Science fiction games sorted by release date

Skyroads: Xmas Special takes the wonderfully addictive formula of Skyroads and gives it a festive makeover. The basic idea remains unchanged: pilot a futuristic craft along suspend...

Space Federation is a 1994 DOS strategy game centered on managing a futuristic space empire. Players must deal with exploration, resources, technology, diplomacy, and military powe...

Star Crusader is a 1994 first-person space combat game that puts the player in the cockpit of a futuristic fighter and sends them into the middle of a large interstellar conflict. ...

Star Wars: TIE Fighter is one of the standout space combat simulations of the 1990s, putting players on the Imperial side of the conflict for a change. Released in 1994, it follows...

Superhero League of Hoboken is a wonderfully odd role-playing adventure that imagines a superhero team defending the world from threats while operating out of Hoboken. The humor is...

System Shock drops you into a space station run by an AI that has clearly read too many villain manuals and decided to try them all at once. SHODAN, the game’s iconic antagon...

Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon mixes detective fiction, science fiction, comedy, puzzles, and full-motion video into one gloriously eccentric adventure. Tex Murphy is a private i...

The Chaos Engine is a wonderfully frantic run-and-gun adventure from the Bitmap Brothers, mixing steampunk imagery with relentless shooting and cooperative action. The setting is s...

Total Carnage is a wonderfully unsubtle top-down shooter in which the solution to almost every problem is to fire more ammunition. Lots more ammunition. You control heavily armed s...

Traffic department 2192 imagines a future where keeping the streets safe apparently requires considerably more shooting than most traffic departments would recommend. The game comb...

Tubular Worlds is a fast-moving horizontal shoot 'em up that throws the player into a colourful science-fiction landscape packed with enemies, projectiles, obstacles, and the occas...

Universe, released in 1994, is an adventure game that leans heavily into its sci-fi setting, offering a world that feels both imaginative and slightly surreal. You’ll spend a lot...

Wing Commander 3 takes the series into a more cinematic era, combining space combat with live-action sequences and a considerably more ambitious presentation. You once again face t...

Wing Commander: Armada takes the familiar space-combat formula and adds a strategic layer, turning the war against the Kilrathi into something considerably larger than a series of ...

X-COM: UFO Defense is the granddaddy of tactical strategy, the game that made countless players paranoid about what might be lurking just outside radar range. It blends base manage...

Xatax is a no-nonsense arcade shooter that focuses on delivering fast, straightforward action without unnecessary distractions. You pilot your ship through waves of enemies, dodgin...

Xerix II: The Caverns of Mars is a vertical shooter that embraces chaos with enthusiasm, filling the screen with enemies, obstacles, and just enough space for you to survive. The p...

XQuest offers a blend of action and exploration, creating a gameplay loop that feels both dynamic and rewarding. It encourages players to experiment, try different approaches, and ...

The year is 1995, and Abuse brings us one of the slickest, darkest run-and-gun shooters ever to crawl out of a DOS/Linux/Mac basement. You play a guy in prison for a crime he didn&...

Albion is a science fiction role-playing game (RPG) developed and published by German studio Blue Byte Software. It was released in 1995 for MS-DOS and later for Amiga. Albion...

Ever wondered what would happen if a roguelike and a B-movie had a radioactive baby? AlphaMan is the answer. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where mutant banana slugs might be your...

Ascendancy is the friendlier, trippier cousin of Master of Orion. It’s 4X strategy in space, with bizarre alien races, psychedelic menus, and a soundtrack that sounds like it...

Chewy: Esc from F5 is a point-and-click adventure starring Chewy, an unlikely hero caught up in a strange science-fiction comedy. Exploration, conversations, inventory puzzles, and...

Comix Zone (1995, Windows XP) is what happens when a comic book artist gets pulled into his own creation and reacts by roundhouse-kicking everything in sight. Stylized to the max, ...

The original Command & Conquer (1995, DOS) is the game that launched a thousand LAN parties. It’s gritty, fast-paced RTS warfare with full-motion video cutscenes so chees...

In Command Adventures: Starship (1995, DOS), you’re the captain, the admiral, and occasionally the guy who has to fix the hyperdrive when it’s on fire. This obscure gem...

The original Crusader: No Remorse sets the tone for the series: brutal, explosive, and unapologetically action-focused. You’re a rogue operative taking on a dystopian corpora...

If you ever wanted to feel like you were trapped in a washing machine armed with lasers, Descent is your game. Released in 1995, this claustrophobic, six-degrees-of-freedom shooter...

In Diggers 2: Extractors, released in 1995, the digging franchise doubled down on strategy while adding a dash of science fiction flair. This time, your miners aren’t just bu...

By the time Earthworm Jim hit DOS, its reputation already preceded it, and it largely lived up to the hype. This is a platformer that thrives on absurdity: a worm in a spacesuit, b...