Why do you play video games? If you ask a gamer this question, they’ll usually respond with very similar answers, it could have been to escape to a more interesting universe, it could have been to compete or it could have been part of your life since you were a child. All of these answers lead to an inevitable master brain of which all video games depend on. A Story. A story is an integral part of any video game. Stories are powerful and emotional. They grip you and are the driving force for our passion for any video game.

Everspace is a rogue-lite space action game where you are given one objective by your on-ship AI; Reach your destination. Even though the current iteration of the early access of Everspace has no story, it provides so many stories to tell others. Instead of a campaign mode where you take checkpoints, die, respawn, rinse and repeat, it implements a system in which you must take the game in a series of “runs” in which you travel from area to area in series of warps until you reach a jump gate to reach the next sector. As the sectors go by, the more difficult the game becomes and once you die you lose your progress, equipment and ship forcing you to start again. Players of games such as Binding of Issac, FTL and Rogue, are very familiar with this system, and it provides these games with extreme replay value. Not all is lost when you die though, once dead you retain your blueprints to craft mods, weapons, devices and previously gained credits to purchase perks to assist you on your next run. These include perks such as extra HP, weapon capacity, critical hit chance, loot bonus’, etc. The game was created by Rockfish Games in which a great deal of the developers had moved from the Galaxy on Fire series to work on to this game. Once predominantly a group of mobile game developers now show great proficiency in creating games on other platforms.

Now let me tell you a story; on my last run before writing this review I found myself in battle between two elite fighters of the enemy race you encounter in the game. They managed to get the better of me and I turn to scarper. Out of no where, a gigantic star destroyer type ship warps in to the system right in to nose length of my ship, I dive, quickly dodging the lasers that the ship threw at me in its initial barrage, a couple of shots hit my tail, I spin around and fire my Arc-9000 (think of the BFG from DOOM) and obliterate them both, I turn and then boost away as the monolithic ship launches more fighters. Trying to escape, I head towards a field of asteroids. Dodging missiles, asteroids, long-range lasers and derelict space crafts from wars long past, I managed to make it to the neutral faction of the sector who then engage the onslaught drawing closer to me. My plan worked out perfectly, I managed to warp to the next system using the distraction. Only to then be consumed by a black hole when trying to replenish my resources from the last battle.

This is the kind of story that gamers play for. A complete random sequence events that lead to a glorious climactic ending. Almost every single run in Everspace is like this, not all of them of course, as devastation can occur in almost every situation and if it does happen it’s usually down to how you gathered your resources, what fights you decided to take and what fights you decided to run from. It leads to a very interesting game play where finding the resources, weapons and items you need is just as exciting as the combat. A really nice touch here to mention is that not only do the long battles take a toll on your stats and resources, you may also find certain components on your ship get damaged, whether it is your Inertia dampeners so you can’t fly the ship straight or your shield generator, so RIP shields. The damage system is pretty in depth and it’s not only a mechanic of the game, it also applies a visual effect in which your ship becomes battered and bruised until your next repair.

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Tough Fight

Now moving away from the philosophical implications of grandeur in video games, lets move on to the real nitty-gritty and technical stand points of the game. I’d like to say here, first and foremost that the game is still very much in early access. Although it could be a complete game in itself. There is currently only one ship you may choose from, of which there will be a further two released eventually and includes a Codex for certain misc entries you find from derelict space crafts. This feature hasn’t been implemented yet, but you can find the entries. Surprisingly there isn’t a whole large amount of bugs, probably due to the solidarity of the Unreal 4 engine, but bugs and early access games walk hand in hand and are to be expected. There are very minor bugs, such as items and resources being lost inside asteroids but apart from that I haven’t come across any visual bugs of the sort. The overall performance runs at a very solid 60 fps on high with my GTX 960 and the game is nothing short of gorgeous. Beautiful back drops constantly take my breath away when warping in to an area that have provided me with many wallpapers and a stacked screenshot folder. The explosions look great (which is hard to do) and Rockfish really took their time in the fine details of the ships, weapons and landscape. Control set up works well with a mouse and keyboard and didn’t find too many issues with it, just a bit of time to get used to. Everspace also features Controller Support that locks the cross hair in the middle of screen, but I found the sensitivity to weird to use.

A few gameplay mechanics do require tweaking though such as the enemy AI, half the time they constantly try to fly towards you which ends up becoming a ring around the rose kind of dance. But to be honest the more I played the more I realised that this is just a mechanic within the game as the tougher the enemies get the better they fly. The more encounters I made with Elite enemies the more straight up dog fights I was receiving. They shoot down your missiles, they dodge and weave, even run away from you when they are low dropping mines behind them. It would be nice if the lower level enemies provided this kind of exciting challenge too however. The range of enemies could also be a bit heavier, but as previously stated this is an early access game. We can’t expect too much in terms of content.

Two of many screenshots

The content that is there though is really outstanding in terms of how deep it can be however. I’m still finding weapons and devices that I haven’t used before in previous runs after 30 hours of game time and the different situations they are useful for. The sheer range is really refreshing and the choice, ranging from cloaks to teleportation devices, does stop the game becoming stale. Another aspect that does a great job of keeping the game refreshing are the environmental dangers. On your journey you will come across a multitude of mysterious and often terrifying natural phenomenon that will test your survivability. My personal favourite was the first time I ran in to a Solar Storm. I don’t want to go in to too much detail as I don’t want to spoil it. But my god I was beaming when I died in that sector. It was just so awesome. On the flip side. Being devoured by a black hole is terrifying and I wouldn’t recommend getting too close to one. Unfortunately for science buffs, I am sorry but in terms of scientific accuracy, you won’t find any here but it creates a more alive universe in which you are traversing.

Sound wise, I absolutely despise the main characters voice acting. It really needs some work, it’s corny, forced and your typical american Kirk like space captain. The on-ship AI is on point though, the banter between them is witty and usually chimes in when the player discovers something new. Sometimes you hear the enemies radio comms which is interesting but happens infrequently and they speak an alien language, if anything it just adds a bit more body to the fights. The music is not what you’d expect unfortunately. I went in expecting Eve like music or something a bit more like Mass Effect. It’s not bad but sometimes it doesn’t really sit well with the theme. It’s more like what you’d expect out of an Ace Combat game, guitars and crisps riffs. I spent most of my time playing listening to my own playlists of EDM that go great with the game however. Good shout to listen to some Monstercat while playing this game.

I feel like with the terrible release of the main streamed No Man Sky, space sims have been given a bad name by players that don’t play them. But this really redeems the genre, if you bought No Mans Sky and was disappointed, you may not find what you are look for in terms of exploration, but this game is so much fun to play even in Early Access, and it will definitely stave off the wait until Star Citizen.

Everspace is a smart but simple space adventure that plays extremely well despite being from an indie studio with little budget and in early access. It’s addicting, fast paced, nerve-racking but incredibly relaxing at times. I feel like the team have hit the head on the nail with a lot of features but the game just needs more. A few more features and tweaking of the existing and I could give this game a perfect score. Needless to say I’m really excited for the full release of this game and after burying 30 hours over 5 days in to it, I’m prepared to invest in a lot more.

Almost perfect

4.5/5

Pick Everspace: Early Access up here for £22.99