Summary
- Space-sims and RPGs offer various systems for players to engage in, including trading, mining, and salvaging.
- Trading in these games can be simple or involve simulated economies and black markets, keeping gameplay engaging.
- Titles like Rebel Galaxy, X4: Foundations, and Freelancer offer immersive trading mechanics as a core part of their gameplay loop.
Science fiction games, specifically space-sims, and RPGs, tend to feature a variety of systems and activities for players to engage in. Sandbox RPGs such as Freelancer, allow players to earn extra cash by mining, salvaging, and trading goods in and between various locations.
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These gameplay systems force players to move around the game's world, keeping the pace and ensuring players are always seeing and interacting with new things. Trading in RPGs can sometimes be as simple as buying and selling items for a flat price, but a great number of sci-fi space-sims and RPGs take things to the next level with simulated economies and black markets.
8 Rebel Galaxy
A Swashbuckling RPG With Accessible Trading
- Platform(s): PC, PlayStation, Xbox
- Released: 2015
- Developer(s): Double Damage Games
- Genre: RPG
Rebel Galaxy is a unique sci-fi RPG for many reasons. For starters, the game features a distinctive combat system that focuses on broadside attacks, heavily reminiscent of naval combat. As well as this, the game features a Wild West-inspired space setting that's comparable to classic sci-fi television shows such as Firefly. This is especially so in the game's excellent original soundtrack.
Rebel Galaxy may be combat-heavy, with plenty of missions requiring players to shoot up a variety of enemies, but trading is a core part of its gameplay loop. This is especially so for players who want to earn a little extra cash. Thankfully, the game's trading mechanics are solid, allowing players to easily tell whether or not they're making a profit when they buy and sell cargo.
7 X4: Foundations
A Deep, Complex, And Unforgiving Experience
X4: Foundations
- Released
- November 30, 2018
- Developer(s)
- Egosoft
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- Simulation
This deep, complex, and at-times unforgiving space-sim features a dramatic sense of freedom and player agency. The game's many systems and immersive flight controls result in a sandbox experience that begs players to settle in for the long haul.
One of X4: Foundations' key selling points is its deeply simulated economy, which aims to create a realistic model for the player to interact with. This results in a great deal of emergent gameplay, deepening the sandbox and allowing trading to feel more immersive.
6 Star Valor
Trading That Supports Solid Action-RPG Systems
- Platform(s): PC
- Released: 2022
- Developer(s): Rafael Burgos
- Genre: RPG
This top-down, sci-fi sandbox RPG plays similarly to other games of its ilk, such as Starsector. However, Star Valor stands out for its focus on fleet management and combat, as well as its action-RPG mechanics and deep customization.
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Star Valor offers all the usual features of a sci-fi sandbox RPG, including mechanics for mining, salvaging, crafting, and trading. The trading mechanics in Star Valor aren't the most complex, but they help to support the game's more integral systems.
5 Elite Dangerous
Long, Quiet Cargo Runs Through Unpredictable Space
Elite Dangerous
- Released
- December 16, 2014
- Developer(s)
- Frontier Developments
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4
- Genre(s)
- Flight Simulator
Elite Dangerous is a deep and highly immersive space sim with a focus on heavily simulated flight controls. As a result, the game can be fairly inaccessible to newcomers. However, players who take the time to learn its many systems will likely find Elite Dangerous to be a rewarding experience.
This is thanks to the immense freedom that Elite Dangerous offers, allowing players to get up to all kinds of activity on their (long) journeys through space. Trading in Elite Dangerous isn't always the most engaging thing to do, but the long, quiet cargo runs can offer an almost relaxing experience.
4 Astrox Imperium
An Offline Alternative To EVE Online
- Platform(s): PC
- Released: 2019
- Developer(s): Jace Masula
- Genre: Space-Sim
For fans of EVE Online or players who were turned off by that game's multiplayer component, Astrox Imperium offers a capable alternative. Astrox Imperium is a sci-fi sandbox RPG that borrows heavily from the gameplay loop of games such as EVE Online but offers an entirely single-player experience that's tailored around the player.
Astrox Imperium is currently in Early Access on Steam, but its open world is expansive and immersive, offering players plenty to do. Astrox Imperium may not do much to break new ground, but its well-crafted sandbox systems and trading mechanics, complete with a simulated economy, offer a consistently good time.
3 Star Traders: Frontiers
A Sandbox RPG In Which Trading Is Inevitable
Star Traders: Frontiers
This sci-fi sandbox RPG puts players in command of their very own spaceship and its bustling crew. Each crew member in Star Traders: Frontiers is customizable, and despite there being several narrative threads for players to follow, the game offers the player a tremendous amount of freedom.
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Although there are plenty of activities for players to engage in throughout Star Traders: Frontiers, it's hard to avoid engaging in the game's trading mechanics. This is due to the fact that it's one of the easiest ways to make money in the game, which players will need in order to improve the strength of their ship.
2 Starsector
An Expansive RPG That Encourages Players To Avoid In-Game Taxes
Starsector
- Released
- April 26, 2013
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Developer
- Fractal Softworks
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Open-World
This sandbox RPG, long in development, stands out for its great deal of player agency and freedom. The game's sandbox systems are many, but trading is a large and important part of Starsector's gameplay loop.
Starsector features a regular market, which forces a tax upon the player, and a black market, which doesn't. Of course, the black market is significantly less legal. For sci-fi fans who enjoy top-down games, exploration, space combat, and trading, Starsector is a safe bet.
1 Freelancer
A Beloved Classic In Which Trading Is Highly Profitable
Freelancer
This beloved classic sci-fi RPG features a linear narrative that puts players in control of its protagonist, Edison Trent. However, the gameplay surrounding its narrative is an open sandbox experience; players are able to mine, fight, salvage, and trade in order to make a living out among the stars.
The act of trading in Freelancer is simple, but the process offers its own unique challenges, especially for players aiming to make a vocation out of it. Players will need to risk encounters with pirates along the game's trade routes, seek out a suitable ship for the job, and - if shipping contraband - avoid run-ins with the law.
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