7 Classic Sci-Fi Games You Forgot Were Awesome

The sci-fi genre is one that video game developers often lean on. After all, games aren’t restrained by the real-world, letting developers’ imaginations run wild with innovative ideas for new worlds. There have been hundreds of great sci-fi games over the years, including standout series like Halo, Mass Effect, and BioShock. However, a few great games have either gone under the radar or been forgotten by modern audiences. That’s a shame because those games deserve so much more love thanks to their ambition and quality.

Here are seven classic sci-fi games you might’ve forgotten.

7) Beyond Good & Evil

Beyond Good & Evil does have the benefit of staying in the public consciousness thanks to Ubisoft continuing to insist a sequel is in the works (despite recent cancellations by the studio). Nobody knows if that game will ever see the light of day, but don’t let that diminish how good the original BG&E is. Jade’s adventure blends puzzle-solving and stealth gameplay, while providing players with a realized world filled with great characters. It also doesn’t hurt that it looked phenomenal in 2003. Hopefully, the sequel comes at some point, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

6) Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Human Revolution had the unenviable task of following up on the all-time PC classics Deus Ex and Invisible War. Thankfully, it mostly lived up to the hype while modernizing the gameplay. Like the originals, player choice was at the forefront. You could take any approach you wanted to each mission, leaving players feeling like they had complete control over the storyline. It even got a sequel a few years later called Mankind Divided. Unfortunately, poor sales led to Square Enix cancelling plans for more sequels. They’ve since sold the IP, so we might see it back someday, but it’s frustrating that most only fondly remember the first two, leaving Human Revolution out to dry.

5) Command & Conquer

The Command & Conquer series is filled with great strategy games. Personally, I prefer Red Alert 3, but that’s because of how great the cast is. Putting Tim Curry, Peter Stormare, J.K. Simmons, and George Takei into an RTS was a masterstroke, and then they went and added Ric Flair in one of the expansions. Still, most of the series is worth playing. Thankfully, Electronic Arts launched a remastered collection in 2020, letting you play through the first C&C and Red Alert games with ease.

4) The Dig

In 1995, LucasArts was at the peak of its powers in the adventure game genre. They brought in Steven Spielberg and Orson Scott Card to help write a new sci-fi game called The Dig. While not as beloved as some of the studio’s more humorous games, The Dig looked great and featured puzzles that challenged players. Unfortunately, it wasn’t what players expected from LucasArts at the time, leading to a muted reception. Still, once you can strip those expectations away, The Dig is another great game in the studio’s catalog.

3) Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri

When Sid Meier and a few others split from MicroProse to create Firaxis, they did not have the Civilization name that made Meier and his team famous. That turned out to be no problem for the developer, as he just went about creating the next step in Civ‘s history with Alpha Centauri. It lacked the Civ name, but many view it as a spiritual sequel that finally took the series to the stars. Firaxis would later acquire the Civ name and mostly forget about Alpha Centauri, but that doesn’t make this sci-fi epic any less memorable.

2) Star Wars: TIE Fighter

Star Wars: X-Wing was the first game to show that LucasArts and Totally Games were the masters of space flight sims. However, the sequel took things to a new level, improving the enemy AI to give players an even more life-like simulation. Sure, you have to play work for the Empire, but it’s worth it when the gameplay is this good. The sequel, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, added multiplayer for the first time, letting players jump into eight-person fights, assuming they have the network capacity to support it.

1) Wing Commander

Similar to Command & Conquer, you can pick your favorite Wing Commander game and put it in this spot. The simple truth is that Chris Roberts’ long-running series pushed space combat games into a new stratosphere. With five mainline series and several spin-offs, players were able to deep dive into the series’ intricate lore. And Origin Systems made that even easier by bringing in Hollywood actors like John Rhys-Davies, Mark Hamill, and Malcolm McDowell for live-action cutscenes.

It was so popular that Wing Commander got a TV series, several novels, and a movie adaptation. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen anything from the franchise since 2007, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely dead. Roberts’ current major project, Star Citizen, is seen as a spiritual successor to Wing Commander. If it ever makes it out of early access, we’re supposed to get a single-player campaign called Squadron 42, which is billed as Star Citizen‘s version of the classic Wing Commander gameplay.

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