Going again so far as 1980’s Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, science fiction and D&D have all the time had a connection. Barrier Peaks was a D&D journey by Gary Gygax which featured a crashed spaceship, robots, and ray weapons. The participant characters had been common fantasy D&D characters, however the uncommon state of affairs they discovered themselves in was pure sci-fi. You possibly can seize a 5E conversion information for it over on DM’s Guild, and Goodman Video games put out a conversion again in 2019.
Earlier editions of D&D’s d20 System even powered official Star Wars video games from WotC. As of late it seems like D&D sci-fi is having a second! With Traveller 5e presently crowdfunding, let’s take a fast have a look at a few of the numerous 5E-powered science fiction video games presently accessible:
- Esper Genesis
- Darkish Matter
- Carbon 2025
- Voidrunner’s Codex
- Exodus
- Traveller 5E
- Neon Odyssey
Esper Genesis from Alligator Alley Leisure was one of many earliest 5E sci-fi video games. It launched on Kickstarter in 2017, so it’s positively venerable in the case of this listing. It’s impressed by Star Wars, Mass Impact, Phantasy Star, and Ghost within the Shell, and options psionic characters known as “Espers”.
Darkish Matter from Mage Hand Press got here alongside in 2018 (and there is a new Mega Field model which only recently crowdfunded) as a marketing campaign setting. It was adopted by a full starter set in 2020. Like Esper Genesis, that is impressed by area opera with influences like Star Wars, Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy, The Expanse, and Doom.
In 2019, Dragon Turtle Video games crowdfunded Carbon 2025. This one was extra cyberpunk than area opera, set in a dystopian America. Like many cyberpunk video games, it options cybernetics, hacking, and evil firms.
The Voidrunner’s Codex from EN Publishing (that is us!) was in 2024, and was a giant slipcase containing three books, a GM display, and a field filled with maps, deckplans, and tokens. Once more, area opera was its inspiration, with Star Trek, Star Wars and the like on the forefront.
Exodus is a sci-fi TTRPG initially developed by one in every of WotC’s recreation studios, based mostly on the upcoming online game, was shared with early adopters in 2025, and is because of be launched through Renegade Recreation Studios later this 12 months. It feels like Renegade has plans to proceed the road; the preliminary releases in August would be the Exodus Traveler’s Handbook and the Creature Catalog.
Traveller 5e is the presently crowdfunding mission from World’s Largest RPGs. It is an adaption of the enduring Traveller recreation to the 5E ruleset, and is one other with a giant field filled with tokens and maps and stuff.
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Neon Odyssey from Legends of Avantris is coming quickly to Kickstarter and with over 15,000 pre-launch followers appears to be like like a powerful contender for the million greenback TTRPG crowdfunder membership. It, like many of the others, is BIG and, like many of the others, focuses on area opera.
There’s additionally an unofficial community-built Star Wars 5E on the market, and video games like Stars With out Quantity or Starfinder are D&D-adjacent, whereas issues like Spelljammer are extra fantasy than sci-fi. And, after all, there are many non-D&D sci-fi video games out there–Alien, The Expanse, and so forth.
So, so long as area opera is your jam, it appears to be like such as you’re spoiled for selections! Most appear to return in containers or slipcases and loaded with maps, tokens, and different goodies, they usually typically cowl comparable things–psionics, starship constructing and fight, massive gear lists, automobiles, and so forth. Since they’re all 5E-powered, in principle they need to all be cross-compatible so you’ll be able to pilfer alien monsters from one recreation and use them in one other, and choose your alternative of psionic programs. The props–deckplans, tokens, and so on–will be helpful in any sci-fi recreation.
Now we’ve got area opera well-covered, is it time for some gritty sci-fi? Mongoose has its new NASA-adjacent Pioneer recreation coming (which could be very well timed with as we speak’s Artemis II launch!) however that is powered by (non-5E) Traveller fairly than the D&D ruleset. Maybe 5E is not the proper ruleset for a gritty recreation, because the zero-to-hero trajectory is certainly designed with excessive fantasy in thoughts. Shattered Worlds from Siegebreaker Video games is a post-apocalyptic recreation, and Scrapper: Powered by 5E is a sci-fi setting the place you play salvage engineers in area.
What’s your favorite 5E-powered recreation?
