As someone who loves sci-fi and all things outer space, Avorion is a game that I have been interested in for a while. This was actually in early access a year or so ago, but I just recently jumped in. If you like massive sandboxes, trading, space battles and building cool stuff that could be right out of Star Wars or Star Trek then this is for you.
How to Download Avorion
You can download Avorion from Steam. To start, click on the Download button located at the end of this review. If you like space sims, check out also FTL: Faster than Light.
The Game Review
While Avorion is a sandbox kind of game it does actually have a story and an end goal for you to be working towards. I thought that this was a really neat idea, while I like messing around having an actual goal or an endgame to work towards kept me going. Without spoiling anything major, if you like sci-fi that has space battles, intergalactic pirates and uneasy alliances, you will enjoy the lore that is in this game.
In terms of talking about the gameplay, I am kind of at a loss of where to start! This is one of those games that have a ton for you to do. Let’s start with the shipbuilding. You can build all kinds of cool spacecraft in this game and you are not just limited to one! I found the building mechanics very, very easy to get to grips with.
A cool aspect of the building of spacecraft is the community. No messing around with mods is needed. The game makes full use of the workshop so uploading your own creations and downloading others could not be any easier. I have downloaded some awesome looking ships!
There is also plenty of trading to do in the game as well. There are space pirates, but an encounter with them is not always a massive fight. Sometimes you can give them something, work out a deal or even join them if they trust you. I thought this was super cool and as I progressed in the game, I went from wanting to fight and destroy everyone I came across to trying to work things out.
Another aspect of the game sees you needing to get resources. You can mine stuff like ore and you can send a ship out to do this for you. This is part of the reason why you want to have many ships so that you can send some out to do the tasks that you do not want to bother with. The more resources you have the better as you can use them for yourself or for trading.
You can get resources in a few different ways. For example, you can blast space rocks and collect the resources. You can even take down a spacecraft or space station with your own fleet and then strip it for all the goodies that it has and then use them for your own needs! Usually, in a game like this, I find the resource gathering tedious, but this goes above and beyond to make it fun.
Avorion does have combat and it is a real-time strategy kind of combat. There are many different weapons in the game and I was impressed with how diverse they were. It will take you a while to figure out what weapons suit your playstyle the best, but that is part of the fun. I found the combat to be pretty straightforward so hardcore RTS fans might find this aspect of the game a tad too basic.
One really cool aspect that I did not expect was boss fights! That is right there are bosses in this game and they are awesome. You want to get to the end of the game; you have to take down all of the bosses. Not many games of this style have boss rights so for me that was really fun.
I have honestly just scratched the surface of all the things that make Avorion such a fun and interesting game. There is a ton of gameplay here and it is far more diverse than most other games that may be pigeonholed into the strategy genre. It is a sandbox-style of game where you can do what you want, but you also have an interesting and engaging story that has an actually end to it.
