Space Engineers is an open world sandbox game about designing, building and testing your own space machines. Construct ships, stations and planetary bases in a fully destructible environment, then explore planets and space, mine resources, survive hazards and engage in combat alone or with friends in Creative or Survival modes.
Play solo or in multiplayer, from small co-op outposts to huge community servers. Start with a simple lander, grow into a mining and industrial empire, or focus on warships and planetary fortresses – the game gives you the tools and physics, you decide what to build.
Space Engineers uses a volumetric physics engine: every block and voxel has mass, inertia and damage. Ships break apart, stations crumble and terrain can be drilled, carved and reshaped, so your engineering choices really matter.
Space Engineers is grounded in real engineering and hard science fiction, driven by realism and plausible near-future technology. Think modern space programs extrapolated into the future: realistic ships, stations, tools and systems where everything is built and simulated block by block. It’s about the machinery you build, not about magic or scripted set-pieces.
Why play Space Engineers (SE1) now?
10+ years of active development with many free updates every year – and still ongoing
Huge Steam Workshop with thousands of ships, bases, mods, scripts and scenarios
Stable, feature-rich sandbox ideal for long-term saves and big community servers
All DLC is cosmetic-only – everyone plays with the same gameplay
Active player base, dedicated servers and modding community
Core features
Build anything
Design and pilot small and large ships, asteroid stations and planetary bases
Over 200 functional blocks: thrusters, rotors, pistons, turrets, conveyors, production blocks and more
First- and third-person building, symmetry tools and blueprints for fast large-scale construction
Manual building in Survival: weld to assemble blocks, grind to disassemble and reuse components
Fully destructible world
Voxel planets, moons and asteroids with atmospheres, gravity and climate zones
Drill, cut and blast terrain; carve tunnels, craters and underground bases
Ships and structures take block-by-block damage and can break into pieces
Deformable and destructible objects with real mass, storage capacity and integrity
Play your way
Creative – unlimited resources, instant building, no death
Survival – manual assembly, resource and power management, death/respawn
Singleplayer or multiplayer (co-op or competitive) with privacy settings and dedicated servers
Scenarios, Workshop worlds and custom worlds so you can start in exactly the kind of universe you want
Endless replayability
Super-large worlds with procedural asteroids and exploration encounters
Exploration systems that add ships and stations to discover, capture and conquer
Visual Script Editor to create your own missions, game modes and campaigns
Cargo ships, factions and AI-controlled threats to interact with – or defend against
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Modding & scripting
Deep Steam Workshop integration for worlds, blueprints, mods and scripts
Modding API in C# to change game behaviour and add new systems
Programmable block for in-game automation and custom logic
Support for custom textures, models and many other mod types
Systems & survival
Electricity, power grids and generators powering your entire base or ship
Oxygen and hydrogen for life support and thrusters
Weapons and combat blocks for ship-to-ship battles and base defense
GPS, remote control, voxel hands, controller support and more quality-of-life tools
Extensive language support with official and community localizations
