Blackbird Interactive, the makers of Homeworld: Deserts Of Kharak and the upcoming Homeworld 3, today announced another game they have on the go. Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a first-person salvager that will send us into spaceships to carve them up so we can sell the parts for scrap. I thought it sounded like nice, careful, methodical destruction until I saw hazards like fires, engine cores, and our old friend, explosive decompression. Have a look in the announcement trailer below.



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Blackbird say that we’ll be trying to work off debt by buying spaceships, dissembling them with cutters and other tools, and selling the good stuff for scrap, while upgrading our gear and buying along the way to open up tougher contracts and new salvatunities. The plan is to have a campaign as well as a sandbox mode to just lark about with procedurally-generated spaceships.

I am well up for this. It reminds me of Viscera Cleanup Detail, where I methodically complete the spacetasks of mopping up guts and burning monstercorpses then OH GOD interweaving systems conspire to cause a huge stinking mess and Pip tells me off again. Explosive decompression upon breaching a bulkhead sounds like a mess alright.

Hardspace: Shipbreaker is due to hit Steam Early Access this summer. Blackbird expect to spend a year or so following feedback, focusing efforts on the parts players like most, and adding more content. Changes in scope and the usual early access hiccups could push the full launch past summer 2021, mind. It’s being published by Focus Home Interactive.

The folks at cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer do have a wee preview if you’d like to know more.

If this sounds eerily familiar, that might be because Homeworld: Deserts Of Kharak was called Hardware: Shipbreakers back before Homeworld owners Gearbox let them use that name. Similar name, very different game.