DarkOrbit Reloaded review

This Dark Orbit review is based on official sources and player reviews, not on our own play time. Bigpoint's space MMO, listed on Steam as DarkOrbit Reloaded since December 3, 2025, is free on Windows. Pilots join one of three companies and fight aliens and each other. Money buys packages in the payment area with ships, lasers, modules and ammo, the Season Pass and Extra Gold Pass, Season Points and keys for random boxes, some of which have published odds.

What is DarkOrbit?

DarkOrbit is a long-running free-to-play space MMO from Bigpoint GmbH, now listed on Steam as DarkOrbit Reloaded. Its story starts after reckless use of jump gates provoked an alien attack on Earth. Three conglomerates came out of it, Earth Industries Corporation (EIC), Mars Mining Operations (MMO) and Venus Resources Unlimited (VRU), and you fly for one of them.

You customize a ship with drones, lasers, generators and other equipment, trade resources such as Prometium, Endurium and Terbium, bid on items at auction and build Galaxy Gates to reach hidden sectors. The Skylab is where you allocate resources. Bigpoint lists both PvP combat and PvE missions, plus a main quest.

The game is still updated. On October 21, 2026, Bigpoint opened a new permanent server, Himalia - Global 6, and added Kristallon Apotheosis, a weekly server-wide boss event. An October 14 post describes performance fixes for both the Flash client and the newer Unity client, and Global 6 can be played in both.

Is Dark Orbit free to play?

Yes. Steam lists DarkOrbit Reloaded as Free To Play, and Bigpoint calls it a free-2-play space MMO.

The new Global 6 server shows how much a free account receives early on. Its leveling missions give 30,000 Uridium at level 1, a Diminisher ship, LF-4 lasers and two weeks of Premium at level 5, and up to 200,000 Uridium and Artemis drones at level 25. These leveling missions exist only on the new server.

The Season Pass has a free rewards track for everyone. Red and Blue Booty Box keys can be crafted from Scrap, Aurus and Schism, a material that drops in Galaxy Gates. Event recipes, such as those in the Agatus Breach event, turn materials from aliens into ship designs, a P.E.T. and extras. Bigpoint also posts voucher codes on Steam; the July 2026 DODELAY code gave two weeks of Premium, Extra Energy and two five-hour boosters.

Is Dark Orbit pay to win? What money buys

Bigpoint sells packages in the game's payment area. The October 1 to 7, 2026 Unification Sale offered HP, SHD, DMG and SPC module packs, LF-5 Mortifier laser packs, special ammo packs and ship design packs, plus 15% off Galaxy Gate spins for four days. The summer 2026 design sale bundled ship designs with bonus ammunition and boosters.

The Season Pass Gold track is unlocked with Uridium or through the payment section. Per the official FAQ, the Extra Gold Pass on top of it gave the Retiarus Plus ship at level 1 and an LF-5 Mortifier laser at level 90 in Season 12. Season Point packs and level purchases with Uridium speed up the pass. Premium time and boosters also exist.

Random boxes are part of the shop: Booty keys can be bought there. Bigpoint publishes chances for the Red and Blue Booty Boxes, for example a 3% chance of a Legend P.E.T. pack from a Red box, and for the Obsidian Box design packs. No odds were found for Galaxy Gate spins.

The three companies fight each other in open PvP and in events such as Galactic Strife.

Based on what the official stores sell, we rate it as strongly pay to win; we will check this again when we play it ourselves.

Dark Orbit on PC, Mac, consoles and mobile

DarkOrbit Reloaded is a Windows game on Steam, released there on December 3, 2025. Steam lists Windows only, with Windows 7 or later and DirectX 9.0c.

Outside Steam, the official forum explains that new players can download the Unity client from Bigpoint and register an account in it, and that existing players see a download link in the server menu. The darkorbit.com home page itself sits behind a login. Bigpoint's own site lists Dark Orbit among its desktop games.

Older pages still call DarkOrbit a browser game, but no current official page confirms browser play without a client, so this review treats it as a PC download. No Mac, Linux, console or mobile version is offered.

Steam lists 20 languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Polish, Turkish and Brazilian Portuguese. Servers are grouped by name, such as the Global servers, and Global 6 does not offer the training arena or UBA, according to its FAQ.

Dark Orbit system requirements

Steam is the only official place that lists requirements for DarkOrbit Reloaded, and its figures need a caution.

Minimum: Windows 7 or later, a dual-core Intel or AMD processor at 2.8 GHz, an NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 or AMD Radeon HD 5750 or better, DirectX 9.0c and a broadband connection. The listing gives memory as 4 MB and storage as 6 MB of available space.

Recommended: the same processor, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 7800 or better and DirectX 9.0c, with memory listed as 8 MB and storage again as 6 MB.

The RAM and storage units are very likely meant as gigabytes, since the same GPU tiers appear in Bigpoint's Drakensang Online listing with 4 GB and 8 GB of RAM. Until Bigpoint corrects the page, plan for at least 4 GB of RAM and a few gigabytes of free space.

Games like Dark Orbit

These games from our catalog also center on ships, fleets and battles between players:

Star Trek Fleet Command: Scopely's free strategy game, live since November 2018, where you run a starbase and a fleet with alliance PvP, on iOS, Android, Windows and Mac.

Space Engineers: Keen Software House's sandbox game in which you design, build and fly ships and stations, with single-player, co-op and PvP; it costs $19.99 on Steam.

World of Sea Battle: Thera Interactive's free open-world naval MMO set in the Age of Sail, in Early Access on Steam for Windows since October 2025.

Only World of Sea Battle shares DarkOrbit's open-world MMO format; the other two are a base-building strategy game and a sandbox builder.

• Star Trek Fleet Command
• Space Engineers
• World of Sea Battle