It may not be surprising that a game called Starship Simulator focuses heavily on its starships, but the upcoming space sandbox from Fleetyard Studios will deeply intertwine the ships players can fly with its narrative as story chapters are released. There’s a long tradition of hero ships in science fiction being essentially characters in their own right. The scrappy Serenity from Firefly, the enigmatic Destiny from Stargate Universe, and even the mournful husks scrapped in Hardspace Shipbreaker exude personality. Some forms of sci-fi take that a step further by literally giving the ship a representation to interact with crew like Rommie from Andromeda, EDI from Mass Effect, or Zora from Star Trek Discovery.