JUMP SHIP

Playing every role in a dynamic co-op space opera

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Before takeoff, a short meeting. We're one of a group of four astronauts, pondering a circuit board that covers a wall of our ship's engine room. There isn't space on it for a lot of components (engines, weapons, sensors), only what we can fit on the board's marked green squares. It's a little like packing a briefcase in Resident Evil 4. Anyone can fiddle with it — there's no designated engineer here. As Jump Ship rookies, though, we leave the decision about what to take to our senior crew members, who include game director Filip Coulianos and Keepsake CEO Daniel Kaplan.

Coulianos, previously a co-founder of Hazelight, started Jump Ship as a side project in 2012, under the name Hyperspace: Pirates Of Atira – “a very long, very beautiful name,” he smirks. Only in 2021 did the time feel right to start Keepsake and enter full production. Meanwhile, Kaplan was ready to move on from Coffee Stain Publishing. “Filip and some of the other founders had been working on It Takes Two,” he says, “and I had just shipped Valheim. So we had this opportunity to work together.”