingly enough,

there's also an economic layer to the

game which is well, it's about taking on

contracts, trading resources, gambling

even, as well as hunting bounters. Now,

the game here is also mentioned as being

a proof of concept for a larger planned

game that's called Space Fleet Soul.

Right now, a standalone demo is

available called Prometheus. This is

available on Steam, and the store page

also says that Heat Death will become a

free-to-play game once the news newer

titled Soul releases. Alliance Peace

Fighter drops you straight into the

cockpit of an action focused game. Think

of the 1990s classics here such as

X-wing and Wing Commander. And yes, that

means a linear story with a lot of

action and fighting here. So set in

space, obviously you're a combat

fighter, and that means a full control

over the power of your ship as well as

shield distribution, as well as an

interface meant to keep information

quite readable as you're fighting. Now,

a game like this lives or dies by its

combat mechanics as well as its flight

model. So hopefully this one's going to

be very good indeed. Fortunately, there

is a demo out there, so you can go and

try this one right now for yourself.

Between the various different

action-packed missions, you'll find

yourself at the bar. You can go out

there and maybe get involved in a few

side activities. The game itself is

built for both VR as well as regular

monitors, meaning you can just play this

on your flat screen or jump in and get

heavily immersed if you happen to have a

VR headset to hand. Also, many of you,

I'm sure, are going to be very happy to

hear that this does support a full HOT

setup as well. In addition to gamepads,

if you prefer to lean that way, VR

motion controllers does have support for

that, as well as, of course, mouse and

keyboard. In addition to this one having

a demo for it, it's also a fully

available right now to purchase if you

want to go down that route. Spacecraft,

meanwhile, is perhaps one of the largest

titles in terms of scope and scale in

this whole video, the whole list of

games here. So, you'll find yourself in

first person in a little cabin inside a

space station. You walk around the

cabin, you can walk around the space

station, you can get inside your

spaceship, fly out into space, fly

across the star system and down to the

surface of planets, various different

planets. In fact, here you can harvest

different resources and use them to

construct other modules, upgrade your

ship, and many such things as that. So,

this is essentially a sandbox game

that's built around movement,

extraction, construction, and logistics.

You pilot your ship and travel between

the systems with faster than light jumps

and transition from space to planetary

surfaces quite smoothly and seamlessly.

Now, I'll be taking a much closer look

at this game over the next few days, so

do keep an eye out for that one. But

essentially, uh, what you got here is a

game that really goes for scale and a

sense of size. ASOS, a spaceyard, a

spacecraft manufacturing, a simulation,

all of this from SF Factory. It's

available on Steam as a part of the

demo. And the idea here is about running

a small company that designs and builds

ships for your clients from single seat

fighters to large cruisers and then

taking the helm yourself to prove these

ships actually work. So yes, you become

your very own test pilot. Now, it's not

quite as straightforward as making a

ship that just works, that just flies,

because you're going to need to read the

contract requirements. You're going to

need to assemble ships from various

different parts. And these would include

cockpits, thrusters, and stabilization

systems. In other words, if you meet the

brief that was set to you by your

client, you'll gain both credits and

reputation. And those credits are used

to expand your business, and that will

include buying larger hangers. And it

gets potentially really interesting in

how you can test them out. The Steam

page talks of flying through the rings

of giant planets, carrying out tactical

destruction of defined targets or

running a high-speed obstacle course to

deliver a package. It seems then that

the game is broken down into a number of

parts which includes a ship design,

piloting through various different test

levels, and they also talk of an

upcoming story integrated into the game

as well. As with all the games in this

video, a demo is available right now.

So, do check out those links. Direct.

This is a somewhat psychological well,

it's actually a psychological horror.

And yes, it's built as a walking

simulator, but don't dismiss that

outright because there's plenty of

really good walking sims out there. The

reason this is on this list is because

it's set in deep space. Now, you take on

the role of an astronaut on a routine

mission, rrooted to investigate the

research vessel Echo7 after it goes

silent. Turns out a geomagnetic storm is

blamed for disrupted communications, but

when you arrive, the ship looks

functional from the outside and somewhat

empty on the inside. Very strange. The

focus is very much on atmosphere and

exploration then, and you'll find

yourself moving through deserted

corridors, finding the scattered

personal belongings, and dealing with

the feeling that you're not alone. Now,

the visuals here, at least from what we

can see on the trailer, are suitably

fitting for this type of game. And

there's somewhat of an oppressive sense

of silence and isolation that comes

across here. So if you're a fan of those

old school deep [music] space horrors,

then this could certainly be worth a

look. Now on the next game, it's called

Orbital. There's not a lot to show in

this one, but it does have some pretty

chilled visuals and some pretty

interesting sound effects and audio on

the trailer. But I'm concluding this

because all of these games are indie

based and they're all about very

different takes on what a space game can

be. The idea here then is of a

choice-driven game about exploring a

forgotten solar system and guiding the

growth of new settlements. On the face

of it, it seems quite straightforward.

When people are happy, growth continues.

And when they're not, well, you

intervene. The main event system seems

to be a textbased incidents, which could

range from shortages to cultural

festivals to unusual stellar phenomena.

So, you'll have to deal with all of

those things. But outside of those

incidents, you'll be a piloting a rocket

to harvest tech from asteroid fields and

then spending that tech on planetary

upgrades, finding shipwrecks and running

expeditions. Moving on, we come to low

Earth orbit adventures. So here you

begin as the sole employee of your own

company with a single craft, the

friendly low orbital, the Tugore Fleot.

Fleot H. Okay, it looks like the

missions are going to be scenario

driven. The idea here is that you

maneuver with Newtonian controls. You

dock, attach tools via the international

docking adapter and yeah, complete

various different tasks. These range

from search and rescue to repairs to

orbital boosts to inspections,

deliveries, diplomatic incidents, and

even demolitions. That said, there's no

combat. The store pages are very

determined about that. Very adamant.

that says no guns, which is completely

fair, but it seems like there could be a

lot of fun to be had here. In fact,

their approach is specifically based

between realism and fun. They call it

realism light. That means movement uses

Newtonian physics and stations follow

basic orbital mechanics, but distances

are compressed down and propulsion is

effectively unlimited. So, fuel

management is not a concern here. If

this looks like fun to you, if it looks

interesting, as with everything else

here, it's certainly worth a try because

it's not going to cost you anything to

check out these demos. Sticking with the

theme of spaceflight for now, we come to

Arteimus. This is Arteimus VR. It is a

VR only spaceflight game, but yeah, this

is supported by NASA resources and

consultation relating to the Arteimus

missions apparently according to the

information that's on Steam. So, in

terms of momentto moment gameplay, we're

talking about here a mix of onboard

procedures on the ship you're going to

be flying and emergency response to all

of that. Specifically, the idea here is

extinguishing fires, managing

decompression, and caring for sick crew

members along the way alongside

spacecraft maneuvers, docking at space

stations, and performing a spacew walk.

So, that gives us a bit of a feel of

what to expect, although there's also

some claims of dynamic mission

scenarios. Not quite sure exactly what

that would mean, but apparently that's

in there as well. It also looks like a

visit to the International Space Station

is on the cards along the way, so

definitely a title if you're into heavy

immersion inside VR.

Something far less serious is Cyber

Cleaner Simulator. This one absolutely

looks quite funny, to be honest. It's a

contractbased cleaning game. It's set in

space and you've been hired to clean up

the messes left behind in space. And as

space is a pretty big place, it means a

quite a range of different jobs from

orbital trash heaps to abandoned moon

bunkers and derelict stations. The

moment to moment gameplay here, the

tasks that you're going to find yourself

in are built around cleaning,

dismantling, and recycling. It looks

like you're going to be able to travel

between multiple different worlds for

the contracts you're going to be taking

up. And apparently that includes eight

different planets in total. And in case

you're wondering, there's also some jobs

out there about sterilizing infested

ships by burning alien nests. Between

the different contracts, you're about to

do some other things which include

managing your own ship, upgrading

equipment, storing loot, and traveling

between jobs as well. And also, you're

accompanied by a robo-dog whose

world-being you're going to need to

maintain. A take on Space End that's not

all too serious. Now, if you're into

management games and growing colonies up

in space, you could do a lot worse than

trying out possible one, Luna

Industries. I actually did a full video

on this game recently. That video is

worth taking a look at if you haven't

seen it yet. So, your job is to

establish a Luna colony and then build

the infrastructure for your workers,

your astronauts that they need to

survive up there on the moon's surface,

and then turn those resources that you

find up there into exploitable

exploitable materials that you can send

back to Earth. The game leads quite

heavily into the realism side with

technology that's available today to

build your colonies out there. So no

warp drives, no future fantastic sci-fi

technology. The most of the technology

you're going to be using here will be

available today and this keeps things

pretty grounded. It's a very nice take

on the genre and well worth looking at.

The demo of course is available to try

out. One of my favorite sci-fi stories

of all time is Battlestar Galactica.

both the original as well as the reboot

that started in 2003. Although that is

the uh my favorite one for the reboot

and that's where Scattered Hope comes

in. This is a rog light game based on

the reboot and it's set immediately

after the asylum attack on the 12

colonies. In the game, you take on the

role of the commander of a gunar and

you're responsible here for guiding a

fleet of survivors towards the battle

star galactica. Along the way, you'll

encounter various different dilemmas and

states that the Sylons will close in on,

and each action you take will have an

effect on the future of your fleet. Now,

as you travel between planets and other

points of interest, you're going to be

presented with these dilemmas, and they

force various different trade-offs from

rationing to rationing various different

scarce resources to balance the

competing interest of factions on board

the fleet. And of course with the side

on the fleet hot on your heels and

chasing you down all the time. There's

going to be plenty of room for combat

which is has a tactical focus from what

I can see and this is one I certainly

want to play a lot of. It seems to

capture the feel and the vibe of the

show very well indeed. So there we have

it. A look at some rather interesting

games on the Steam NextFest. And I

always really like seeing these type of

titles and events because ultimately

they give us a very different insight as

to what a space game can be. Many of

these developers are quite happy to

reach out there and experiment and try

something completely different. Let me

know what titles stand out to you. Let

me know if there's anything I missed,

anything you'd like me to cover in the

future in the comment section below.

Thanks for watching this video all the

way through. There is another one on the

screen right here. Do take care and I'll

catch you next