Space Empires V

Space Empires V

Malfador Machinations · October 16, 2006 · Strategy, 4X, Space, Turn-Based, Sci-fi

Buy the Space Empires V key for Steam from Driffle INC at $1.02 — the cheapest of 18 stores we compare.

PC
Mostly Positive73% · 48068Metacritic13playing now
Best price 81 Lowest tracked
$1.02-91%
lowest tracked $1.01
Driffle INC Buy at Driffle INC

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Where to buy Space Empires V — official stores

Fanatical
Standard Edition · Steam
-21%
$11.89
$14.99
Buy
Gamesload
Gamesload
Standard Edition · Steam
-17%
$12.49
$14.99
Buy
GamersGate
GamersGate
Standard Edition · Steam
-10%
$13.49
$14.99
Buy
Gamesplanet
Standard Edition · Steam
-10%
$13.49
$14.99
Buy
GreenManGaming
Standard Edition · Steam
$14.99
Buy
Steam
Steam
Standard Edition · Steam
$14.99
Buy
IndieGala Store
IndieGala Store
Standard Edition · Steam
$14.99
Buy
Epic Game Store
Epic Game Store
Standard Edition · Epic Games
$14.99
Buy
WinGameStore
WinGameStore
Standard Edition · Steam
$14.99
Buy

Cheapest Space Empires V keys — keyshops

Keyshops are third-party marketplaces — keys are resold and can be region-locked or a different edition. Check the listing's region & edition before buying.

Driffle INC
Standard Edition · Steam
$1.02
Buy
Gameseal
Standard Edition · Steam
$1.10
Buy
YUPLAY
Standard Edition · Steam
-92%
$1.40
$16.82
Buy
Eneba
Standard Edition · Steam
$1.25
Buy
Kinguin
Standard Edition · Steam
$1.43
Buy
Loaded
Standard Edition · Steam
-88%
$1.99
$17.29
Buy
CJS CD Keys
CJS CD Keys
Standard Edition · Steam
$2.32
Buy
Gamesporium
Gamesporium
Standard Edition · Steam
$14.99
Buy
Fortuna Digital
Fortuna Digital
Standard Edition · Steam
$14.99
Buy

Some store links are affiliate links — playze may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes the price you pay, and the cheapest confirmed price is always shown in the Best price box above.

Space Empires V price by region

Space Empires V costs £0.76 in the United Kingdom, €0.90 in Europe (EUR), $1.02 in the United States, $1.02 in Georgia (USD), R$5.62 in Brazil, CA$13.47 in Canada, A$17.05 in Australia, NZ$19.99 in New Zealand and zł49.00 in Poland right now.

Cheapest Space Empires V offer in each region, in local currency
RegionBest priceOfficial storeKey shopStores
United Kingdom £0.76 −91% £8.71 £0.76 15
Europe (EUR) €0.90 −92% €11.89 €0.90 18
United Statesyour region $1.02 −91% $11.89 $1.02 18
Georgia (USD) $1.02 −87% $7.99 $1.02 16
Brazil R$5.62 −75% R$22.39 R$5.62 13
Canada CA$13.47 −21% CA$13.47 CA$19.49 15
Australia A$17.05 −21% A$17.05 A$24.99 14
New Zealand NZ$19.99 −10% NZ$19.99 NZ$21.99 11
Poland zł49.00 −10% zł49.00 zł67.99 13

Each row is a real price from that region's own stores, not a currency conversion, so the figures are not directly comparable. Switch regions in the header to shop the one you buy in.

Screenshots

About Space Empires V

✦ AI summary

Command a sprawling intergalactic empire across a massive 3D galaxy, designing custom ships and bases while managing diplomacy, technology research, and tactical combat against rival civilizations. Every aspect—from planets and starships to AI opponents and entire gameplay rules—is fully moddable and customizable, letting you build the space strategy experience you want to play.

Space Empires V is the latest edition in the Space Empires series. This new chapter completely updates the UI and takes the player into a real-time rendered 3D universe. Watch space battles played out in glorious detail and realistic effects. Expand, Explore, Exploit, and Exterminate in a huge living breathing galaxy. New features abound with political alliances between multiple empires, a top-down ship design system, a hexagonal movement grid, and many more. Due to player demand, the game is completely 'moddable' and even adds a scriptable AI system to the mix. Space Empires V boldly takes the next step in the genre of space strategy
  • 24 bit 3D real-time rendered graphics.
  • Detailed Tactical Combat (and a combat simulator to test your designs!).
  • New vehicle types and sizes: Ships, Bases, Freighters, Fighters, Mines, Satellites, Troops, Drones, and Weapons Platforms.
  • Ability to completely design and customize all of your vehicles.
  • Large Galaxy: 100 solar systems with 15 planets each.
  • Huge Technology Tree: Thousands of tech levels with hundreds of components and facilities.
  • Completely customizable game graphics: Create your own planets, stars, vehicles, etc.
  • Completely customizable AI players: Create your own AI players with unique traits, styles, and speech.
  • 14 unique races to play or customize (or just create your own!)
  • Randomly generated map for every game (or load an existing map).
  • Complete game customization allowed by players ("mods").

Space Empires V — game info

Platforms
Windows
Player modes
Single-player, Multiplayer
PC Game Pass
Not included

What Steam players say

Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.

✦ AI summary

Space Empires V is a deeply customizable space 4X strategy game with a massive tech tree, extensive race and galaxy customization, and support for multiple playstyles from diplomacy to warfare, earning praise as one of the best in its genre with exceptional replayability. Common complaints center on its steep learning curve with convoluted mechanics and sparse documentation, compatibility issues on modern systems, and notably weak diplomatic AI that undermines non-military approaches.

Recommended Aug 25, 2026
The best Space 4x game I know of. Customizable races (or play with the premade ones like the "Terrans" )-some with proprietary technologies. Customize traits, appearance/ships, names used etc. Save them, reuse them, or populate future games with custom races Customizable games- customize the galaxy you play in, # of races, set racial trait limits, intelligence/espionage, technology research rate, etc.(if you want to get to Dyson Spheres and Ring Worlds without taking ages turn Tech rate up) The tech tree is massive and supports a ton of different strategies(sadly diplomatic AI is kinda dumb and random) and some different play types beyond wars. Highly advanced tech allows you to manipulate the galaxy- form planets out of asteroid belts, destroy planets(for sphere world materials?) or even stars or warp points, or create new ones CONTROLLABLE BATTLES -in connection with the next point lets you design specialist units, combined forces for fleet warfare, even pacifist units that don't kill if you want to Customizable ships/satellites/space stations/mines/drones/fighters/ground troops of different size classes(smaller ships are faster+more evasive). Dozens of weapon ty…
4 found this helpful
Recommended Aug 13, 2026
Truly a loss when Strategy First bought out this developer only to kill one of the best strategy games out there because it was a threat to their game Gal Civ, we went from having true strategic and tactical combat to command to attack and watch pretty lights. I played this game so much even before I got it on steam and honestly wish they would bring games like this back. I love the different ways you could play this game, you wanted to be a true isolationist then that was possible in this game, you could easily be the race that was a aggressive swarm and anything in between. I really also loved the fact that if you where in a war that you couldn't win you could develop stealth technology and build a ship that could slip though their sensors and defense with a warhead that would make a star go super nova or even build a stealth mine layer along their attack routes to damage them before they get to your space. the game also got logistics right as well, your ships needed supplies to run and ordinance to fire it's weapons, with a logistics system, you couldn't wage war or defend your self. If this game ever came back as a real time instead of a turn base with updated easier to us…
2 found this helpful
Recommended Jul 3, 2026
didn't expect to like this one as much as I do, still a lot to learn but I can see sinking a lot of hours into this and space empires 4 deluxe.
1 found this helpful
Recommended Sep 12, 2026
Very underrated. Excellet 4X space game, everything is highly customizable and moddable, great if you like to roleplay a bit, high replayability. Spent almost 100 hours on it barely noticing I do recommend playing with Captain Kwok's Rebalancing mod though Also, make no mistake, it is a complex game, even by the genre's standards. Many basic mechanics are convoluted, unintuitive and not covered by the tutorial, and since the game is old and kind of niche even in its day online guides are scarse, so you'll have to figure out many things by trial and error. But hey, that's part of the fun There are compatibility issues with newer systems, but i found simply running the game in windowed mode seems to fix everything
Recommended Aug 30, 2026
I've been a fan of this franchise since it was Freeware for Windows 95.
Recommended Jul 28, 2026
a friend and i got the game to work over TCP/IP , after port forwarding both PC's . but when i tried to generate the large map it crashed . so we are doing a medium map . there is probably more things i can do to modernize the computing power.

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