One of humankind’s greatest achievements is to be able to see somewhere they can’t travel and then make something to allow them to traverse it.
Be it the sky, the sea, space or underground, we’ve been able to createmachines that can take us into places unknown.
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In video games, this thrill of engineering is no less enthralling, with it constantly showing up in various forms, and some games are even made entirely around the profession.
For this list, we’ll be specifically looking at ships for both sea and space. Ranking is based on a combination of the customisability, depth of content and how fun it is to make and pilot the ships.
10No Man’s Sky
Another New Feature In The Redemption Of The Century
No Man’s Sky
No Man’s Skyhas really come a long way since its disastrous launch. Hello Games didn’t rest on its laurels, however, and continued to refine and add to the game with ship building making an appearance in 2024 alongside the Orbital update.
It’s not quite a full-blown ship editor like some other games in this list, however. Instead, you have to scrap three ships you own, taking either the cockpit, engine or wings from each until youbuild an entire starship in No Man’s Sky.
These can then be combined, alongside a reactor core which can be brought to a merchant’s stall, into either a Fighter, Hauler or Explorer Starship.
9Minecraft
Block By Block
InMinecraft, you can make anything you can think of, as long as it’s able to be in block form. The same goes for ships, with great pirate ships or colossal machines of war being made in blocky glory.
Problem is, most of these can’t be piloted, unless you’re a wizz at Redstone. If you want an easier boat though, then don’t worry! This is also possible, using five wooden planks of the same type.
This creates a pilotable boat, which can be used by two players, or mobs, or, as with the achievement, a goat.
8Starfield
Build Ships To Explore And ‘Retrieve’ Artifacts
Fextralife Wiki
Starfield, thelatest blockbuster franchise by Bethesda, has you join a group of space explorers who set out to explore the Milky Way galaxy, to find and retrieve various artifacts.
To help with this, you can buy new ships and refit them to fit your particular build. There’s quite an extensive ship editor when you visit a Technician, with you being able to place new cockpits, weapons, grav drives and more.
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You can also allocate power levels to certain weapons and a host of other cosmetic options. You can even house multiple ships in your garage, so you canbuild different types of shipfrom pirates to exploration, and bring out the best one suited to your situation.
7The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Give Link An Ultrahand
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
InBreath of the Wild&Tears of the Kingdom, Link is tasked with, you guessed it, saving the world. To help with this, he can paraglide, slide on his shield, and yes, sail in a boat.
In BOTW, you would have to find a boat and create your own wind. In TOTK, however, Link now has the ability to create his own ship using his Ultrahand ability.
No longer are you bound by a Korok Leaf’s propulsion power. Instead, you can strap a couple of logs together with a jet booster and skim along the surface, hover boat style.
6Ark: Survival Ascended
Build A Raft To Protect Yourself
Ark: Survival Ascended
InArk: Survival Ascended, you are placed onto a map filled with dinosaurs and tasked with taming them, defending against them and just generally surviving.
To help with this, you may make bases, including on the water via a Raft. This Raft can be expanded from its basic shape of a wooden platform with a sail to a full-blown pirate ship, allowing you to house tame dinosaurs, beds, chests and more.
This is particularly useful for the early game, as most dinosaurs can’t attack you while you’re on the open seas. you may also upgrade your Raft to become a Motorboat, allowing for quicker travel, larger ships and more health.
5Kingdom Hearts 1
Colourful Ships To Defeat The Darkness
Kingdom Hearts
InKingdom Hearts 1, you control Sora, achild hero, who must save the many worlds of Disney from falling into darkness.
To get from world to world, you need to use your Gummi Ship to pilot through space and defeat enemies. To help you with this, you have Chip and Dale, who can help you to build the best Gummi Ship for your needs, either through pre-configured ships or your own imagination.
After collecting Gummi Blocks and weapons across the lands, you can enter the garage and create the ship of your dreams, as long as it fits within the Gummi limit you have, of course.
Do you want to focus on defence or offence? Automatic lasers or pinpoint precision? And, most importantly, what are you going to call it?
4HighFleet
Immersive But Unintuitive
MicroProse
Action-Adventure, Strategy
Release Date
HighFleet is probably the least-known game on this list, but that doesn’t lower its power to enthrall the people who take the time to learn its systems.
As a commander of the Sayadi Task Force, you’ve been sent to regain control of the Kingdom of Gerat. To do this, you’ll need to create a variety of ships depending on the situation and then control them in battle.
The ship editor is a 2D blueprint editor, and as such, offers a really granular and intricate approach to ship building. You can place individual parts in a very compact nature, allowing for really complicated ships to be created.
It’s difficult to explain on paper, so take a look at thisvideo to see what can be made.
3Space Engineers
Engineer A Spaceship And Crash It To See What Happens
Space Engineers
InSpace Engineers, you control an unnamed ‘Space Engineer’ who can build, either solo or with up to 32 friends, various spaceships.
In Survival mode, you have to find materials and manage resources such as fuel, while in Creative mode, you are free to build whatever your imagination (and PC power) can handle.
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The game uses a voxel-based system, which allows for physics-based collisions and destruction. For the uninitiated, read this as, ‘if I crash into the side of a ship, it will be realistically crushed depending on my weight, power, material etc.’.
you may also land on to planet’s surfaces to mine their resources, but make sure to take note of what atmosphere they have and what engines you’re using, otherwise you may find yourself stranded.
2Besiege: The Splintered Sea
Create Ships To Sink Other Ships
PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox
Spiderling Studios
Februrary 2020
In Besiege, and specifically, the The Splintered Sea expansion, you can make a variety of different ships and water-based machines of war, through a 15-level campaign.
As with the base game, you have to take into account real-life physics, with hydrodynamics being the order of the day this time.
Using a variety of blocks, from floats to rudders and paddles, you’re able to make anything from a pirate ship to a submarine and set them to work against the forces of Admiral Drasckar.
And if this has w(h)et your appetite for more physics-based machine destruction, know you canbuild some crazy machines in Besieges.
Guess What You Can Make?
InRaft, you make, well, a raft. As one of the survivors of an apocalypse which has left the planet flooded, you have set out to find the remnants of civilization.
While starting out on just a 2x2 raft, you can expand it by hooking on to passing driftwood and other materials, slowly building out your raft to be a ship worth calling home.
Just ensure you leave enough room for the engines required to move your raft, as well as home for the animals you’ll need to rear for food.
Oh, and watch out for sharks, as they can easily break your raft if you haven’t set up protection.
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