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Recommended reading
Best space games on PC
Games The best space games on PC
Space crafts move past a rocky surface bathed in orange light
Sim EVE Frontier, CCP's survival MMO about rebuilding civilization among the ruins of a spacefaring empire, is getting a big update and moving into public alpha
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Action Stars of Icarus is a spunky co-op spaceship romp from the creators of Guns of Icarus, swapping steampunk for '90s anime
Gaming Industry This 'tediously accurate' map of our solar system with the moon scaled to a single pixel would still take 665 monitors laid end-to-end to show all at once
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  1. Games

57 amazing space screenshots for your desktop

Features
By Ian Birnbaum published 9 September 2016

Incredible sights from EVE, Star Citizen, Mass Effect, and more.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

It’s hard to picture space without getting a bit romantic and philosophical. Looking up at the stars is arguably humanity’s oldest form of entertainment. Space reminds us who we are, who we were, and who we’re trying to be. Space gives us distance and perspective from our pale blue dot, and it invites us to our most dangerous challenges.

A lot of our favorite games are set in space, and it’s no coincidence that many of those games are absurdly gorgeous. We want to look at beautiful space pictures all the time, so we rounded up the best shots on the web and brought them all to one place.

Some of these pictures have run on PC Gamer before, usually captured by screenshot maestro Andy Kelly in pixel-boosted 4K glory. We found others by crawling through subreddits and Steam community groups in search of awe-inspiring starships and nebulas. All of them are worthy of adorning your desktop.

Want 'em all? We've packaged the whole lot of hi-res images as a zip file.

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TOPICS
Best of
PRODUCTS
Elite: Dangerous Star Citizen Kerbal Space Program Mass Effect 3 Mass Effect Universe Sandbox Take On Mars EVE Online
Ian Birnbaum
Read more
Best space games on PC
The best space games on PC
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Two small space craft exchange laser shots as another larger vessel bursts into flames
Stars of Icarus is a spunky co-op spaceship romp from the creators of Guns of Icarus, swapping steampunk for '90s anime
This 'tediously accurate' map of our solar system with the moon scaled to a single pixel would still take 665 monitors laid end-to-end to show all at once
A three screen setup is seen on a desk. These screens are encased in an off-white shell designed to look retro and bring to mind classic CRT housing.
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