In an interview with GamesIndustry, Rockfish’s CEO Michael Schade explained why EVERSPACE 2 will not abandon Steam. While Rockfish had some discussions with Epic Games, it decided to honor its fan base and release this new space game on Valve’s distribution service.

As Schade told GamesIndustry, Rockfish wouldn’t exist without Steam. Therefore, and in order to keep its fan base happy, the developers decided to ditch Epic’s offer. Not only that, but the team needs all the features that Steam currently has for its Early Access phase.

“Without Epic, Rockfish and Everspace wouldn’t exist, but it’s the same with Steam. Without Steam, we wouldn’t exist… In our case, it doesn’t make sense. We need Early Access, the full feature set, the forums, the constant updating, the whole infrastructure. Valve has the best platform, by far, to roll out a game as an independent developer. It’s by far the best tools and the best communities. This is exactly what we need.”

Schade has also confirmed that a two-hour demo for EVERSPACE 2 will be available to all Kickstarter backers once the campaign ends.

“They can play the game right away. It has to be one of the very few Kickstarters where you get the actual game after it has ended. We want to double down and make the studio even more financially independent, but we also want the Kickstarter to have this early feedback. Everspace wouldn’t have been such a good game without feedback from the community.”

The Kickstarter campaign for EVERSPACE 2 will launch on October 2nd!