Rockfish Games are an independent gaming studio hailing from Hamburg, Germany, founded by mobile game developer veterans Michael Schade and Cristian Lohr. Rockfish released their first game, the space themed roguelite “Everspace” back in 2017 and received generally positive reviews for their new franchise. This led to the release of Everspace 2 into early access back in January 2021 which has maintained a “very positive” rating on Steam over the last few years, helped by the developers constantly adding new features and updates to the game. Everspace 2 is about to come out of Early Access, so will it jump into hyperspace? Or is destined to be stuck in a black hole?

The biggest difference between the original Everspace and its sequel is the change of direction to the core gameplay, whilst Everspace was a linear roguelike affair, Everspace 2 has evolved into an open-world space looter-shooter. This evolution of the series hasn’t come without controversy especially if you ask fans of the first instalment of the game, but in my opinion the change adds a large amount of depth to the game and its universe. Picking up several years after the events of the original title, Everspace 2 is set in the Demilitarised Zone of Cluster 34, as was its predecessor, without giving too much away regarding the story you step into the game as Adam Roslin, well an illegal clone of him anyway, and after a mission gone wrong, you find yourself abandoned by your squadron. This is because you elected to stay behind and help your friend Ben and rescue him from his burning fighter rather than jumping back to home base, this leads to you being captured which leads to you meeting Dax Bashar, a fellow prisoner.

With his help you manage to escape from prison, rescue your badly injured wingman Ben and secure yourself a new base of operations, with your first priority being that of securing medical supplies to try and save Adams life. It doesn’t take long before you discover that your new friend Dax has motives of his own, which shifts the priorities over your initial ones and that this new friendship is going to take careful navigation so that you stay as friends rather than end up as enemies. The story in Everspace 2 is told both through audio dialogue whilst flying around the galaxy in your ship and also through graphic novel-like cut scenes that play out between missions. To be honest I am not a big fan of this style of storytelling in video games and possibly due to this I did not really get emotionally invested in the games story as much as I would have liked to, that’s not to say what is here is amateurish in any shape or form, both the voice acting and the art during the cut scenes are of a very high quality. Your interest in the games story may vary depending on whether you like graphic novels or not, however I found that being totally engrossed in the games story is not essential when it comes to enjoying what it has to offer.

When it comes to gameplay Everspace 2 feels like Freelancer, DarkStar One and Descent had a baby, this is not a bad thing at all especially if you are a fan of any one of those games. If you go in expecting a deep space sim experience like Elite: Dangerous or X4 then you may end up disappointed as the game does tend to lie more on the arcade side things rather than being an actual space sim. You progress the story forward by undertaking missions given to you by various characters in the game. The game is by no means linear, each and every time you are out and about flying in space you can choose to explore the many side activities on offer, there are even random events that can happen at any time such as ship distress signals that you can choose to ignore and go on with your mission or divert off and investigate if you so choose. These events really help to make the game universe feel alive and are well worth completing as some of them can help you procure some really good loot. The main gameplay loop will see you completing missions and also grinding materials and procuring loot through other activities in order to either upgrade your current ship or buy a new one via the credits you have earned from completing missions, selling components and also via buying commodities at a low price and finding where to sell them at a high price.

If you like games like looter games like Borderlands or Diablo that shower you with shiny new stuff constantly then you will love how the loot works in Everspace 2. If you like configuring the most efficient builds, upgrading items and skills and “min/maxing” you will feel right at home with the systems in this game, there is quite a lot of freedom available to mod ships the way you want to mod them and to grind and farm loot to your hearts content. The gameplay loop is addictive and to me it kept me interested in the game much more than the story.

The game controls absolutely beautifully, flying your ship around is an absolute joy, especially when you get into dogfights, it is exhilarating the way you can fly around the various half-destroyed hulls of old battle cruisers to shield yourself from enemy fire and then quickly strafe right around the other side to launch a devastating attack on your enemy. The simplicity of the controls is really what sells the game here, no need to memorise 100 different inputs like some other space sim games, this game wears its arcade-like controls on its sleeve and works all the better for it. I tried the game with 3 different control methods, I tried my HOTAS, which in hindsight is probably a bit of an overkill with a game like this but the option is there if you want to use it. I also played for a while using a PlayStation 4 controller and for the third method I used mouse and keyboard and set up a few custom binds on my trusty Logitech G502X Plus. I was actually shocked to find that my preferred way of playing the game was with mouse and keyboard and spent most of my time playing this way, the game did also control perfectly well with both gamepad and HOTAS though and key and button customisation is fully catered for.

Combat against multiple enemies can prove difficult at first but once you wrap your head around the controls you will be boosting and strafing around taking enemies out at will, in some situations they do come in waves though so you will have to keep an eye on your precious resources such as nano repair bots and missiles in order to succeed. It isn’t all just blasting and looting though, the game has plenty of puzzles to solve some of which require some pretty precise movements of your ship in order to successfully complete, none of these are too difficult though but they do serve as a nice distraction from the constant dogfighting.

Graphically the game is no slouch either, the stylistic art used in cut scenes to progress the story are very capably rendered and look great but where the game truly shines is where you are flying about in its universe, the game looks absolutely stunning with its oversaturated colour pallet and well-designed ships and space stations. Everspace 2 also does a really great job of conveying speed especially when planets and ships are zipping by when you are in cruise mode. The UI in the game is also very competently designed, the menus all feel very intuitive to use whether you are conducting trades with space stations or upgrading the many components in your ship. Sound is also competently designed with both engines and guns having a pleasing and suitable thump to them when used and the games music, though mostly minimalistic in its styling, is suitably space themed and pleasing to the ear.

You can expect to get roughly 25-30 hours worth of gameplay from Everspace 2 that is if you are only interested in completing the main story and a few side quests, if you are a completionist and want to solve all the puzzles, beat all the races and explore everything the game has to offer then you can expect more than 90 hours worth of entertainment. There is a heck of a lot to do in this game and if you get tired of pursuing the story you can always break off and grind for equipment or choose to enter a few races, to me this is one of the games strongest features as it helps to keep the game fresh and interesting.  Even once you have worked your way through all this content and conquered the story the game still has plenty to offer with its ancient rifts system that will see you defending yourself against increasingly difficult waves of enemies in order to procure some seriously legendary weapons and gear.

If you were a fan of the first game or you like games like Freelancer or DarkStar One, then Everspace 2 is a must buy for you, seriously don’t even think about it just do yourself a favour and jump in the cockpit right now. However, if you are not a fan of the games setting or don’t think you will enjoy the mechanics then you can always try out the free demo before dishing out your hard earned cash. There is a commendable amount of content and polish when it comes to Everspace 2, made even more impressive by the fact that it is not what would be considered a Triple A game, in a games industry filled with live service titles riddled with micro-transactions and devoid of anything that could be considered a story, Everspace 2 shines bright.