I was playing some Everspace 2 and while it sure is pretty and feels pretty good there was something lacking that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I’m only 20 hours or so into it but I just felt like it wasn’t quite living up to my memories of Freelancer.
Now I last played Freelancer over 15 years ago so I was sure that I was just seeing this through a heavy mist of nostalgia, so I reinstalled the old game, installed the HD mod and a few other user made tweaks and loaded it up. The opening scenes were definitely nostalgic but once I started to fly missions properly again it became crystal clear, nope Freelancer still kicks the shit out of every other space game I’ve ever played since.
Elite Dangerous, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, Everspace 2, Spacebourne 2, EVE Online, (edit adding more I’ve played here: Chorus, Star Citizen, No Mans Sky) they all have strengths but nothing feels as good as the grand daddy Freelancer.
I think for my money the X series of games (X3: Albion Prelude and X4: Foundations) are some of the best singleplayer space empire-building games out there. They've definitely got their faults, but they're highly moddable and people make some overhaul mods that let you have more or less the exact sort of experience you want to have in those games.
Played X4 on launch and didn't get super into it.. Need to go back and see how they've smoothed things out.
Absolutely LOVED the X3 games, spent so much time in Albion Prelude.
I recommend the X series to anyone that mentions they enjoy space sims, oddly very few have ever heard of it.
Definitely check it out, 100% a different game. Especially carrier combat, they've added some special commands that deploy the squads in an area and it works really well.