Are there any single player games like this?

[Ciaran Zagami]

Besides Oolite or the older elite games, I wanna play something with a modern menu interface that doesn't require me to use my entire keyboard just to load up on cargo.

[0Samuel]

I mean, there's No Man's Sky. That's probably closest- those devs got some flack when what they felt was a fair homage to fond childhood memories ended up a little too similar to the modern sequel to the game those memories were about. You'll also occasionally get the multi-level marketing people from Star Citizen around these parts, but you should ignore those.

The trouble with these big, expansive space games is that they all tend to span a lot of different genres at once, sometimes quite seamlessly, and that makes exact comparisons tricky. I can say, with fair confidence, that there is no other game quite like Elite Dangerous out there- not because noone else can or has made other ambitious games in a similar vein, but because they have all chosen a different selection of features to include and omit.

I, for example, would recommend Empyrion Galactic Survival. Much less polished, clearly made with a tiny fraction of the budget, but has achieved quite a lot because of the creativity of its players; it does a good job of making exploration feel rewarding. But there's a bunch of stuff in that game that has nothing to do with any of what you might see in a harder sim like Elite, and they might be things you'd rather avoid.

Other people would recommend X4. Can't speak to whether or why that suggestion is a good one, but it's been recommended on posts like this before. None of them will be a perfect match, though, because it's less about what they do and more about what they don't; what features, what gameplay don't you want to deal with, what gameplay makes the rest feel like a chore?

Without that answer, recommending a similar game is going to be a complete crapshoot. All of them have a lot of things, and most of them weave those elements together well, and they all, intentionally, leave something out. It's the omission that makes the game unique.

[ุ]

Starsector is really good.

[0Samuel]

Originally posted by ุ:

Starsector is really good.

Now, a game being recommended by a guy with a comma for a name may seem sketchy, but being a genuinely good game that gets recommended by alarmingly sketchy characters is very on brand for Starsector.

[ZanyScum]

These are absolutely NOT like Elite, but you might want to check them out:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/910830/Rebel_Galaxy_Outlaw/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1449750/Space_Commander_War_and_Trade/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1646850/SpaceBourne_2/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/419480/Starpoint_Gemini_Warlords/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/363360/Interstellar_Rift/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2820/X3_Terran_Conflict/

Sailing Ship:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/57620/Patrician_IV/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/890400/Uncharted_Waters_Online/

Train:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/371520/Bounty_Train/