Space Engineers is a hard science-fiction sandbox game that revolves around the design, construction and maintenance of spaceships, stations, rovers, autonomous drones, weapons, and other man-made constructs. Space Engineers uses a realistic physics engine as all objects can be assembled, disassembled, damaged, or destroyed.
The game offers a Creative Mode and a Survival Mode. Players can choose between open-ended self-guided sandbox gameplay or play included scenarios that present storylines and challenges with winning conditions. The game can be played as single player or on dedicated multiplayer servers.
The setting is a fully explorable star system with asteroids, moons, and planets. Players can land on voxel-based planets and moons and experience gravity and weather, but there are no orbital mechanics.
Players extract ores and ice from fully destructible asteroids and planets and build factories to assemble components. The game contains ~200 building blocks including armor, functional blocks, thrusters and wheels, mechanical blocks, magnetic blocks, power production, light and sound sources, programmable blocks, AI, and aesthetic blocks. Players build ships, rovers, mechs, and space stations of any shape and size and share blueprints on the community workshop.
Players pilot their own ships and rovers and can freely walk the interiors and exteriors using magnetic boots and jetpacks. Players can trade goods with players and NPCs, earn credits for fulfilling contracts, found factions, wage wars, and salvage wrecks.