That’s what I haven’t seen from Everspace 2. I still clearly remember most of the combat barks, and there was a perverse joy in taunting pirates before destroying them. Privateer made you feel like a small part of a much bigger galaxy, with dueling militaries. Rebel Galaxy has shady bars and bartenders, and a dark country soundtrack. A lot of my memories with open-world space games revolve around the feel of the galaxy. The Everspace 2 demo build has dialogue and is occasionally amusing, but that’s not what I mean. Chattering onĬombat still feels like the main focus in Everspace 2, which is no bad thing. But there’s one thing I haven’t seen much of an inkling of, and it’s something I think is rather important: personality. So yes, there’s a lot of work to be done and a lot of systems that may or may not work. Naturally, the Kickstarter mentions plenty more changes and additions to come. A lot of it is stuff that we’ve already seen in Everspace, albeit tweaked, fixed up, and rejigged for a game that isn’t a roguelite anymore. I’m assuming the demo is a reliable slice of what to expect from Everspace 2 (or at least the current plans, because things change). I also nearly flew into a planet, because I’m an idiot. And then I found a shiny, epic-rarity laser, so I went and blew up some things to test it out. There were 20 enjoyable minutes of jetting around an asteroid hiding a pirate base, blowing up their turrets and looking for resources and loot that my scanners had detected. Then I caused more leaks by shooting at some pirates and was promptly made to fix those too. I spent some time tootling around, fixing leaks in a space station.

Space, it turns out, isn’t all that empty and is very pretty.Įven in this minor chunk of Everspace 2, there’s quite a lot to do. The C-beams glittering in the dark do, indeed, glitter. Everspace 2‘s spaceflight is gorgeous, even at this stage, and I can only salivate at the thought of more (space) environments, ships, and weapons. I’m used to early alphas being a mish-mash of unfinished assets and placeholders, but here that’s only really true when docked or conversing. Slightly more surprising is that it looks bloody stunning. The cycle of fighting random enemies, levelling up, and grabbing loot has a very ARPG feel to it. But you’ve also got all sorts of consumables and equipment to help out in other ways, like suddenly teleporting you away from enemies or overpowering your weapons systems to help you fight back.

Your ship is your “character”, with weapons, armor, and shields all increasing your survivability. (Although the Kickstarter does mention optional Newtonian physics.)Ĭombat is still an enjoyable mix of arcade space battles and action-RPG frills, too. This isn’t Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen: it’s fast-paced arcade movement. Horizontal and vertical strafing, ship rotation, and jetting your way forward or backward are all handled here. This is pure Everspace: piloting and aiming is done with the mouse, while the keyboard gives you six-degrees-of-freedom controls. Unsurprisingly, one aspect that functions beautifully is the way your ship controls. There’s a single sector with a few areas to explore, a few missions to come across, and some things to shoot. The build of Everspace 2 I’ve played strikes me more as a proof of concept. In fact, “demo” might be pushing it a little. It’s minor, but I still kinda love the ability to fly into little caverns and canyons inside gigantic asteroids.

Everspace 2 all ships