Empyrion Galactic Survival

Alright, here's my honest take on this game, the good, the bad, the alternative workshop fix (TLDR at bottom).

I first got this game free from Epic Games, and ended up buying it on sale on Steam so I could have access to the Workshop, which honestly saved my experience of this game and is the major reason I recommend it (more on that below).

The Good
Easy to put lots of hours into exploration and building and get lost in it, which is exactly what I want with this type of survival/crafting game. Travelling through the cosmos is a lot of fun, finding new planet types, new sources of minerals, finding and exploring space stations, crashed ships, ruins, etc.

The building system is very user-friendly and easy to use. It didn't take too long to get a grip on how to build my first hover vessel and even my first capital vessel (even though it was basically a flying rectangle).

The Bad
For a game with such incredible planetary and cosmic detail and design, the NPCs are brutal, in their graphic design, their static dialogue, in every way. Other than the very short campaign, there's no interaction with most of them. They're just... there. And they might as well not be.

The base campaign is... bad. Really bad. And it just ends, leaving you on the biggest cliffhanger after setting up the plot of the game which you will never finish because it doesn't exist. From what I've seen, there are no plans to ever complete the story.

Glitches. Ooooh, the glitches. The game can be really buggy at times, so I got in the habit of creating backup saves before entering orbit of any planet, even ones I'd been to before.

If you're playing the base game, don't bother with the main quest. Seriously.

Dark Faction
DO NOT GET IT. The DLC is not worth it. Seriously. The story sucks, the mechanics are broken, the main POIs connected to the storyline are glitchy and impossible to get through without using godmode etc. It's just... really, really bad. Like the original game and story, it just feels unfinished, unpolished, and empty. Good basic idea, but no follow through. A better DLC would've been connected to the original story, rather than… whatever this is.
OH, and if you load a saved game with the DLC installed, it erases all of your achievements, your Explorer Rewards, your quest completion… everything. Gone. It also eventually fills the entire galaxy with the 'Dark Faction' stuff and ruins everything. Avoid this like the Infected Abomination it is.



Get the BEST Out of This Game:
Empyrion has so, soooo much potential, which is why I love it, despite the many issues it has. Thankfully, there's a rewrite mod called "Reforged Eden 2" (RE2). THIS is what the main game, main story should've been. It's still being worked on, so once you complete the story up to Level 25 (just like the base game), the main 'quest' is over. But there is so much more content. More missions, more enemies, more building elements, more technology, more to explore, more to kill, just…. MORE. Yeah, there are still glitches and bugs, but those are inherent to the base game being what it is, just something you'll have to be OK with when playing Empyrion. But honestly? I might've stopped playing if not for this overhaul. There are tonnes of Workshop blueprints for RE2 as well, so it's essentially a completely new game, taking advantage of Empyrion's game engine and turning it into what it could've been all along.

TLDR
Play the main game to get the basics down, which are a lot of fun! Seriously!
DO NOT get the Dark Faction DLC. It's a pile of broken garbage.
DO get the Reforged Eden 2 overhaul from the Workshop and play that instead. It makes the game worth it.

One of its kind.
There was time when Space Engineer and Empyrion - Galactic Survival were both of equal interest to me.
Not anymore. Space Engineer has become an overly complex puzzle game where you need to know so many things to be able to progress, it is no fun anymore. At least for me.
Empyrion? Yes!
Relatively easy to get into, hundreds of hours you can invest into this game and never feel like you wasted your time.
You can follow the campaign or you ignore it. You can play it single player or multiplayer. You can play scenarios or just enjoy the gigantic open world.
You can create your own ships and station, hover vehicles, small fliers or large flyers. On the planet or in space.
You can create vehicles which have the minimum to be able to move or can create gigantic monsters which darken the sky.
Everything is pretty simple to understand after you found out about it, there is really nearly nothing where you can't understand it.
You can create your own space stations or use prepared blueprints and just fill in the materials. These blueprints can come from yourself or from the workshop.
You can invest a lot of time to design your own vehicles or stations.
If you upload these to the workshop, you can use them in each of your following games.
Meaning, you will never feel like you lost time when you designed something, because you and others will use it in the future again and again.
Gather materials, build, fight.
You fight on foot and in your ship. On planets and in space. Starting with simple and cheap weapons and later switching to epic and expensive weapons for which you can't even create the ammunition in the first hours of gameplay.
You can gather ore with your drill, with your player drone or with your vehicles. And there are Auto-Miners.
This is one of the best games for space exploration, mining and building.
There is practically no competitor for this game.
Yes, pure flying is much better in Elite Dangerous.
Yes, pure farming is much better in Farming Simulator.
Yes, pure foot combat is better in Call of Duty.
Yes, pure Space fighting is probably better in X3, but tastes differ.
Yes, building vehicles and stations is much easier and probably better in Interstellar Rift.
Yes, Elite Dangerous has probably a larger galaxy.
But no, there is no game which has all these features in a nice package where it is fun to play and each above named feature is easy and nice.
If you like Space games and space ships and the like, then there are certain games you will want to have played.
- Elite Dangerous
- Genesis Alpha One Deluxe
- Interstellar Rift (because of the ship builder)
- No Man's Sky
- Starfield (no, not because of the space fights)
- X3 (no, not X4)
- Star Trek Online
and
- Empyrion - Galactic Survival.
So, yes, I think this game is one of the "must have played" if you like space games.

As a long-time Space Engineers player, I made the switch to Empyrion for several reasons:
Dynamic Environment: Unlike a barren space, Empyrion offers a vibrant setting filled with random pirate ships, trading stations, and diverse planetary flora and fauna. There's an abundance of PvE combat that keeps things exciting.
Cooperative Gameplay: Having a second player onboard is a game-changer. Human-operated turrets offer more firing options, making a crewed ship far more formidable than one just equipped with automated turrets. For example, artillery turrets can fire EMP rounds under human control, effectively disabling enemy shields.
Small Fighter Relevance: Fighters built with smaller blocks are crucial since capital vessels (CVs) can’t operate effectively on planets. These fighters excel as shield breakers and remain valuable throughout the game, unlike in Space Engineers.
Ground Combat: Empyrion features extensive infantry combat where you can raid bases, engage in intense firefights, and explore hostile environments.
Expansive Universe: The game offers a vast galaxy with numerous planets and moons, each with unique features. Whether exploring points of interest, mines, reactors, or towns teeming with creatures, the thrill of discovery feels endless.
Resource Management: I appreciate how gold and platinum serve dual purposes: resources or currency. How you use them is entirely up to you, adding a layer of strategy.
While Space Engineers is a fantastic game, Empyrion fills in the gaps it left. Empyrion provides a complete gameplay experience that keeps you engaged all the way through. Achieving "endgame" status is challenging, and boredom is a rarity. I’d rate it 90%, with minor drawbacks like graphics that don’t quite match Star Citizen’s or the occasional bug, but overall, it’s an incredible game.

This game… this horrible and gorgeous game — full of bugs and rough in every aspect:
An incomprehensible and terrible UI.
NPCs that get stuck on the tiniest polygon, yet somehow have perfect, instant headshot aim when they shoot at you. Quests that can’t be completed and block your progression. Enemy drones that don’t even react when you fire at them. If your friend turns on the thrusters while you’re not seated, you will clip straight through the ship’s hull and into oblivion. Generic, free 3D assets are scattered everywhere.
They took seven years just to add the ability to crouch
Many weapons still have misaligned crosshairs.
And yet, with all these flaws, after 10 years and 1,000 hours of gameplay, there’s no other game I want more to evolve and achieve the success it deserves.
After all this time, and countless memories playing with friends — memories of instant death by an invisible sniper, but also of traveling in our own handmade capital ship to another system, trying to mine zascosium from a toxic planet by deploying our hover mining vessel escorted by an armed small craft, only to spend hours fighting through a POI swarmed by abominations — I must say: this game is not for everyone.
If you’re like me and after spending the GDP of a small country on games you still can’t find another that lets you explore, exploit, and fight across the galaxy with your own creation and you’re willing to scratch beneath the surface and discover the magic in this horrible, unique game — then give it a chance.
I just hope my lifespan allows me to see it reach its true potential.

I have exactly 3500 hours into this game as of this writing. But it's not this game that I'm playing. I am playing Reforged Eden 2, a scenario built around this game. I played vanilla Empyrion for awhile and started getting kind of bored with it. But Reforged Eden 1 came along and totally hooked me. Then came Reforged Eden 2 and I will never put this game down. I spend almost every waking moment playing it. I've played Space Engineers, Elite Dangerous, No man's sky and most of the other good space games but nothing even comes close to what you can do in this game. After playing it for about a year I still get surprises now and then, something I didn't know existed in the game. The guy that created RE2 is amazing, he is very imaginative and creative and I feel he has a very kind heart. He is a very good story teller, you can see it in his long missions. Yes, I highly recommend this game but without RE2 I feel I would be playing something else by now. :)

For its construction/sandbox merits alone, it's not really on the level of Space Engineers or a lot of other ship-builders. But a lot of other games, SE included, don't give you a whole lot to actually *do* with your creations, and this game takes a shot at providing that. Combined with the Reforged Eden mod, which you only need a basic level of familiarity with the game's controls to enjoy, it's an extremely janky experience that nevertheless manages to be pretty fun, especially for the price tag.
Your best friend for construction will be the F5 key, which summons a free drone that gives a limited (but pretty large) range of vertical freedom to pick up and place things. It's always available, no assembly needed. Some of the reviews seem to have missed this vital ability.

I like the fact you have 3 mode of playing this game. The internet is so toxic, so solo or coop is perfect for me. I don't need or want the drama, and with this game I don't get it. Thank you.