Stellar Wanderer DX

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Thumbs up for this space game coming from the classical genre like the games Galaxy on Fire HD, Freelancer, Wing Commander, but with several points that stand up compared to other such titles: - Good graphics considered that this is a mobile port for PC. - The game is challenging and has all the content of the classics in the genre but - thanks the Lord - without too complex mechanics and therefore open to all gamers, not just hardcore space sim fans. - Very stable, good hardware performance, no serious bugs to report (I haven't seen any after 10 hours of playing). - The various star system designs are beautiful, not a copy-paste where you can say you have seen 1, you have seen all of them - no! They are all different, gorgious and convincing. Stellar Wanderer DX has impressed me by not being too repetitive, the missions are varied enough and you always have the feeling that it's time to upgrade your ship. Good design overall! And speaking about ships, there are many of them you can chose from (spending your in-game credits of course...), all suited for the different activities you can do like Trader, Pirate, Bounty Hunter, Asteroid Miner, crew transporter etc. One thing to note is: Stellar Wanderer is focused on space combat, like said above there are other activities you can follow, there are even some exploring features that will grant you a free ship, but the main bone is fighting against other ships and the game does this well with intelligent features and ship upgrades, you won't get lost in some weird stories but do the usual daka-daka of old space sims which is using your guns and get the kills. Do not expect too much different stuff. These are the features that I miss in the game and should be there in 2026: - Although there are cockpit views and 3rd person views, I would have liked more external views or one that turns around your ship, (there is such a thing turning the view to a hostile, but it's not very practicable during combat). - The Economy in the game could be just a bit more complex with more randomness making the prices. Prices do vary but you get the pattern pretty fast which makes it too easy. A 'trade scanner' giving you access to dynamically changing prices in the stock markets of the various stellar systems, this would have been the better choice and leading you to explore more. - It's good that there are capital ships in the game that you can fight against, the torpedos do a good job against them, but the devs should look in the first version of the game Starpoint Gemini to know how it's possible to board bigger ships for looting without 1st person FPS mode. This is possible and would add some more interesting mission types or combat mechanics. It's not a mandatory feature for this genre but it would give a special flavor to the game. In short, this game is what you can expect from space game classics of the year 2000-2010, but with modern graphics and perfect playability for the casual gamer or for the nostalgic gamer looking for a good remake of the old classics à la Privateer etc. This game is not for you if you are looking for very detailed features like a lot of NPC interactions, deep story telling, complex flight mechanics with dozens of keyboard strokes to remember, branched missions that influence the game world and whatnot else, if that's what you want then install X4 Foundations, Starfield or No Man's Sky. Stellar Wanderer is just the good old space fighter sim with some side activities to do. My score: 7/10.