Everspace 2 Preview (Steam Early Access)
EVERSPACE 2 is a fast-paced single-player spaceship shooter with deep exploration in space and on planets, tons of loot, RPG elements, mining, and crafting. Experience a thoughtful story, set in a vivid, handcrafted open world full of secrets, puzzles, and perils.
Pros:
- Decent graphics.
- 42.29GB Download size.
- Controller support.
- Graphics-fullscreen, resolution, v-sync, display mode, graphics quality preset (low/medium/high/epic and custom), fps cap, max fps, motion blur, chromatic aberration, lens flares, anti-aliasing, effects, post-processing, shading, shadows, textures, view distance, volumetric, and SSGI.
- Gamepad settings- sensitivity/input smoothing and auto-aiming sliders, Invert axis for pitch/yaw and roll inputs. Automatic rolling and boost behavior (toggle/hold) and rebind buttons.
- R camera views-first person cockpit, first-person no cockpit, third-person far, and third-person close. Both have a field of view sliders.
- Gamepad icons used-PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.
- Initial tutorial to show controls.
- Cruise drive-for traveling long distances.
- Excellent voice work.
- Space shooter gameplay.
- In-game cutscenes mixed with animated hand-drawn graphic novel style cuts.
- Controls are pretty easy to learn.
- Super light travel-hyper drive style travel speed with autopilot.
- Clear on-screen icons for controls, enemies, and missions, points of interest.
- Can skip cutscenes.
- Devices-both warfare (combat) and support (healing) can be fitted to your ship.
- Companions-unlock them from doing tasks or bring certain materials. Each companion has a set of u unique skills and perks.
- Satisfying combat.
- Cool hangar entry scene with no loading times it’s seamless and works on entry and leaving.
- Visually it’s gorgeous from the ships to the planets and lighting.
- It’s like Elite Dangerous and Diablo had space sex.
- Earn EXP and level up to get stats increase and device upgrade tokens.
- Enemies can drop loot and you can pick it up by flying into it or by pulling it in with a tractor beam.
- Ship editor-color, decals, lighting, cockpit.
- Accessible in its approach to control and exploration and especially all the ways to travel.
- Handy buy and sell current item option.
- Very addictive.
- Four rarity levels of loot-common, uncommon, rare, and superior.
- Crafting-you can craft in any empty slot of your cargo hold (inventory).
- Disassemble loot for materials.
- Can increase inventory space.
- Shops to buy and sell from.
- Can mine ore, find credits, loot boxes, materials.
- Little enemy strongholds to take out.
- Shops have a quick repair and quickly restock ammo buttons.
- Ship remains can be entered and explored and work much like dungeons or instances.
- Compare gear/items button with red and green numbers to indicate if it’s good or bad.
- Scanner-dictates the distance in which you can see things aka getting icons of loot.
- Death-reload save.
- Saves when docking or entering a new area.
- Photo mode.
- Ultimate-depends which one is equipped but you charge a special attack or defense.
- They put dialogue in long travel sequences to make it seem shorter.
- Items in the shop will show a little marker to indicate its got stats better than what you have.
- You can upgrade or adapt ship parts.
- Ship loadout slots-four weapon slots, energy core, shield, plating, sensor, thrusters, cargo unit, and four consumable slots.
- Ship management is easy as you can click a slot and it will show all compatible parts.
- Exploring ships and rocks is like a new adventure every time.
- Missions-you have the main story ones and then you can find/trigger side missions.
- Total freedom on how you want to play.
Cons:
- No benchmark test.
- Rebind buttons are so in-depth it’s confusing and hard to read.
- No Steam achievements yet.
- Coming out and going into super light gives a black screen.
- So much to take in.
- You get loot early on with no explanation of what and how important it is.
- Difficulty spikes.
- With the way, the game saves you can lose progress easily.
- Combat takes a lot of getting used to.
- Hangs when going to the map tab.
- Slow restart upon death.
- Can’t save manually unless in a hangar.
- Had screens lock up for no reason.
Summary
Absolutely fucking brilliant, that’s how I describe Everspace 2 when asked. It’s a space sim like no other as it combines the exploration of No Man’s Sky, the controls and sophistication of Elite Dangerous, and the loot lust of a Diablo or Destiny game. I must be honest, I wasn’t expecting a lot from the game but with half an hour I was hooked in and it’s only a few niggles I have that stops me from just destroying my productivity with this game. Now this game is digital crack. You get introduced to the game and go out and do some routine tutorials and to be honest, that trend goes on for a long time over multiple missions but it’s fine due to the way missions are structured. Along the way, you can pick up bonus missions and jobs or just do whatever the hell you want. The World is mostly open and is accessible. Travel is done via boosting, cruise drive which allows you to do distances quicker, and then the light flight is where you do a jump to another system. Again the game explains all this but also adds icons to show what to do and allows you to mark locations making it so much easier than your Elite Dangerous. What I love most outside of the loot is the way the whole world is structured, for you can happen across enemy strongholds, find abandoned ships, enemy fleets destroyed ships that can be entered and explored and so much more. Dog fights do take some getting used to for granted but as you find different guns you eventually find one to suit your play style. Enemies can drop loot and ah man it’s just such a spectacle. You build rep with the different factions by doing good deeds or mining ore, shooting down pirates, and the like, you can use trade posts to buy and sell your loot. The ship can be customized and with a huge load out you will never be short of ways to equip your loot and then add in the extra layer of upgrading, crafting, and dismantling and you have one hell of a lot of choices. I only hated the difficulty as it was up and down constantly and when death results in reloading a save, it meant replaying huge chunks of the game and after a while, it just killed my desire to put more time in, I personally take it as a kind of blessing as the game is early access so there is no need to burn out now. I can honestly say though that the game as-is is a thing to behold and the fact that we have months of new content only makes me want to shout its praises more. They have mastered the controls, the sense of exploration, and giving the player choice and variety in the activities and missions. Everspace 2 has made me fall back in love with space games!
