Summary
- Everspace 2 has successfully transitioned from a linear roguelike to a sprawling open world, drawing inspiration from games like Diablo and Destiny 2.
- The game incorporates rewarding combat, loot systems, and progression mechanics, making every moment in the game feel meaningful.
- The intuitive first-person shooter controls and the "one more run" feeling from the original game are carried over, allowing for accessible and satisfying space combat experiences.
Rockfish Games' Everspace was a compelling blend of addictive roguelike gameplay with accessible and fast-paced space combat, and its successor Everspace 2 has successfully carried over much of what made the first game such a delight despite pivoting to an entirely different genre. Dropping the more linear roguelike progression, Everspace 2 has moved to a sprawling open world that now mechanically has more in common with action RPGs like Diablo than it does with mission-based indie roguelike hits like FTL: Faster Than Light.
In an interview with The Best War Games, Rockfish Games CEO and co-founder Michael Schade spoke about the series' switch from roguelike to looter shooter and the various games that inspired the team's approach to this switchup. Schade also went into detail about concepts that Rockfish wanted to carry over from the first game despite the change in genre, particularly its pacing and accessible controls.
Diablo and Destiny 2 Were Major Inspirations for Everpace 2
The developers at Rockfish have a wide range of gaming tastes, but the team's interest in Diablo helped shape Everspace 2's core mechanics. That's not to say that the games play very similarly—after all, one is a top-down action RPG and the other is a space game—but Everspace 2 taps into many of the same reward systems that make Diablo satisfying to play. The immediacy of the combat, the drip-feed of useful loot that can enable a diverse array of builds, and the various interwoven progression systems all make every moment spent in the game feel meaningful.
Our core team came up with this “Diablo in space” approach. Diablo meets Freelancer. I only played Diablo once and I got butchered by The Butcher back in the 90s and then I stopped playing Diablo. But they played all the time, all the versions: two, three, and now four. They said there were some really cool mechanics in there. Obviously, we didn't want to copycat that, so we had to come up with our own ideas.
At the same time, I got into Destiny 2 when it was added to PS Plus in 2019, I think. I sunk in more than 2000 hours in Destiny 2 like, “Ah, this is how it works. Oh, man.” At my peak, I was playing Destiny every night for like two or three hours.
Everspace 2 has also taken some inspiration from Destiny 2, which of course can also trace its lineage back to Diablo. Schade has spent countless hours playing Destiny 2 and noted that Destiny 2's audience has a lot of crossover with Everspace 2. Some of this inspiration can be seen in the UI, exotic components, and Everspace 2's various ship classes function similarly to Destiny 2's Guardians. It certainly doesn't come across like a blatant copy, rather Everspace 2 has taken lessons to heart from the games that its developers most enjoy while carving out a clear identity for itself.
Everspace 2 Keeps the Best Parts of the Original
The original Everspace was a success for Rockfish, so there was no reason to reinvent the wheel the second time for the sequel, and the team wanted to carry over the intuitive first-person shooter controls for Everspace 2 as well as the immediacy of its combat. Schade notes that the "promise" of Everspace as a series is that players are only ever a moment away from the action when they boot up the game, and this is largely the case for Everspace 2.
We have the feeling that we should keep something in there like that “one more run” feeling from Everspace 1, this immediacy of space action. So our promise is you start the game and within a minute or less, you have a big explosion on your screen. We always wanted that. I think this is the strongest core pillar of the Everspace series or franchise if you want to call it that.
The Everspace games are very intuitive, you can pick them up and play, and it's shooter controls on PC. This is why it's more accessible than a hardcore space sim where typically you need to have HOTAS or HOSAS set up. It plays more like a first-person shooter but in space and we kept that. We still wanted players to be able to go into areas where there are new things every time, and this is why we came up with these signals when you fly through hyperspace.That's a different game scene, so to speak, and then you have these signals that pop up. Those locations are procedurally generated using pre-calculated global illumination.
The "one more run" sensation that the best roguelike games elicit was also something the team wanted to bring over from the original Everspace, and this manifests as procedurally generated signals that appear while players travel. These are always relatively quick missions with decent rewards and the system is an example of the series' goal to deliver satisfying space combat with minimal fuss.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83 /100 Critics Rec: 94%
- Released
- April 6, 2023
- ESRB
- t
- Developer(s)
- ROCKFISH Games
- Publisher(s)
- ROCKFISH Games
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
WHERE TO PLAY
EVERSPACE™ 2 is a fast-paced single-player spaceship shooter with worthwhile exploration in space and on planets, tons of loot, RPG elements, mining, and crafting. Experience a thoughtful sci-fi story, set in a vivid, handcrafted open world full of secrets, puzzles, and perils.
In the campaign, you will make some friends with their own story to tell. They will join you on side missions and provide certain benefits in the endgame, where vicious encounters and brutal challenges will stand between you and that next epic loot drop.
EMBARK ON AN EXCITING JOURNEY
Discover alien species, unveil mysteries, find hidden treasures, and defend your valuables against outlaw gangs. But don’t get cocky: there will be some high-risk/high-reward areas waiting for you where grabbing that ultra-special gear and getting out alive will require some serious piloting skills and all your talent for improvisation.
- Genre(s)
- Sci-Fi
