2013 the year of the space sandbox?

ShakyMo

so I've noticed a pattern of games in development

first i heard about this http://playstarbound.com/ terraria like game in a scifi setting with multiple procedurarly generated planets in a procedural universe, where you can invite other players to your decided upon base planet, or join them in adventures on uncharted ones, or go pvp them on asteroids.  YES PLEASE

then i heard about this on these very forums http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen-project/ which also looks very cool

then i was flicking through the various ZombieManEater7 dross on greenlight and stumbled upon this http://www.starforge.com/  "Minecraft meets tribes wtf?  that can never work, wait a minute lets watch the videos, whoah guy getting hit by a chainsaw on the roof of a space ship, falling 3 miles through space and landing on a planet" ,  honestly it looks awesome fun for pvpers, a kill the other guys base game, where you actually build a base and vehicles and guns and stuff and have to go mine the materials for it.  It has a solo pve mode too.

then we hear about the daddy of them all.  The long awaited Elite 4 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous - WOOT!

 

jpnz

Don't forget the existing space game series that is holding the genre on its back; the X series by Egosoft.

Think X4 is due out next year or something as well.

Drox-Operative is also in Beta as well; think Space Rangers.