I've noticed myself getting into space games lately, and not just new stuff coming out. I think it's because everyone's anxious and uncertain about the near future, so it's appealing to have a setting that skips past all that where it all more or less worked out. I mean, maybe it didn't work out and things are still shit, maybe they're even worse, but things are still things. The story continues, the world keeps turning, and the anxious tension is resolved.

If you set things in the present, then you have to deal with the present anxiety - and with things potentially changing rapidly, your game might become irrelevant before it comes out. If you set it in the past (or a fantasy version of it), then the anxiety kinda looms in the distance, and it feels disconnected and not relatable.

The feeling of being stuck in a big metal box, isolated from everyone else, where leaving the box can kill you, is probably a feeling that people connect with from being stuck inside with COVID - but then you get to fly your house around everywhere and go super fast and shoot lasers and stuff. That's another reason space is having a moment, because it's basically, "What if: your life, but really cool" which is more appealing than just "What if: something really cool."