Ok, now that's out of the way...

This game is hard.

Like, hard hard. My keyboard would be in pieces whenever I play this game if I could afford to buy a new keyboard every other day. You will be put in situations where no matter how well you play, or how diligently you prepare, you will fail. Sometimes its fun, sometimes it not, but the vast majority of times you will learn something from your failure.

This is the key to understanding FLT.

Its not a power-trip fantasy about blasting your way through hordes of enemies before an epic final heroic fight against the big bad evil faction's ship (though some runs may lean towards this) rather, FTL is a story about a desperate struggle against an unforgiving galaxy to survive, and see that the sacrifices, your sacrifices, to persevere were not in vain.

Victory is not guaranteed, you will face trials and tribulations, and for you every battle is either a pyrrhic win or total defeat. Beloved crew will die moments before rescue, slaughtered by the tenacious and desperate enemy or succumbing to the brutal reality of space. You will attempt to save a planet from famine and plague, only to be rewarded with a laser through the chest of your best pilot. Your missile will miss the enemy ship at the critical moment, flying errantly into deep space as the battered rebel scout escapes with the information of your position to the armada seeking your destruction. But every failure is a lesson, and few defeats are without their foreshadowing.

Eventually, you will develop the skill, knowledge, and fortune to guide your crew to victory against overwhelming odds. You will find the balance between temporal demands and the preparations required for the last struggle against the Rebel Flagship, the representation of the forces which have sought your annihilation, and you will land the killing blow upon the beast which has taunted you for so many failed attempts to mar its impenetrable visage, saving the galaxy from totalitarian xenophobic fascism and earning you an your crew a deserved congratulations on your grand achievement.

And then you will move the difficulty from easy to normal.

Dramatic? Yes, but FTL warrants such exaltation. Although the name of the game is often frustration, it comes from being truly invested in seeing your ship succeed against the odds, and success in any measure becomes cathartic. The story you make by playing FTL, the decisions which you have to make, elevates FTL into being one of the best games of all time. And the Multiverse mod for FLT takes it to 11. Seriously, once you are good at base FLT download the Multiverse mod and it is like you are given FLT 2 for free. It's slightly easier in my experience, but it takes all that makes FLT good and makes it better.

Enough rambling, buy the game. And if you can't afford it, DM me. FTL is a gift deserving of being charitably given.

Call me crazy, but FTL is *ahem* - MY FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME.

What?! you say? HOW??!! you ask? Well I’ll tell you.

The Contenders

These are the two other games that might have gotten my GOAT vote:

Breath of the Wild, which surprised and delighted me in every possible way and redefined what I thought was possible in gaming. This would top my RPG GOAT list.

Slay the Spire, with its endless replayability, captivating art style and score, perfectly balanced gameplay and deeply sophisticated deck mechanics. This tops my deckbuilder GOAT list.

I’ve loved a ton of games, many of them I’d describe as “perfect games”, but nothing has brought me as many hours of pure, unadulterated joy as FTL. Hundreds of hours. My 12 year old son adores this game and he started playing at age 7 (he once had me tweet at the Subset Games guys with a photo of a huge enemy vessel where he’d lit every room on fire). My wife loves this game, it’s one of 3 games she plays on loop.

Here’s what makes FTL my all time favorite, a game that was made by 2 PEOPLE, funded on Kickstarter.

Deep Story

The best games don’t tell you a story, they empower you to MAKE the story through your gameplay. If a game TELLS you too much story, it slows down the gameplay. If it doesn’t provide ENOUGH story, the experience lacks depth. FTL gives you just enough bites at the story apple to keep you satisfied but not so much that it slows you down. Fans of Firefly or Battlestar Galactica will feel like they’re captain of the Serenity, vulnerable in the desolate expanse of space, trying to navigate the tense standoff between the rebel forces and various other galactic races.

Even though this is a pixelart indie, you feel like you’re playing an exciting role in a grand experience. This works both on a casual level (random encounter with an Engi Vessel) and on the expert level (chasing down the Legendary thief KazaaakplethKilik for an awesome ship unlock).

Perfect Mechanics

The real magic of FTL is the way you play the game - or rather the many ways you CAN play the game. They give you 4 different mechanics (weapons management, systems management, crew management and route management) and invite you to make choices about how you conduct each system. A good game might get ONE of these just right - really fun ship vs. ship battles, for example. FLT nails all 4, so that each mechanic is really fun on it’s own.

You can choose from many different weapons and weapon types, making a ship that eliminates shields and then does damage with beams, or a ship that protects you with drones, and then attacks with other drones.

When it comes to systems, not only must you manage your various systems (upgrade them, protect them from attack, put out fires) but you can change and add systems that fit better with your weapons loadout (add, say, crew teleportation so your vicious Mantis crew can take out an enemy crew, yielding better rewards).

Crew can be of several races and each race is good at some things and bad at others: Rock are strong but slow. Mantis are glass cannons. Humans, all-rounders. You use them to fix holes in your hull, to board enemy ships, to fight off intruders. So much versatility for your tiny, pixelart characters, and each is named for a Kickstarter backer, which gives even more dimension to your playthrough.

Lastly, how you choose your route matters more than it does in any other roguelike (including gold standard games like Slay the Spire.) Do you risk jumping to a distress signal, which might yield great rewards, knowing that the rebels might catch you if you fall behind? Did you check your starmap to ensure you aren’t branching out into a dead end? If you find the “scanners” augment in the shop, snatch that up EVERY time - it reveals what kind of node you’re jumping to, helping you make run-saving decisions.

Real Time PLUS Turn Based Tactical

During battles, you can play things out in real time, or pause the action to make any number of decisions at once. The contrast between fussy decision making and real time action is riveting, you feel like you’re right in the captain’s chair, making life or death decisions.

Pacing

It’s hard to make a roguelike scale from level to level, so you feel like the challenge mounts as you progress, but isn’t unfairly difficult. And in the endgame, it’s hard to build to a final bossfight where you feel like you’re going up against a behemoth, and a win feels like you managed the impossible. FTL manages this flawlessly. Early “jumps” (world maps) are challenging but doable. Middle jumps require good builds and the endgame requires an exceptional build PLUS good decisions. The final boss battle happens in three phases and you can’t sleep on any of them if you expect to emerge victorious. Fair, fun, challenging and satisfying. Perfectly balanced.

RNG

Sprinkled through your run are a series of choices. Do you go to the surface to deal with a giant spider, risking the lives of your crew for possible rewards? Do you engage a peaceful vessel or hire them to scout the sector? These choices impact your runs, but in such small increments that they add flavor to your experience. In general, one small RNG fail won’t tank your run, but it’s enough to feel like you rolled the dice and won/lost, which adds even more dimension to the game.

Void Wars

In 2025, fans of FTL made an FTL clone called Void Wars (free demo on Steam) and it’s a love letter / near carbon copy of the game, with a few modern adjustments and a totally different vibe and style (Warhammer 4,000). The Subset Game guys gave it their blessing and you’ve gotta love that kind of effort from fans…but I don’t enjoy the game. I wish I did. I don’t enjoy being in their world. FTL has a whimsy, humor, it has classic sci-fi scenery and I LOVE being in that world. But if you take the same exact game and set it in a grim cyberpunk hell? It changes everything in a way that just isn’t for me.

In Conclusion

Put all this together and you have an incredible variety of possible playthroughs. It never gets repetitive, always feels urgent and is so satisfying when you get it right. Subset games followed up FTL with Into The Breach, another terrific (perfect?) game - and it’s a delight to play. But it doesn’t rise to FTL’s perfection, and for my money nothing else does. I think this is the best game ever made.

Fight me.

Git gud, amirite? This game is extremely difficult, even on the easy mode. I can't recommend it, despite how much fun the game is holistically, because I don't think the average player will be able to complete it. As of this writing in 2026, only 25.9% of players have beaten the game on easy mode.

To be up front, I haven't beaten it either. I've gotten to the final boss ship multiple times in under 6 hours but I can't come close to beating it because it requires both specific build outs to make easier and luck with RNG. On my best attempt, I got the enemy ship down to 3 health points but it took my ships health down from 50% to 0% during that time... And, I'm not willing to bang my head against this for another 6-20 hours just to hope my rng is lucky enough to win.

It's a shame because I think this is a really good sim game overall. I really like the expanding enemy forces, the variety of guns vs droids and capability to build your ship slightly the same or slightly differently in each game. It's a great casual game of this sort that you can sit down to play for 15-30 mins at a time.

But, as I said, I can't recommend it because it's incredibly difficult and almost unbeatable unless you get a perfect luck run for scrap gain, weapon options, and missile/bomb hits on the enemy ships.