Nebula Online
Nebula Online is a sci-fi sandbox MMORPG built around faction warfare in a shared universe. You pick one of three races and a ship class, then spend your time exploring sectors, fighting for territory, mining and crafting modules, and feeding a player-run market as your side pushes for control.
 | Publisher: Mizar Games Playerbase: Low Type: Sci-Fi MMORPG Release Date: December 6, 2015 Shut Down Date: Mid 2017 PvP: Open World/Faction-based Pros: +Ship loadouts define your abilities. +Economy is largely run by players. +Territory conflicts and sector control. +Chance to rise into faction leadership. Cons: -Visuals feel behind the times. -Controls can feel awkward (especially with a touch-first design). -Progression can be sluggish. -Full loot drops on death. |
Nebula Online Overview
Nebula Online is a sci-fi sandbox MMORPG from Mizar Games that leans hard into open-world competition between three factions. After choosing a race and one of four ship roles, you are dropped into a sector-based universe where exploration, NPC combat, harvesting, crafting, and PvP are all part of the same loop. The game’s most distinctive idea is that your ship’s five modules effectively decide what you can do, since modules provide stats and the active skills you bring into fights.
Outside of combat, the sandbox systems are meant to keep the world moving. You gather resources, manufacture new modules, and trade with other players through a market where prices are shaped by supply and demand rather than fixed vendors. On the strategic side, players can construct space stations and defensive structures, then fight over sector ownership as the balance of power shifts. Each race can even elect a leader, turning faction politics into another layer of the wider conflict.
Nebula Online Key Features:
- Modular ships – ships are assembled from five modules, and those components dictate your stats and available abilities.
- Player-driven economy – buy and sell loot and crafted gear to other players with pricing set by the community.
- Build space stations – create stations and deploy defenses designed to help protect holdings from raids.
- Elect a leader – each race can vote a player into a leadership role to represent the faction.
- Control the universe – sector ownership is contested continuously, with factions able to seize territory as battles unfold.
Nebula Online Screenshots
Nebula Online Featured Video
Nebula Online Races
Nebula Online includes three playable races, each framed with its own origin story and personality.
Humans trace their beginnings to the planet Teer, where a comet impact sparked chemical processes that eventually produced amino acids and, in time, civilization. Their development slowed for ages due to disagreements over language and unity, but once they pushed past those barriers, they entered the space age quickly. In the present era, they are depicted as newly cooperative, looking outward for a future beyond their home world.
Borguzands emerged alongside an unusual planetary formation, when a drifting object accumulated debris and became a world. The race appeared as abruptly as the planet itself, and over time they rallied around a shared ideal. They are also characterized as inherently aggressive and almost cult-like, which naturally puts them on a collision course with rivals.
Kriptizids are presented as the oldest known species in the setting, originating on a small asteroid in a distant galaxy. From the beginning they possessed high intelligence and gravitated toward scholarship, eventually developing space travel. After a long search that turned up no other life, their council chose to place the race into hibernation. Now awakened, they keep their distance and reveal little unless it is necessary.
Nebula Online Classes
Nebula Online offers four ship classes that fill familiar MMO roles, with different ranges, durability, and battlefield jobs.
- The Sniper – a long-range damage dealer built around speed and burst damage, but fragile when pressured up close.
- The Tank – a brawler-style ship with high survivability and modest damage, designed to soak fire and hold space.
- The Engineer – a support-focused class that trades damage for utility, specializing in repairing allies during engagements.
- The Trooper – a fast, hard-hitting combat ship with medium to long reach, focused on sustained damage output rather than durability.
Nebula Online Review
Nebula Online aimed for a compact, faction-war sandbox where your ship build mattered as much as your aim. The module-driven skill system is the core of the experience, and it gives the game a flexible loadout feel that fits the setting. Swapping components changes not only your numbers but also what tools you bring to a fight, which encourages experimentation and makes preparation part of the strategy.
In practice, the game’s strengths come from its player-facing systems: a market that depends on what people gather and craft, the ability to build stations and defenses, and the constant tug-of-war over sectors. Those elements can create memorable moments when players organize around a push, respond to raids, or try to secure resource areas for their faction. The leadership election concept also suggests a more social layer, where community coordination can matter alongside individual combat performance.
At the same time, the game struggled to present those ideas with enough polish and momentum to keep a wide audience engaged. The visuals were functional but dated even around its release window, and the control scheme could feel unintuitive, especially given its touch-first roots across platforms. Progression also tended to be slow, which can be a tough sell in a PvP-heavy environment where players want to reach viable builds quickly.
The biggest friction point is the full-loot death rule. High-stakes loss can be exciting in a sandbox, but it also raises the barrier for casual play and can punish experimentation. Combined with a smaller population, that risk-reward balance can tilt toward frustration, particularly for newer players who are still learning routes, builds, and safe ways to earn resources.
Overall, Nebula Online had a clear direction, modular ships, territory conflict, and a player economy, but it did not manage to sustain a large enough community to keep its universe feeling alive. With the shutdown occurring in mid 2017, it is best remembered as an ambitious attempt at a lightweight space sandbox rather than a long-running MMO destination.
Nebula Online Links
Nebula Online Official Website
Nebula Online Facebook
Nebula Online Steam Store
Nebula Online Greenlight
Nebula Online Google Play Store
Nebula Online iTunes App Store
Nebula Online Facebook App
Nebula Online System Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
Operating System: Windows XP (SP2 only), Vista, 7, 8, or 10
CPU: Dual Core Processor @ 2.0 GHz
Video Card: GeForce 8600 GTS or AMD Radeon HD 2600, 256 MB VRAM
RAM: 2 GB
Hard Disk Space: 15 GB
Recommended Requirements:
Operating System: Windows 7, 8, or 10
CPU: Intel i5 or AMD X4 @ 2.0 GHz
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 or AMD Radeon 6790, 1 GB VRAM
RAM: 4 GB
Hard Disk Space: 15 GB
Nebula Online is still in development and its requirements are subject to change. The requirements above our based on estimates given by the developers.
Nebula Online Music & Soundtrack
Coming Soon!
Nebula Online Additional Information
Developer(s): Mizar Games
Game engine: Unity
Google Play Store (Russian only): December 6, 2015
Google Play Store (worldwide): December 16, 2015
Amazon App Store: December 16, 2015
Facebook: December 16, 2015
Browser: December 16, 2015
Steam Early Access: January 5, 2016
iTunes App Store: January 12, 2016
Steam Greenlight (added): February 3, 2015
Steam Greenlight (greenlit): April 16, 2015
Kickstarter (launched): February 3, 2015
Kickstarter (canceled): March 13, 2015
Shut Down Date: Mid 2017
Development History / Background:
Nebula Online was a sci-fi sandbox MMORPG from Russian developer Mizar Games, built in Unity and publicly introduced in early 2015. The project first appeared on February 3, 2015 through both Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight, and at that time it was described as a buy-to-play game with a $60 price and no extra costs. The Kickstarter campaign was canceled on March 13, 2015 after raising $11,160 of a $130,000 goal, but the title still succeeded on Steam Greenlight and was greenlit on April 16, 2015.
After a quiet period, the game surfaced again on December 6, 2015 with a launch on the Russian Google Play Store as a free-to-play release. A wider rollout followed on December 16, 2015 across the worldwide Google Play Store, Amazon App Store, Facebook, the official website, and a browser version, also positioned as free-to-play. It later arrived on Steam Early Access on January 5, 2016 priced at $4.99, with the iOS version launching on January 12, 2016 at the same price.
On February 8, 2016, the iOS and Steam price increased to $14.99. Despite its sandbox ambitions and cross-platform reach, Nebula Online did not build a large enough long-term community, and the servers ultimately shut down in mid 2017.