EVERSPACE™ 2

Everspace 2 is a really good game on the verge of greatness. It is well polished, packs a lot of content, and is just plain fun to play. But, some aspects of the game design lack depth and there is a clear gap of untapped potential keeping from from 5/5 stars. The good: - Flight and combat controls are fluid and feel great even with a keyboard and mouse - Stellar art, visuals, and atmosphere - Between the main quests, missions, challenges, exploration, grinding, crafting, and economy, there is always something to keep you busy The not so good: - Close quarters combat is frustrating because once most enemies get close they pack a punch and it's difficult to target them, biasing towards medium to long range combat which is less engaging - Not many unique/unusual item affixes or abilities which would lend themselves towards more complex or interesting builds, instead the vast majority of items feel rather same-y with a limited pool of stats

From the controls through to the B-grade movie story (and it's still good, mind you) this is everything I would have expected from another Freelancer title. And OMG other developers take note - THIS game shows you how to have customisable controls and UI. The options are well organised, and nigh limitless in scope.

I was super excited for this game. I wasn't a huge fan of the first one, it has a lot of of 'roguelike' problems. And unfortunately this game also has problems from the 'looter shooter' variety. The battle mechachanisms are also really dull, so you end up basically doing the same thing for every fight. It feels like they didn't have enough to make a full game so instead, they padded it out with grind-based looting mechanics, that really you don't even need that much. In a game where I was expecting things to feel slow, it feels like you're just going through the motions and the whole thing feels like a slog. Mechanically, and storywise I'm sold more. If the battle systems were fleshed out a lot more it wouldn't be so middling. Not being able to automate at least a little bit of buying/selling stuff for ages also is kind of a problem. Again it feels like it's so late, just to make the game feel longer, and the game needed to feel shorter.

Everspace 2 follows on from what Rockfish/Fishlab GmbH have mastered over the years- a well-refined looter-shooter with some crafting mechanics, experience bars and shopping lists to give it a sense of progression. I preferred the first Everspace, and while most of that is still here with extra stuff attached, it's just delivered in a different format, and doesn't run as well on my potato computer. This time when you die, you'll be reloading to the start of the same encounter that killed you/ reverting to an earlier save; you're no longer pitching yourself against a boiled down escalation-curve of a space-sim in roguelite fashion. I feel this subtly detracts from the core of Everspace 1's format; you're no longer drafting a loadout from a a limited scope of equipment options, but taking the most appealing option from the entire scope of options presntly available at a given point in the campaign. Due to the long-form progression, there's a much broader, diluted gamut of stat-growth, and preferred equipment can typically be recrafted at your current level from the piles of materials you've accrued across the length of the campaign- so diversity in your loadout is not really enforced, and often not adventageous. While this isn't a game that's trying to sell itself on white-knuckle tension or deeply nuanced systems of interaction, it IS a lengthy narrative campaign with flexible RPG elements; for all the extra content and encounters they've included, it doesn't actually change the way you engage with the Everspace 2 as a 'numbers game' which IS what the lengthy meta progerssion hinges on, and not the reason I continue to play the game. You need to find your own fun and enforce your own restrictions if you're going to benefit from the novelty the added content would otherwise hope to provide, which I imagine is achievable for most.

The game expects you to play for dozens and dozens of hours, but after 1-2 hours you've already seen pretty much everything it has to offer. For example, there are 12 types of secondary weapons, with memorable entries such as "homing missile", "homing missile that does more damage to shields and less to armor", and "homing missile that does more damage to armor and less to shields": in practice, there are 4 meaningfully different types of secondary weapons, and everything else could be reduced to a random gear bonus. Primary weapon and ships are a bit less homogenous, but it's mostly because some options there are simply terrible and never worth using. Another example, puzzles: the first time you find a stray power node you'll be curious to see what machine it will activate, the hundredth time you will think about uninstalling. Even if you could ignore the Diablo-like mechanics and just rush the main story without engaging with the padding, what do you get? Mediocre combat with enemies that ALWAYS rush you, even sniper drones get in your face instead of keeping a sane distance, unless you're further away than 2.5 km then you can hit them with cruise missiles and railgun shots and they won't even notice they're being attacked.