If you're prone to rage quitting, this might not be the game for you, but read on.

Star Traders: Frontiers is a turn-based space sim. You fly your ship around the galaxy, completing missions, engaging in political intrigue, trading goods, fighting pirates, and maybe engaging in a bit of piracy yourself. Nothing too out of the ordinary. However, there's a lot of complexity hidden behind these seemingly simplistic gameplay elements. It may take a little while before things really start to click and those strategy guides you read finally make sense. Although the game's wiki does a good job of explaining how to play, the game seems oriented mostly toward hardcore fans of the genre.

The game is rather sandboxy and relaxing on the lower difficulty levels, but once you progress to the higher difficulty levels, which enable permadeath, the game can be merciless. ST:F's reliance on dice rolls can lead to glorious wins that defy the odds or to catastrophic failures that seemingly come out of nowhere. Similar to roguelikes, a big part of mastering the game is learning how to how to stack the odds in your favor and mitigate those bad rolls.

The game's use of procedural generation and random rolls makes it very replayable because no two games are exactly the same. Unfortunately, it does sometimes feel like some of the gameplay is a glorified collection of slot machine minigames, but there's also static content and storylines. If you get tired of pulling that digital lever, you can go digging into the game's copious lore or become the savior of the galaxy. Each era has major quest lines that you can either investigate or ignore.

The art ranges from "good for an indie game" to beautiful. The music, though a bit repetitive, is great. If you're willing to put in the time to mastering this game, it's highly recommended. The developers have been releasing free updates for years, so there's a constant feeling that no matter how much time you invest, there's always more to discover.

Update for 2025: updates have pretty much stopped, but it's still one of the best of its kind.