I was surprised to see a great deal of complexity in enemy behavior this early in development. Of course, that doesn’t take into account any dangers you might encounter on your way to the mission, so plan accordingly.
#EVERSPACE 2 EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE ZIP#
Once you zip past the tutorial sections of the game you’ll find missions in all directions, and each one is ranked based on risk and reward. Being flanked from all directions while a larger corvette cuts you to ribbons if you stray too close can make an otherwise easy combat end decisively. Facing off against a single enemy isn’t that much of a threat, most of the time, but foes tend to travel in packs. Rockfish clearly spent their time making sure the controls in Everspace 2 were right and tight for Early Access.Ĭombat in Everspace 2 is a brutal and high-speed affair. Lining up a shot and squeezing off rounds with my autocannon only to finish an enemy off with a dumbfire missile as we hurtle towards one another in head-to-head combat is never going to get old. Jamming the throttle forward and watching my ship roar to life, whipping around and through asteroid fields and ship debris is fantastic with a HOTAS setup. At the start of Early Access there are only the 10 most popular HOTAS setups, including my own, a Logitech G X56, with more coming as development progresses. All that said, the absolute best and most immersive experience comes from hooking up a Hand On Throttle And Stick, or HOTAS controller. Switching to a controller is a good middle ground, providing precision controls via the analog sticks, bumpers, and triggers for a more immersive feel. Mouse and keyboard controls feel very responsive, allowing you to strafe, dodge, roll, and otherwise gun your way to victory. One of the best things about Everspace 2 is its controls. Most of your time is spent in the cockpit, but these do a great job of making you care about what’s happening in between dogfights. Between missions, you’ll frequently get cutscenes that expand on the story in a moving comics sort of way. Check out the videos for a spoiler-free look at them for yourself. All of the ships and stations are highly detailed, with the explosions and particle effects being a real high point. It seems like Rockfish is giving us near-final art assets already, and they are slick. You’ll even meet some friends along the way. Each path is viable, and all of them help push the single-player narrative forward. There are several core elements that quickly emerge in Everspace 2: exploration, mining, building your ship, solving environmental puzzles, taking down pirates and snagging their ill-gotten gains, or even becoming a pirate yourself. How you get that done, however, is up to you. As you can see in the first 15+ minutes of the game, you find yourself on the ragged edge of the universe having to rebuild your ship, base, and resources while on the run. If you enjoyed Wing Commander: Privateer and Privateer 2: The Darkening, you might find yourself simply drifting around hunting down pirates and scoring resources - this game is already hitting all the right notes, and being an open world, the choice is yours.Īt its heart, Everspace 2 is an open world looter-shooter RPG, and there are plenty of core elements to back up my claim.
In point of fact, there are easily two dozen hours of gameplay offered here. On January 18th, Everspace 2 will come to Early Access, but don’t let that give you the impression that it’s a collection of early concepts without a focus. I’ve recently gotten my hands on a pre-Early Access version of the game and am happy to report that, with more than a year’s development ahead of the Rockfish Games team, Everspace 2 is already shaping up to be exactly what I hoped it could be. Sequel to Everspace, obviously, this one looks to take a completely fresh vector for the series, moving away from the roguelike approach of its predecessor and towards a single-player story-driven experience. As we move into a second space game renaissance, we’ve finally gotten our hands on one of my most anticipated: Everspace 2. It was soon after that the darkness came, bringing multiplayer-focused games devoid of story and game companies declared that “nobody was interested in space games.” Well, they couldn’t be more wrong.
Once upon a time, in a galaxy not that far away, space games were prevalent, and life was good.
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