Unending Galaxy

About

Unending Galaxy is a single player economy real-time strategy game with a economy theme. It was developed by Anarkis Gaming and was released on February 19, 2016. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

"Unending Galaxy" is a space-sim and 4X strategy game set in a vast, dynamic universe with 10 factions and 90 ships. Explore, trade, build, and fight your way to carving out your own empire or become a powerful pirate. The game includes multiple hand-crafted and procedurally generated maps with hundreds of sectors and thousands of NPCs for sandbox gameplay. Control multiple ships and switch between them at will.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

61%

Audience ScoreBased on 102 reviews

graphics6 positive mentions

gameplay4 negative mentions

Unending Galaxy offers a promising blend of 4X and space simulation gameplay, allowing players to build and manage their own empires from a single ship.
The game features a variety of play styles, including trading, bounty hunting, and empire building, which can be automated for a more relaxed experience.
The developer is responsive to feedback and actively works on updates, showing commitment to improving the game despite its current flaws.

The game suffers from numerous bugs and technical issues, including crashes, UI problems, and poor resolution scaling, making it frustrating to play.
Many players find the learning curve steep due to a lack of clear instructions and documentation, leading to confusion about game mechanics.
The graphics and overall polish are lacking, with simplistic 2D visuals that do not meet modern gaming standards, detracting from the overall experience.

gameplay
23 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
70%
17%
The gameplay is characterized by a mix of innovative mechanics and significant bugs, leading to a repetitive experience for some players. While the game offers a variety of playstyles and emergent gameplay, it suffers from a lack of polish, unclear mechanics, and a frustrating user interface. Despite these issues, many players found the game entertaining and addictive, particularly if they were willing to explore its systems independently.
- “The simulation aspect and variance of scale of the gameplay (you can be a solo pirate or run a huge empire) is impressive. There are a lot of honestly quite trashy games that just throw completely independent systems at you and expect you to grind through them with each one being the same and having no interaction.”
- “This game, while lacking polish, has that element of a real world to it, and while neither its basic gameplay nor simulation is perfect, it entertained me for many hours.”
- “To me, the game is great. I've had quite a bit of fun just trying out different starts and seeing what the gameplay has to offer both on the 4X end and the sim end.”
- “The game lacks depth and variety, making the gameplay feel dull and repetitive over time.”
- “Beyond just the game-breaking rendering/DPI failure, the UI and general gameplay are infested with bugs and lack polish.”
- “The tutorial and further gameplay is surprisingly lax in direction or feel for accomplishment.”
graphics
20 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
30%
55%
15%
The graphics of the game are primarily simplistic 2D sprites that some players find lackluster and reminiscent of retro aesthetics, which may detract from the overall experience, especially in a 2025 PC gaming context. While there are options to adjust resolution, they do little to enhance the visual quality, and many users note that the game lacks original assets, with the most appealing visuals being the planets. Despite these shortcomings, some players appreciate the clarity of the 2D art in gameplay and the recent graphical updates that have improved the overall look and feel.
- “Now is an especially good time to buy, seeing as there was just a big content update as well as a superb graphical update which really improves the overall look and feel of the game.”
- “The aesthetics of the different races are also enjoyable, showing a remarkable amount of variety that you do not see with other games.”
- “It doesn't have cutting edge 3D graphics, but the aesthetic still feels great; the art is smooth yet crisp.”
- “While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality.”
- “Considering this is being evaluated as a PC game in 2025, such poor quality 2D graphics in the 3D era just aren't good enough. Whether it's a deliberate design fault on behalf of the developer or they just couldn't manage to do any better, this is a compromise gamers shouldn't have to put up with.”
- “The game features somewhat lazy, simplistic 'retro' looking 2D graphics, and it's hard to say if this is due to the age of the assets used, if it's a deliberate attempt for the game to look bad/retro on purpose, or if the assets are just, well, terrible looking.”
story
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
66%
17%
The game's story is enriched by a variety of missions that allow players to engage with factions and influence their diplomatic standing, though some users noted a lack of clear indicators for mission progress. Players appreciate the depth of the universe and the potential for exploration, with well-thought-out events that enhance storytelling. However, there are calls for more diverse quest types and clearer connections between missions and faction relationships.
- “Events are well thought out, and provide good universe storytelling. I haven't seen all of them, but I hope there are more in future updates.”
- “If you do trade missions to bring supplies to end a shortage at a station, you actually supplied that station - which will then start producing stuff.”
- “If you're a bounty hunter, you aren't hunting randomly generated quest opponents - you are actually hunting threats to that empire - pirate and other ships who have been destroying their ships and earning a bounty.”
- “Other reviews seem to tell the same story.”
- “There is also a very in-depth weapons system, and quests for factions with real rewards and a multitude of ships to play with.”
- “If this was in early access it would've been a different story.”
stability
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's stability is a significant concern among users, with many reporting frequent bugs, random freezes, and occasional crashes that detract from the overall experience. While some players find it moderately playable and appreciate the ongoing patches, the consensus is that the game remains too buggy for a strong recommendation. Players are advised to try the demo or older versions first, as they also exhibit similar issues.
- “If the game was not so buggy, I would recommend it.”
- “I like the game, but the random freezes just ruin it, and I don't think it will be fixed.”
- “It's a neat idea, but it's too buggy and incomplete.”
music
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
14%
43%
The music in the game is generally described as beautiful and fitting for the adventure, though opinions vary on its appeal, with some finding it standard for an indie studio. While the sound effects, particularly ship firing noises, could be improved, the music itself is enjoyable but may become repetitive over extended play sessions. Overall, it serves its purpose without significantly detracting from the gameplay experience.
- “The music is incredible though...great beat to conquer the galaxy to.”
- “Not too much to suggest here as I know how expensive these assets can be to acquire if you want superb and unique non-library music/effects.”
- “Just your average typical synth space music for the ambient that you might want to mute off and put on something else after 5 continuous hours of play because eventually they grate on your ears like a cheese grater at the end of it.”
- “I feel the music is standard for a small indie studio and I feel the sound effects could be better, but neither really detract from the gameplay and they are satisfactory.”
- “However, there is never an issue with the music muffling firing sounds if they do work.”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game tedious and lacking in variety, with limited ship classes and bland maps contributing to a repetitive experience. The lack of upgrades and meaningful faction interactions further exacerbates the grind, making empire management and force control feel cumbersome. While some players appreciate the potential for meaningful progression in roles like trader or bounty hunter, the overall execution leaves much to be desired.
- “The empire management is very tedious when you start erecting stations.”
- “Actually controlling your forces is tedious and feels wonky most of the time.”
- “There are very few ship classes, races usually fight late game with fleets of 5-15 ships apiece, the ships feel like paper, there is little variety in weapons, no way to upgrade armor or thrusters (that I know of), maps are kind of bland, there is no way to join an existing faction, growing your own faction is very tedious.”
optimization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
34%
33%
The game is considered a good value for its price, but players note that it requires significant optimization for older hardware. Additionally, while smaller maps may enhance performance, they detract from the overall enjoyment.
- “Smaller maps, while less fun, do offer slightly better performance.”
- “This game is well worth the nine dollars I paid for it; however, it could use some serious optimizations for older hardware.”
replayability
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find "Unending Galaxy" to have high replayability due to its diverse starting scenarios, handcrafted maps, and a procedural map generator, which together create a variety of gameplay experiences. The challenging AI and faction customizer further enhance the game's replay value, making it enjoyable to revisit.
- “Although the learning curve on this game is somewhat high due to a lack of current or complete documentation (still in development), I find Unending Galaxy (UG) to be a refreshing 4X game with a challenging AI, a broad spectrum of potential scenarios, and just plain fun to play.”
- “There are 11 starting scenarios, 7 total handcrafted non-tutorial maps, a procedural map generator, and a faction customizer which ends up offering a lot of replayability.”