#Everspace 2 game preview series
#Everspace 2 game preview free

Your starting ship fires an electric beam that chains to other targets and can wipe out a group of fighters and their drone escorts in one fell swoop, while the hulking gunship I upgraded to activates a turret that automatically fires at anything around you for 20 seconds while you continue to blast ahead. Your ultimate ability, though, is tied to your choice of ship, and right now there are a handful available to buy after you’ve built up some credits flying your starting fighter. You unlock more of these abilities as you go, and I quickly learned that using them well is what allows you to survive fights against groups of high-level enemies. The other starter is a get-out-of-jail-free card that boosts your ship away from danger at high speed, letting you get going when the going gets tough I juiced this one up to go 80% faster but for only half as long. There’s some good variety here in that you can swap out and customize your abilities: one of the starting powers is an EMP blast that disables all enemy craft around you for 10 seconds, letting you pick off the most dangerous of them for free, and I augmented it with a power-up that reduced its cooldown by two seconds for each enemy I killed during its effect. You’ve also got to manage your cooldowns effectively so you can activate your ship’s special abilities at the right moment to blast or cripple the most powerful enemies, or just make a quick getaway. “Every weapon has both an energy and kinetic damage rating, so fights are mostly about switching between them as needed to knock down enemy shields or armor, spitting the occasional homing missile, dumbfire rocket, or mine as you go. There are no opportunities to guide the story with dialogue but at least it seems like it’s going to somewhat intriguing places.

Even the one-off characters that hand you side missions at spaceports have above-average flavor and voice acting. However, his companion characters – including the returning AI sidekick – have a bit more personality. Granted, the main character’s a tad on the bland side, as you might expect from a disposable clone – he only really shows passion when he’s ranting about ramen.

So far not much is made of the fact that the galaxy hates clones now and most who learn his true identity will shun him, but it feels like a setup that might add something to his quest to make it as a mercenary and escape the lawless region of space in which he finds himself marooned. There’s already a fair amount of it to explore at its early access launch, and it keeps things interesting by mixing in some puzzle-solving to break up the flashy dogfights.The story that’s here is a fairly strong start: it picks up our clone pilot from the first game, except with the interesting twist that this time we’re on his last life: if he dies now he’s dead for good.

#Everspace 2 game preview free

But it holds onto its free movement system, which makes its combat stand out from other space shooters in style.

#Everspace 2 game preview series

The original Everspace is a cool space fighter roguelike, but the sequel has changed course toward a more traditional action-RPG style, and its series of missions across an open region of space feel a lot more in the vein of Freelancer or Rebel Galaxy Outlaw as a result. Roguelikes might be enjoying their moment in the sun in recent years (just ask Hades, our Game of the Year for 2020), but Everspace 2 shows that procedural generation isn’t the only way forward.