You fire up your new PS5 copy of Starfield, land on your forty-seventh procedurally generated rock, find yet another identical abandoned outpost with the same three container types you've already looted a hundred times, and quietly put the controller down. That feeling — the specific disappointment of a game that promised everything and delivered something that felt weirdly hollow — is one of gaming's most recognizable heartbreaks.
Starfield just landed on PS5 on April 7, 2026, with a big free update and a new expansion in tow. If you're a PlayStation player finally getting your crack at Bethesda's space RPG, welcome — there is genuinely good stuff buried in there. But if Starfield bounces off you, or if you're already a veteran who needs the games that actually delivered on Starfield's core premises, this list is for you. We're not talking about generic "space games" — no arena shooters, no colony sims. These are the titles that specifically nail what Starfield reached for: meaningful exploration, deep RPG systems, a sense that the galaxy is alive, and moments of genuine wonder that don't feel algorithmically assembled. Mass Effect and No Man's Sky are the obvious references everyone mentions. This list goes further.
Obsidian Entertainment made this specifically for people who wanted a Bethesda-style space RPG but with a soul — and it delivered. Where Starfield gives you a thousand empty planets, The Outer Worlds gives you half a dozen genuinely distinct locations, each stuffed with handcrafted quests, morally complicated factions, and NPCs who actually have opinions about your choices. The dialogue system rewards investment in speech skills to a degree most RPGs don't bother with; talking your way out of entire quest lines is not just possible, it's often the funniest and most satisfying outcome. The satirical tone — a corporation-run solar system where customer service mantras are plastered over dystopian squalor — never gets old.
Best for: Players who wanted Starfield's RPG depth but preferred their space adventure tightly authored rather than procedurally generated.
Yes, everyone mentions this. They're right. The Mass Effect trilogy remains the gold standard for what companion storytelling in a space RPG can feel like — the Legendary Edition remaster packages all three games with every piece of DLC, and the first game's combat and load times have been meaningfully improved. Garrus, Tali, Wrex: these characters live in players' heads decades after the credits roll because BioWare built them as people with histories, prejudices, and arcs that actually respond to your choices. Starfield's companions are perfectly serviceable. Mass Effect's companions are the reason you replay the whole trilogy. The galaxy-shaping stakes of the third entry still hit hard, even if the ending debate has never fully died down.
Best for: Anyone who wanted to actually care about their crew — and who needs a reminder of what space-RPG companion writing looks like at its peak.
03
Space Exploration / Mystery
If Starfield promised the feeling of genuinely discovering something in space — a mystery that rewards patient, curious exploration — Outer Wilds actually delivers it. You play a young astronaut trapped in a 22-minute time loop, slowly uncovering what happened to an ancient alien civilization across a handful of handcrafted planets. There is no quest marker here. You progress by learning: reading logs, observing how the solar system physically changes as time passes, and making the kind of lateral cognitive leaps that make you say "oh my god" out loud in an empty room. Mobius Digital built something that can only exist as a game, and the Echoes of the Eye DLC adds an entirely different kind of dread on top of the original's wonder.
Best for: Players who wanted Starfield's planetary exploration to feel like actual discovery rather than fast-travel to a point of interest icon.
04
Space Exploration / Survival
Hello Games releasing No Man's Sky in 2016 and Starfield launching in 2023 is a fascinating story of identical ambitions and inverted trajectories. NMS launched broken and hollow, then spent seven years turning into one of the most content-rich space exploration games ever made — all via free updates. Starfield launched more polished but has struggled to justify its scale with content that matters. Right now in 2026, No Man's Sky offers actual seamless space-to-surface flight, genuine base building that serves the game's systems, multiplayer that works, and a universe where the procedural generation is used to create variety rather than to fill space with nothing. It's available for free on PlayStation Plus and costs less than a movie ticket to buy outright.
Best for: Players who specifically wanted Starfield's ship-customization and planet-hopping loop to feel like a living system rather than a menu screen.
What's striking about these games collectively is that they were all built around a specific premise — a focused answer to the question "what would make this universe feel real?" — rather than around a feature checklist. Starfield's design sometimes feels like it was assembled from the answers to every developer survey ever taken about what players want from a space RPG, then stitched together without a unifying philosophy. The games below continue that thought: they're not just similar in genre, they're the titles that committed to an answer and followed it all the way down.
05
Sci-Fi Roguelite / Third-Person Shooter
Returnal
PS5 · PC
The PS5 Showcase
Returnal shares Starfield's broad pitch — a lone explorer on an alien world, uncovering a cosmic mystery across strange environments — but Housemarque's execution is utterly different. You are Selene, an astronaut crash-landed on a hostile alien planet and trapped in a death loop, reliving the same run each time you die while the world shifts around you. The combat is some of the best third-person shooting on PS5: fast, punishing, built around weapon traits and parasites that create a risk-reward system every run. The lore is delivered in fragments — audio logs, text, moments of surreal disorientation — and it's genuinely unsettling in a way that makes you want to piece it together. This is what landing on an alien world should feel like: threatening, beautiful, and slightly wrong.
Best for: Players who wanted Starfield's alien-world atmosphere wrapped around combat systems with genuine mechanical teeth.
06
Immersive Sim / Sci-Fi RPG
Prey (2017)
PC · PS4/PS5 (BC) · Xbox
The Hidden Masterpiece
Arkane Austin's Prey is the game that should have been Starfield's spiritual cousin — a sci-fi RPG set on a space station overrun by shape-shifting aliens, built around the immersive sim philosophy where every system interacts with every other system in ways the developers didn't fully plan. The GLOO cannon alone — a tool that fires quick-hardening foam you can use to freeze enemies, create climbable platforms, seal explosive vents, or just make a mess — demonstrates more creative sandbox thinking in five minutes than Starfield manages across its entire runtime. The skill tree lets you incorporate alien powers that permanently alter how you move through the station, and the level design rewards obsessive backtracking with new routes and revelations. It also has one of the best video game endings of its generation.
Best for: Players who felt Starfield's space station sections were the game's strongest moments and wanted an entire game designed around that density.
07
Action RPG / Sci-Fantasy
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
PC · PS5 · Xbox Series X/S
For the Ship Lover
Jedi: Survivor is here specifically because of Koboh — the game's central open planet, and one of the most enjoyable explorable spaces in any recent sci-fi game. Respawn designed it as a hub you return to across the entire runtime, gradually unlocking new areas as Cal gains abilities, and it rewards thoroughness with environmental storytelling and secrets that feel genuinely earned rather than procedurally scattered. The combat builds on Fallen Order's Soulslike foundation with five stances including the crowd-clearing blaster stance that functionally makes Cal a Jedi gunslinger. The story goes to places that surprised even franchise veterans, and the cast of supporting characters is sharp enough to carry the quieter moments between set-pieces. If you needed to feel like your character was traveling between distinctive worlds with a purpose, this is the answer. Also — check out our piece on games like Crimson Desert if this kind of action-RPG movement is what you're chasing.
Best for: Players who wanted each planet in Starfield to feel as dense and deliberately designed as a single great action-RPG hub world.
08
Narrative RPG / Sci-Fi
Citizen Sleeper is here because it does something Starfield categorically failed to do: it makes a single location feel like an entire galaxy. You play a runaway android on a deteriorating space station called the Eye, surviving through dice-allocation mechanics that govern what you can attempt each day — rest poorly and you have fewer dice and worse outcomes; take risks and the narrative branches around your failure as often as your success. Jump Over Games built a world of maybe a dozen named spaces that feels more lived-in than a thousand procedurally generated planets, because every NPC on the Eye has a story that intersects with yours in ways that matter. It was a critical darling on Steam for good reason. The recently released Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is also on PS5 now if one game isn't enough. And while you're in narrative RPG territory, our single-player MMO-feeling games list has more of that deep sense of inhabiting a world.
Best for: Players who felt Starfield's characters were too thin and wanted a sci-fi RPG where the writing is the main attraction and every choice carries real weight.
Starfield's PS5 arrival is a genuine second chance for Bethesda's space RPG, and some players will absolutely love it — especially with the Free Lanes update adding more reasons to actually be in space. But the games on this list represent the other thing that moment unlocks: a whole community of PS5 players now asking "what space RPG should I actually play?" The answer, depending on what drew you to the genre in the first place, is almost never "none of the above." Space is enormous. So is your backlog. The good news is that the best games like Starfield are some of the finest titles of the last decade — and several of them are already in your PS Plus library. Also, if you're in a broader action-RPG mood, our roundup of ARPGs where mechanics matter more than story is worth a look.
Which of these scratched the itch that Starfield couldn't — and is there a space RPG we've criminally left off this list that every PS5 player needs to try right now?
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