This is gonna be pretty short. Basically, as you can see I've got 1,029 hours of play out of this since I got the game in I think 2016? That's a good long time to get value out of something, but honestly, the time spent in this game is more due to a desperate need for an outlet for functional buildings and creativity than it is due to good game design.

The problem with Space Engineers is that it's vapid. It's shallow, it's thin, it's boring. The devs stopped making massive meaningful changes to the game (significant additions of systems such as planets, API switch from DX9 to DX11, graphics updates, performance improvements, etc) years ago and have instead switched to focusing on the occasional release of paid DLC that includes some complimentary free blocks in the update to make it not-pay-to-win.

It just feels pointless. The story missions aren't integrated into the game - it's very clear the scenarios are just a normal world save with stuff built and scripts and timers to make things happen, but the game has no NPC's or long-term story progression or anything really meaningful like that. Survival mode is just a boring loop of slowly acquiring materials to build.. SOMETHING useful, and creative mode just feels meaningless because it's not like virtually any public servers out there will let you spawn your intricate battleships to have fun with them. I have a huge catalogue of small and large ships and a bunch of head cannon for them, at yet I never get to do anything but spawn them, inspect and improve them and iterate, maybe smash them together for funsies and then get bored and stop for a while before being mildly drawn back for a bit.

I'd ditch SE if another game dev attempted this concept with more polish and focus. And maybe a game engine that doesn't run like a sick dog who lost a leg even at high frame rates on a good PC.

This is gonna be pretty short. Basically, as you can see I've got 1,029 hours of play out of this since I got the game in I think 2016? That's a good long time to get value out of something, but honestly, the time spent in this game is more due to a desperate need for an outlet for functional buildings and creativity than it is due to good game design. The problem with Space Engineers is that it's vapid. It's shallow, it's thin, it's boring. The devs stopped making massive meaningful changes to the game (significant additions of systems such as planets, API switch from DX9 to DX11, graphics updates, performance improvements, etc) years ago and have instead switched to focusing on the occasional release of paid DLC that includes some complimentary free blocks in the update to make it not-pay-to-win. It just feels pointless. The story missions aren't integrated into the game - it's very clear the scenarios are just a normal world save with stuff built and scripts and timers to make things happen, but the game has no NPC's or long-term story progression or anything really meaningful like that. Survival mode is just a boring loop of slowly acquiring materials to build.. SOMETHING useful, and creative mode just feels meaningless because it's not like virtually any public servers out there will let you spawn your intricate battleships to have fun with them. I have a huge catalogue of small and large ships and a bunch of head cannon for them, at yet I never get to do anything but spawn them, inspect and improve them and iterate, maybe smash them together for funsies and then get bored and stop for a while before being mildly drawn back for a bit. I'd ditch SE if another game dev attempted this concept with more polish and focus. And maybe a game engine that doesn't run like a sick dog who lost a leg even at high frame rates on a good PC.