REVIEW – After a few years of early access to the game by Rockfish Games, who should stop all-capping its name, this released version can be quoted as “1.0,” was not bad. Still, it should be added that it could have been better, so it is essentially a product of the “fit for purpose” category.

Everspace 2 is a fast-paced single-player spaceship shooter with exploration in space and on planets, tons of loot, RPG elements, mining, and crafting. Experience an exciting sci-fi story set in a vivid, handcrafted open world full of secrets, puzzles, and perils.

Adam Roslin

…is the name of the clone pilot (the original was in the first part), who escorts a group of miners to a war-torn zone, but outlaws attack them. From there, we slowly get to know everything and everyone, including the other crew members on board. They can offer our ship a variety of unique perks. Hive, will automatically teleport our excess cargo supplies to our base if we run out of space; Dax and Ben, for example, make repairs cheaper, but Tareen is good for increasing the size of our hangar and base storage. So far, so good, but eventually, the problem becomes that the depth of the story beyond that is not that outstanding. There will be interactions with the others (sometimes courtesy of the script). Still, Rockfish had missed a significant opportunity, and you could even say that’s okay because, in terms of combat, Everspace 2 is up to the task. The ship has primary weapons, secondary weapons, and additional items, and the things have abilities to create a custom build. It’s not about the Scout (small, punchy) or the Striker (nothing high-end, but nothing terrible), and the Gunship will tear down anything if something doesn’t get out of the way. Then you can mix and match weapons and tools nicely.

Among the primary weapons, for example, the Gauss cannon increases speed and attack surface area, the thermo gun sends out a longer-range heat beam, and the flak cannon can hit more targets. These are paired with the secondaries: shield and armor-piercing missiles (self-explanatory), mines (to impede movement), and EMP missiles (to knock out opponents for a few moments). The additional tools can be used at intervals (due to cooldown timers), so you can teleport, push opponents away, or even initiate repairs. You’ll need all of these during your exploration. While doing so (if you have a modern, powerful configuration), you’ll be treated to some very nice visuals, especially in photo mode. It’s not an exaggeration to say that visuals are perhaps one of Everspace 2’s strong points, but that’s not the trump card up its sleeve. Other elements need to be pointed out.

Lottery

It may initially seem strange when a loot system similar to (Activision) Blizzard games appear in Everspace 2. Still, the question must be asked: in a game of this genre, why is such a thing necessary to reach a higher level to find better materials and rarer items among the remains of an enemy ship that has just been blown up? It is not Borderlands. That would be perfectly fine. Here, it’s a somewhat incomprehensible decision. And the fact that we are mostly alone and wandering around doesn’t fit the idea either. If even 1992’s Star Control II was better (the PC conversion of its 3DO port, The Ur-Quan Masters, is suggested…), where the aliens had a much deeper personality than our comrades here, then that’s highly problematic.

You could build a strong alliance there; here, you can’t even transfer mercenaries from the other factions. Is it strange to compare Everspace 2 with a game released three decades ago? Not really, even if resource gathering doesn’t play such a significant role here because there was combat, albeit in 2D… oh, and at least there you could pit factions’ ships against each other in Super Melee mode, and there’s no multiplayer here. The soundtrack and audio of Everspace 2 are worth replacing with something else in the long run, the controls are fair, and in this case, it is strongly recommended to go back to the roots instead of the controller, as the mouse and keyboard pairing seems to be a more functional handling scheme.

Neverspace 2

After a complicated birth (which will almost certainly be followed almost immediately by something else…), Everspace 2 doesn’t get a seven out of ten because there have been older games of a somewhat similar style that have been able to produce a much more interesting result, despite the technological limitations. There’s not much dialog in the exploration here, either. The puzzles themselves don’t get the player excited, but if you were to judge it solely on the combat and the size of the world to explore, Rockfish Games’ product would get a very high score, but a score of six-and-a-half out of ten still means it’s not bad, but it could have been better. Not always deep where it needed to be.

-V-

Publisher: Rockfish Games

Developer: Rockfish Games

Style: Space simulator

Release: April 6, 2023.