Everspace 2

Rockfish’s pretty space shooter goes open-ish world.

- Andy Kelly

The first Everspace was a great roguelike, blending fast-paced space combat with a compelling upgrade system that let you inch closer to victory every time you died. It was also very pretty, with some of the most incredible sky… sorry, spaceboxes on PC.

The sequel, developed by the same team at Rockfish Games, is taking those sumptuous visuals and everything else that made the original great and expanding the scope massively. No longer limited to a linear path, you can now travel freely around the galaxy – albeit with a few subtle loading breaks hiding the joins.

Straying true to the accessible combat of the first Everspace, this isn’t a deep sim like Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous. You won’t be carefully docking or slowly travelling between systems. The focus here is squarely on dogfighting, dodging, dashing, and rolling between laser blasts, taking on enemy ships, and collecting loot.

Rockfish is promising a 20-30 hourlong campaign, as well as a selection of optional side missions. It has everything you’d expect from a roguelike: loot, classes, talents, skills, and so on. It’s clear Destiny 2 is an influence, especially when you see the game’s slick UI in action. But that vast galaxy gives it a unique edge.