Hardspace: Shipbreaker

The addictive ship salvage sim gets its first major update.

- Andy Kelly

Some of my favourite games feel like a second job. Ferrying cargo between systems in Elite Dangerous, doing shifts on the forklift in Shenmue, driving a truck around Europe in Euro Truck Simulator 2. So I always knew Shipbreaker would appeal to me. It’s a game about a regular working stiff on a mission to clear a mountain of debt by scrapping disused spaceships. It might all be taking place in a rich, vividly realised sci-fi setting, but you’re still clocking in for the nine to five and breaking your back for The Man.

I love this about it. Science fiction games rarely focus on what it’s like just existing in these settings, and it’s refreshing to spend time in a universe like this without being a hotshot fighter pilot, a space knight, or the chosen one. You’re just some person. One of thousands of shipbreakers bobbing around in orbit, quietly turning abandoned old starships into the precious raw materials required to make new ones.

If you’ve never played