EVERSPACE Series Winter Sale Deals
Greetings, Pilots! The Steam Winter Sale is here and with it, incredible discounts on EVERSPACE games and DLC! Here’s a quick summary of EVERYTHING EVERSPACE that is on sale! EVERSPACE - 95% off EVERSPACE: Encounters - 85% off EVERSPACE - Upgrade to Deluxe Edition - 85% off EVERS
Greetings, Pilots!
The Steam Winter Sale is here and with it, incredible discounts on EVERSPACE games and DLC! Here’s a quick summary of EVERYTHING EVERSPACE that is on sale!
EVERSPACE - 95% off
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EVERSPACE: Encounters - 85% off
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EVERSPACE - Upgrade to Deluxe Edition - 85% off
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EVERSPACE 2 - 80% off
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EVERSPACE 2: Wrath of the Ancients - 30% off
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EVERSPACE 2: Titans - 30% off
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EVERSPACE 2 Supporter Pack - 20% off
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The Art of EVERSPACE 2 - 50% off
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The Art of EVERSPACE 2: Ancients and Titans - 30% off
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The EVERSPACE 2 Official Soundtrack - 50% off
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The EVERSPACE 2 Official Soundtrack: Expanded Tracks - 30% off
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We hope all you EVERSPACE fans have a fantastic holiday season! Lee and your ROCKFISH Games team
We began 2024 with looks at content coming in the free 
We also celebrated the 10 year anniversary of ROCKFISH Games! Our CEO and Creative Director 
Shortly before the release of the Incursions update, EVERSPACE 2 was awarded Best German Game at the 2024 Deutschen Computerspielpreis (German Computer Game Awards)!
We couldn’t be more proud as this is Germany’s biggest game developer event. Winning this was recognition for the incredible work done during the team’s six year journey on EVERSPACE 2 and gave us renewed motivation to continue crafting quality space games on PC and consoles!
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Along with Incursions came many engine changes under the hood that brought improvements and a few challenges that have largely been solved. We released a 
Alongside the Incursions update, we also released the 
We also released a physical print edition of The Art of EVERSPACE 2. Originally, this book was supposed to be a much smaller volume, but with all the amazing concept art created for the game, we got away from ourselves. This fantastic 280+ artbook is still in stock on 
Alienware has supported us at events during our launch journey, so we developed a special free 
As a German studio, Gamescom is our home show and the Indie Arena Booth is one of the best places to see upcoming games at the event—There’s no better place to see a sheer amount of creativity per square meter in the whole show! We surprised space fans at the show with a hands-on demo of a mission from the Dreadnought mission chain from Titans. It was great seeing familiar faces and new space pilots from all over Europe. Truly, this is one of our favorite events and we can’t wait for the next time we have something timely to show there.
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While we were at Gamescom, we met a bunch of incredible indies to give shoutouts to, many of whom were also from our Studio’s hometown, Hamburg! If you haven’t yet watched our ROCKFISH Shoutouts video, check it out! All these developers were excited to share their creations with gamers—you might just find your next favorite indie!
Funny how we always seem to be placed right next to our friends at Egosoft!
Meeting fans from Japan, China, and all over the world at Tokyo Game Show was an exciting time as well! We frequently join the German Games Pavilion at events to showcase some of the best games created in Germany to fans around the globe. If you ever hear of us at an event, please drop by to say hi. It’s always appreciated!
The team has been quiet about what we’ve been working on, but that’s going to change next year! As part of a new adventure, space pilots will return to Aethon, just one of the star systems coming in an all-new EVERSPACE 2 expansion launching in 2025. That’s just the tip of the asteroid, we don’t want to give too much away—Stay tuned for the full announcement, expansion title, and more info in the new year!
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Also, that cool BOB shirt Garry was wearing on stream is available on the 
We wish all you space pilots a happy and safe holiday season. See you in the new year!
Lee and the ROCKFISH Games team
We’ll be live on Twitch, YouTube, Steam Broadcast, and Facebook this Friday, December 22nd at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm CET. If you miss the stream, we’ll have it up on YouTube shortly after.
That’s all for us this year, but there’s lots to come next year—the series 
Greetings, pilots!
The wait is over: the hotly anticipated Summer Update aka Drake: Gang Wars is finally here! It’s our most significant Early Access update, adding tons of new things to the game even though we’re not done yet - there’ll be one more update later this year before we wrap things up and work on the v1.0 release which is still scheduled for early 2023.
For now, you can enjoy Drake, an all-new star system featuring well over a dozen carefully hand-crafted locations with stunning lava and ice environments, underwater exploration, exciting new enemy types and status effects, brand new challenges and puzzles as well as a three-chapter side quest, introducing daring pilots to the new system, and much more. Have a look at our official release trailer!
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I think both the lava and ice locations are absolutely awesome. However, I was just blown away when I had to go underwater to disable mines and plant my “own” explosives in a gigantic, half-sunken space station. I haven’t seen anything like this in any other game before, and from my own wreck-diving experience I can testify this is precisely how it looks and feels. Granted, I wasn’t scuba diving on another water planet, but you get me. Gosh, I wished we had even more underwater content, but our team already said we might be revisiting those locations, again at v1.0; fingers crossed!
You get to Drake via a side quest you must pick up from Elek at the Homebase in Ceto. It’s quite a deep side quest, expanding over three missions, and will introduce you to the new system, its most prominent locations, new gameplay mechanics, and three new factions.
The Coalition is a faction that veteran pilots probably still remember from Elek, one of the five side characters in the EVERSPACE — Encounters expansion. It’s loosely named after the Cohhilition community from top streamer 
The next faction you’ll encounter is another fan-inspired faction, The Zurilia, named after Zurilia, another top-tier Kickstarter backer of ours. They control all locations that are fire-themed. Naturally, they are a pretty hot-headed bunch, and even their ships and gear make good use of some fancy heat-based technology, which can severely damage your ship components.
The third faction is The Retaliators, who control the water/ice-themed locations in Drake. You might expect them to be cool-headed, but they are also aggressive when you enter their territory, attacking with frosty weapons and dealing stun damage to your ship which can have some dire consequences when hit in the heat of a fight. Ok, my puns are not getting any better, but you’ll get the gist when listening to their dialog. ;)
BTW, since we know that not everyone is a fan of our TTS placeholders, keep in mind the new story content will be voiced at v1.0; the same goes for localization as things are still subject to change, and to make sure that voice-recording and translating text and UI are worthwhile, we need to hit a certain amount of lines.
Good ol’ buddy Tareen, also known from the Encounters expansion, received new perks for ship dealers.
Lastly, HIVE also offers a new perk, improving your ability to switch secondaries mid-battle.
There are a number of positive mutators, like “Enemies dropping lots of credits upon death”, “G&B reinforcements on-site”, or “Spawn a protector sphere generator, which can be grabbed and used to get immunity to debuffs. On the negative, you might have to deal with “Enemies deal area damage upon death”, “Enemies drop proximity mines upon death”, “Enemies slowly repair their hull”, “Two bosses”, “Enemies are resistant to EMP”, “Enemies leave behind corrosion fields when killed”, and more nasty surprises.
Tracking required resources for crafting is an all-new feature that goes nicely together with the new resources map mode. Not only will you see right away what resources are still required to make that nifty new piece of equipment, but with one click on the map's submenu, you'll see right away where chances are high to find that precious ore or crystal that's still missing.
Hot-swapping armor was long in the making and a hot community demand, too, so now it's here! Furthermore, some perks like Percussive Maintenance have been overhauled to better work with regenerating armor.
Not really a QoL improvement but very noticeable: Gero, our Sound Director, has implemented significantly improved weapon SFX based on item rarity, giving primaries more oomph and distinction.
Greetings, pilots!
Holy scrap, what a journey so far! After over three years of hard work, we launched EVERSPACE 2 in Early Access with a rocket launch 
Galactic thanks from the RFG Family & Friends, 
Screenshot of the “solar panel” side mission from the 2019 Prototype.
There are currently four out of seven star systems to explore. With Ceto and Union being the largest, the current world content is close to 70%, not factoring in any endgame content or procedurally generated locations, though.
We have eight out of nine player ship classes (89%), with tier 3 and 4 models as well as additional wing types yet to come, so the current player ship content is actually closer to 50%. Gear-wise, we have four out of five tiers already implemented. Legendaries will be introduced in 2022. We’ll also add more weapon types and sets, as well as more consumables and devices. I’d say we’re at 75% of the gear you’ll see at launch.
Except for trading features, all gameplay systems are in place. However, not all are done yet. For instance, crafting will receive a significant overhaul. Then, there are essential features like localization, difficulty and accessibility settings, as well as porting EVERSPACE 2 to Linux, Mac, Xbox, and PlayStation. In terms of total dev time, we're close to 80% of a 5+ year-long production, not including any potential post-launch DLC.
Ok, now let’s take a closer look at what content we plan to release and when:
The popular vote is clear: Not only is EVERSPACE 2 considered to be open-world by thousands of space pilots, making “open-world” one of the top tags on Steam, Valve was also perfectly fine to feature the game in the 2021 Open-World Sale under:
Planet Mota is as dangerous as it looks: the entire place is like hell’s kitchen, with lava pretty much everywhere causing stacking heat damage, while erupting lava geysers can tear apart shields and armor with ease. For risk-takers, there’s a high-tech thermal power plant defying the ocean of lava that might be worth exploring...
On Gilbert, water can be your ally or your enemy! Dive underwater to escape from enemy attacks like a classic submarine, but fair warning: dive too deep for too long and the pressure warning will be the last thing you’ll see!
Set in a system of natural extremes, three rival factions fight for dominance over the rich resources of the Drake system. You will have to keep a low profile to not be caught in the crossfire, while also not becoming a victim to the harsh environment. Lucky for you, one of your companions will be able to pull some strings with one of the gangs to get a foot in the door while you wait for an opportunity to take advantage of the complex situation.
Hey there, pilots!
BOOM shaka-laka-laka, dankeschön, auf wiedersehen! The 3rd major EVERSPACE 2 content update, Khaït Nebula: Stranger Skies has launched on Steam and GOG— WOOHOO! Check out the 
Corrupted and slavishly obsessed with The Ancients, The Redeemers are now a cult dedicated to the understanding of this precursor race. Drawn by mysterious stories, new recruits travel to Khaït to learn about the wisdom of The Ancients. Here they are forced to make a "rite of passage" by leaving all their material belongings outside the jumpgate and passing through without their vessels, "unburdened by their past". Successful recruits (namely those with useful skills) are brought to a "sacred location" in order to be bombarded with strange Ancient dark energy and initiated into the cult. Those who do not pass muster, are left in the vacuum of the void.
This sub-faction is hostile to all to enter the Khaït Nebula, using a mixture of Freelancer gear and adapted Ancient technology to destroy or capture travelers within the star system. They survive off illegal trade (arms, drugs, slaves), but also offer Ancient tech and artifacts to those with the right connections.
In Union, you’ve been introduced to the first Ancient puzzle, set in a confined space with hard-to-miss-pointers to its solution. In Zharkov, you’ll find Ancient puzzles based on established mechanics which require further exploration to solve. In the Khaït Nebula, we’re introducing entirely new mechanics and more complex puzzles that can even spread across an entire location, making for some jaw-dropping moments when things fall into place.
Before moving on: To all space pilots not fans of puzzle-solving, again, don’t you worry! Most of them are optional, while the few that are part of the campaign are really not that hard. BTW, a 
Just like all other player ship sub-classes, tier 1 and 2 Vindicators can be purchased at any Ship Dealer in the DMZ if you’re lucky. Before you pull the trigger, though, you might take a closer look if the roll of Passive Perks suits your playstyle:
When you finally catch up to Eduardo, he’s not alone, and things are getting just even more complicated. Despite tension in the air, your new acquaintance proves to be a valuable addition to the team thanks to some impressive star navigation skills.
Khala belongs to an alien species previously unknown to the crew. Her remarkable astro-navigation skills make her a valuable companion. Khala can create jump nodes for shortcuts through space—Woohoo, Fast Travel unlocked! Furthermore, by unlocking the Location Scanner perk additional information details will show on the map, like how many secrets are still to be found.
Khala has been stranded on the asteroid for years after crash landing during a battle with adversaries she describes as "The Greel". She’s been stuck with only Eduardo as recent company, time used to learn his language. She is extremely quick-witted and has an extraordinary knowledge of the galaxy, although much of what she describes seems to belong to a part of the galaxy unknown to anybody else.
Having nowhere else to go, Khala joins the crew at Home Base, putting her knowledge to use mapping and finding shortcuts between systems as the base navigator. Much of the surrounding area, however, is unfamiliar to her, and she uses her time, and newfound equipment, to seek geographical markers which will help her find home.
Khala’s brusque attitude occasionally may clash with the other companions as she finds her way amongst alien species. Though Adam’s other companions may initially distrust her, especially Maddocks, and Elek may fear she is going to eat him, Khala has a lot to offer to the crew.
Pilots will discover more about Khala’s background and species as she comes along as a companion. As one of the first new races introduced in EVERSPACE 2, Khala is just a tiny glimpse into the wider universe.
Greetings, pilots!
Grab a drink, sit back, and relax! What was intended to be a short & snappy news beat about the official Zharkov release on top of all the information shared in recent news updates, became our longest news update so far, covering new topics of the 2nd major content update of EVERSPACE 2 in-depth as well as some important studio and community-related news.
First off, a big shout to all the daring test pilots who smoke tested the experimental release opened up a few days ago. You all provided very useful feedback on the overhauled game balancing and also flagged a number of bugs that slipped through the cracks. The team acknowledged and fixed most of them, while a few improvements have to wait until the next major content update, currently scheduled for fall (or spring if your home base is on the Southern hemisphere of planet Earth). You’ll find the official changelog at the bottom of this news. Changes based on the experimental build are marked with the prefix (Exp).
Now, before you jump cut to the bottom of this release to check out the 150+ changes this update brings, let me put a spotlight on several team members and external partners who’ve been hard at work to hammer out yet another meaty content update.
It sounds easy, but one of the most critical tasks for any update is left to Sven Lohse, our Technical Director, who has moved his mouse and clicked a few buttons to open the jump gate to Zharkov on Steam and GOG for all Early Access/GiD pilots. Technically, you’ll have to play through the new main story to unlock the jump gate yourself, but you’ll find the way. And yes, all new and previous content is fully voice-acted... except for Banjack, the adorable scrapyard robot.
He has his charming TTS voice back by popular demand from the community and because we also think TTS just perfectly fits his character. In fact, since he became such a beloved shop dealer, we’ve decided to write a proper side mission for Banjack, shedding some light on how he ended up in that abandoned scrapyard in the first place. But that’s for a future content update. Now, let’s have a look at our new gameplay trailer, produced by Lol_bye, one of our Kickstarter backers (of course, we’ve compensated him like a pro for his excellent work)!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn0kEi4e_-c
The Vanguard is a lightweight, highly maneuverable reconnaissance ship with a high emphasis on speed/mobility and defensive measures. The Vanguard’s Special “overcharges” the shield to up to 200% capacity when boosting or when in Cruise Mode allowing for shield-buffed attacks. Thanks to its Expertise of increased critical hit chance when attacking enemies from the rear, clever combat positioning can provide a significant advantage in dogfights. When things get too messy, the Vanguard’s Ultimate “Time Extender” slows down the action, allowing pilots to regain the upper hand in any given combat situation. Vanguards also come with one out of four random Passive Perks that let cruise drive be activated with enemies nearby, reduces Web effect by 50%, lowers up to 20% support device cooldown depending on overcharge percentage, or makes Time Extender immediately restore all weapon and boost energy.
But wait, we’ve got even more ship news coming from Matthias Kummer (Senior 3D Artist) who’s exclusively been working on all player ships for over two and a half years. With the new update, pilots will have access to Tier 2 ships of all currently existing ship classes, featuring fancier wing types and better base stats, such as increased cargo space.
In the continued campaign, you’ll meet another old friend: Tareen, the Okkar trader from the EVERSPACE: Encounters expansion, will join your roster of companions and provide some very useful perks. As your new quartermaster, Tareen will allow you to expand storage and increase the number of ships to park at your Homebase. He’ll become even more useful later in the game, but that’s a topic for another day.
Some fans of hardcore space sims might think: “RC drone gameplay and even more puzzle-solving, what the heck!? I thought this was supposed to be a space game…? I didn’t sign up for this, I want more space combat and exploration!" Well, our vision for EVERSPACE 2 has always included introducing new gameplay mechanics and objectives to keep things fresh, like puzzle-solving or, in this case, remote controlling a drone à la Descent. If you’re also a fan, go check out the 
Continuing the main mission, you will be introduced to another gameplay mechanic right before bumping into the next boss encounter, testing everything you should have learned so far. Without saying too much, HOTAS pilots don’t throw your precious gear at the screen! It’s gonna be rough, but don’t you worry! We’ll have various difficulty and accessibility options at full release, so it’ll be fine™! For now, you might want to fly some of the more challenging missions with a mouse + keyboard or a gamepad of your choice, though.
Along with voice recordings that are replacing the TTS voices of the story content of the previous update Contracts/Hinterland, Gero Goerlich (Sound Director), Uwe Wütherich (Creative Director), and Bernie Duffy (external Lead Story Writer) have worked with 20 voice talents to record 2180 new lines with over 20,000 words for more than 40 roles just in the most recent recording session alone. In the final game, we’ll have well over 6,000 lines / 60,000 words of voiced dialogue, putting EVERSPACE 2 
So yeah, while we won’t have gazillions of proc-gen planets in a vast, seamless universe, we hope that experiencing our carefully handcrafted content in a pseudo-open world while playing through a proper sci-fi story is a journey worth your while. And we’re not even done yet!
Speaking of more story content being in the works: with a heavy heart, we have to share that Kevin Mentz, our very much esteemed Quest Designer, has left the RFG family on good terms.
We have very much enjoyed working with Kevin for three full years. He was the mastermind behind the EVERSPACE 2 tutorial and most of the side missions. Kevin also worked closely with our story writing team on the main campaign, bringing lots of great narrative ideas into the mix. If you’ve been laughing over some of the absurd 4th-wall-breaking TTS jokes or bloopers of yet unfinished missions, that was also him. Here are some fond memories of watching top content creator Cohh Carnage losing it when he played the closed Alpha:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDvycrt32Ys&t=1200
Kevin will be joining 
Swift auto cannons now take less time to go DAKADAKADAKA, significantly reducing TTK, if you can land all your shots, that is. However, you'll notice that weapon ramp up / charge time is not shown; this might change in the future when we're done designing all weapon attributes.
Furthermore, you can now change the rarity of an item directly without losing focus on your selected item. The selection will remember the last slot selected, even if you toggle through rarities or reenter the crafting interface to improve user experience by letting players start over where they left off.
Thilo & Thies also improved the side-by-side compare function before and after successful crafting, so you are always aware of possible changes and improvements. Also, all interactions are now more mouse-friendly.
Greetings, Pilots!
In this actual gameplay teaser trailer, space game enthusiasts get a glimpse of the third star system that leads deeper into the mystery of the Ancients, a powerful alien race, as well as shady business being done by the Grady & Brunt mining operation, two factions that were already established in the original EVERSPACE. Keep an eye out for new natural hazards, weapon types, and a new planetary location that is briefly shown. Time to get excited, pilots!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeBPY56nm10
Make sure to swing by tomorrow's ROCKFISH Games Show when our beloved Community Ambassador Erik Schrader will give a sneak peek of Zharkov on 
Greetings, pilots!
DRUM ROLL! After being smoke-tested by daring Early Access test-pilots without running into any [major] issues and some last-minute tweaks & fixes to address much-appreciated community feedback on the experimental version, we’re excited to announce that we just pushed the button to release the first content update, EVERSPACE 2: Contracts/Hinterland, on Steam and GOG - WOOT! Make sure to follow us on 
Steer clear of the firefight while hauling an explosive payload! Volatile cargo is dangerous, but it pays top rates. To stabilize hazardous goods between Supralight jumps, quick pit stops will cool things down.
We’d love to hear your feedback about these kinds of missions—we plan to add more smuggling activities in the future for all those space truckers who enjoy making extra credits on the side. Still too early to say how exactly it's gonna work, but illegal smuggling jobs might have an impact on your trading reputation later in the game. Would be dope if we even added special gear and certain ship class capabilities in the future that would come in handy for dubious tasks further down the line, wouldn’t it?
Meet our one-man-army sound designer & director Gero! He has been “lost in music, caught in a trap, no turning back” Sister Sledge-style in his sound-proved studio at our office without going nuts all by himself. For over two years, he’s been composing and tweaking well over 60 tracks, mixing a plethora of iconic SFX for primary and secondary weapons, activated ship devices and consumables, distinctive audio clues about environmental events, UI actions, as well as directing and editing countless hours of voice acting. If that wasn’t enough, Gero is also a veteran audio programmer, making all that in-game audio magic happen at the right time and place. Oh, he also does layout edits for the cinematics and in-game cutscenes. It’s been a ton of work and it’s far from being finished, but as long as coffee doesn’t run out, all is good, Gero assures us.
We probably all agree great music and fitting SFX has always been super important in video games. Even if excellent game audio might elevate the game to higher levels for many players just subconsciously, playing your favorite games, from 8-bit classic to the latest AAA blockbuster, without music can make you realize how much of the total experience is missing.
Now, when making an open-world space action RPG, many epic soundtracks from iconic space movies and sci-fi shooters immediately come to mind as inspiration. From Star Wars, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica to Halo, Destiny, and Fallout—the list of fantastic sci-fi music is endless. Expectations for a top-notch sci-fi action RPG score are very high, especially when the visual fidelity is so good. However, we don’t have a AAA budget for a highly-decorated composer and full-sized orchestra to produce several hours of in-game music. Even if we did, we think it wouldn’t be the right fit for this title.
So, being budget-limited and wanting to produce as much as possible in-house, we had to come up with a music direction that Gero could produce all by himself on keys and guitar along with high-quality percussion samples and all sorts of SFX from premium sound libraries. Instead of trying to produce an epic space opera score on a budget, we doubled down on Gero’s variety of talents and went for the iconic sound of 80s electronic pop music, like in the first installment, but with some modern EDM vibes thrown into the mix. Whatever your take is on this, we think the new music direction is the right fit for a fast-paced, arcadey spaceship looter-shooter at its core with optional exploration and other activities on the side.
If you want to read a deeper meaning to the change of our music direction for EVERSPACE 2, you could say that EVERSPACE 1 had a rock-solid foundation of top-notch space combat and striking visual but was a bit rough around its UI/UX edges, paired with a grindy roguelite game loop and a pretty dark story campaign, held back by an edgy learning curve. The game was meant to break established rules of the classic space combat & exploration genre while bringing modern roguelike elements to the mix. Hence, its unusual music direction based on 80s synthesizer sounds and 90s electric guitar riffs, combined with modern beats.
With our change of direction for EVERSPACE 2, the stakes are higher than ever. As our new title appeals to a much larger audience and is meant to be more accessible than hardcore space sims, the game’s audio direction had to follow suit. Consequently, fewer quirky sounds or tracks with a strange 7/8 beat hard to jam to, instead a straight 4/4 rhythm going right into your feet, with some off-beat syncopes here and there to keep things interesting. Last but not least, a more positive score is also a better fit for the hero’s journey in EVERSPACE 2 as Adam is growing from a formerly naive clone pilot to a real human being that finds his place in life and a goal that is worth dying for.
Now, if you’re still reading and thinking “man, that sounds quite boring, and I really don’t like that one battle track with its boring theme and stomping Euro techno beat.” Don’t fret! Gero is constantly exploring his creative boundaries and with some sixty tracks already in the game and even more to come, you’re bound to find a favorite track. Gero has an open ear for feedback from the community and from our team.
Ok, everything aside: Gero has been hard at work creating new tracks and sanding off the edges on tracks in progress; while there is still a lot to be done, I gotta say, the team and I are super pleased with some of his latest work for Union.
Check this out:
Greetings, Pilots!
Time to get excited about the first EVERSPACE 2 content update! Union: Contracts/Hinterland is scheduled to officially drop on Steam and GOG on April 28! As the suffix suggests, there’ll be new things to discover and do in the second star system. While we don’t want to unveil too much, we know that many early pilots are yearning for some teasers, so here we go—there will be spoilers; you have been warned!
We’ve already shared some information about the two new ship classes, the Bomber and the Vanguard, including some detailed concept art in our 
First in-game shot of a Cyclops, Bomber Class, Tier 1 in action. Although some pilots perceive subclasses in EVERSPACE 2 to be like different ship types in other space games, it’s worth mentioning that each ship subclass in EVERSPACE 2 will feature subclass-specific wing types as well as different perks.
The heavy-class Bomber is a bulky demolition expert with a virtually unlimited supply of missiles and mines, including the infamous ARC-9000. This much-loved secondary weapon in the first installment makes a comeback in EVERSPACE 2 as the Bomber’s very impressive Ultimate: It fires a massive ball of destruction that damages ANY ship in its vicinity and explodes on impact, so use it with great caution!
The Bomber’s Special "Conversion" is also nothing to sneeze about as secondary weapons use energy instead of ammunition. In combination with a set of random passive perks, like the ability to convert hostile mines [instead of triggering them] or reduced target lock-on duration, plus the upgradable Expertise to self-repair its hull based on a percentage of damage dealt, the Bomber allows for a unique playstyle.
You might wonder how Elek ended up hanging upside down... trapped in a cocoon... in a dark, spooky cave deep underground at Cephas Downs... you’ll find out soon!
The main mission rescuing Elek will take combat and exploration gameplay underground a notch further compared to what you have experienced in the tutorial by featuring a bigger and more complex cave with several tunnels as well as a new type of alien creature, fittingly named “Cave Crawlers.” While the pests are individually weak, they compensate through quantity and have some nasty tricks up their sleeve.
While you can easily splatter Cave Crawlers with any weapon, make sure to avoid the stacking corrosion damage from their acid spit attacks. Corrosion goes right through your shield and eats your ship’s armor and hull within seconds if hit by too many times. Better to be safe than sorry; a full stack of large nanobots might come in handy!
Once you have figured out how to make it back to the surface, Elek will drop a clue that’ll help you progress further in the main campaign, leading to an all-new type of mission. Later on, Elek will join your companion roster, where you’ll be able to unlock and upgrade his perks.
The chance of Elek joining the fight when Adam is under attack is the first of several perks to unlock and upgrade for our furry pal. Later in the game, Elek’s connections in the DMZ will come in handy, too.
Veteran EVERSPACE - Encounters pilots who have fought together with Elek know him as a skilled wingman; it’s always good to have him flying alongside you, ready to pull yet another ace from up his Outlaw pilot sleeves when things get hairy.
However, Elek being Elek, he’s not a fan of sitting around at the Homebase, waiting for you to call for help, but being busy. By further investing in your relationship, you’ll be able to increase chances that he’ll take your call. IF he shows up, his space combat skills never disappoint.
Watch out for sudden obstacles, unexpected turns, and nasty surprises dropping while chasing an informant through a dense field of asteroids.
A great example of how to keep things interesting off the beaten path are those inglorious exotic weapons quests in Destiny 2, throwing bonkers platforming challenges at Guardians before the final boss fight. At first, you might hate them, but once mastered, it’s all the more rewarding when that precious legendary drops.
With that in mind, look forward to a twisting high-speed pursuit within the busy delivery drone flight routes at Prescott Starbase and an adrenaline-rush spaceship chase through a dense asteroid field to test your maneuvering skills.
Veteran EVERSPACE pilots already know that the Ancient Warden is no push-over with his long-range hyperbolic attacks that can hit you even behind cover and its capability to teleport when receiving too much damage. Make sure you have weapons with high energy damage installed, dodge its attacks, and pay attention to the final combat phase that will be even more devastating in the confined space of a cave.
According to a recent survey on the ROCKFISH Games YouTube channel, about two thirds of space pilots prefer mouse + keyboard when playing space combat games; based on current player data, we’re seeing a whopping 82% playing with mouse + keyboard in EVERSPACE 2.
On the other hand, we’ve received a lot of feedback from pilots that the game is much too easy, thus reaching the current level cap of 14 far too fast, a point also shown in anonymously collected player data. To improve player progression throughout the story campaign and local challenges, we’ve reduced XP from kills, buffed some enemy’s hitpoints and damage output. Furthermore, drop chances for uncommon and rare items have been reduced, too.
To make things more interesting across the board, enemy levels are now more varied and more commonly above player level. Speaking of player level, we also decided to increase the new level cap to 15, enabling pilots to unlock a new set of perks:
The new set of perks is all about dealing extra damage that might come in handy when venturing into high-risk areas.
Now, to all pilots that had a hard time in EVERSPACE 2 so far, don’t fret! Once we’ve nailed game balancing of the full game for the vast majority of players, we’ll introduce various difficulty levels plus more granular gameplay and accessibility options to tweak the overall difficulty to everyone’s liking.
That said, our creative vision for EVERSPACE 2 is an open-world action RPG with looter shooter mechanics and various side activities. Meaning, just like any other open-world action RPG, anyone just bee-lining through the story campaign would not only miss a ton of content and features, the game will also be incredibly difficult.
So, we strongly recommend going for side missions, jobs and random events, solving puzzles to get more rare loot, using crafting to always have items at the current player level, and optimizing your ship and gear loadout depending on the current objective. Most importantly, always keep moving and circle-strafe to avoid incoming fire, lead your shots, and use the environment and all ship capabilities to your advantage! This is how EVERSPACE 2 is meant to be played! ;)
Bloodstar items only drop from defeated Bloodstar units and come with unique attributes that can significantly boost gear stats when equipped simultaneously.
Beyond adding new content and features, we’ve also tweaked a ton of things. As of writing this production update, I’m counting over 40 improvements currently listed on our internal changelog, ranging from migrating the project to UE4.26 to potentially fix some stability issues, 
The all-new Batch Actions feature makes dismantling, destroying, selling, or sending several items to Homebase so much easier!
Greetings, Pilots!
Our 
he Vanguard is a lightweight, maneuverable reconnaissance starfighter with a high emphasis on speed, mobility, and defensive measures.
The Bomber is a missile and mine specialist with access to unique explosive weapons and warheads. Think “shoot first, ask questions later…”
Not enough you say? We agree! Even though we originally didn’t plan to add more main story content beyond what’s already in the Early Access release version, we feel you guys. The “cavehanger” is brutal and totally unexpected, making you go: “NOOOOOO!”
TBH, that’s exactly how I felt when reaching the current end of the story campaign. I knew I hadn’t discovered every location and solved all puzzles yet. I’d already reached level 14 because I’d constantly got side-tracked doing side missions, jobs, challenges, distress calls, unknown signals, and high-risk areas. Good job, team!
However, I didn’t move on while playtesting before the Early Access release because I didn’t want to spoil my first playthrough experience for the rest of Union and instead wanted to look at our WIP game from a consumer point of view. It really left me with a weird feeling. On the one hand, I couldn’t wait to see all the cool stuff to experience for myself that I have missed and be able to write about it here—there’s content for 25+ hours of gameplay in the current version if you’re willing to explore. On the other hand, I wanted to preserve that feeling of discovering new locations when new main and side missions will take me there once the new update dropped. Meaning, I can totally understand everyone who’s yearning for more story content.
Along with new cinematics being further polished with great help from the talented folks at 
In the star system Zharkov, EVERSPACE 2 pilots will get to the core of Grady & Brunt's shady business operations when infiltrating their ranks and learning about G&B's dark deeds.
Here are the major improvements, new features, and content additions that we’ve PLANNED for this year:
On the EVERSPACE 2 Steam store page, we’ve listed all major improvements, features, and content additions that are PLANNED for v1.0. However, it’s really hard to share detailed milestones beyond the next 12 months [because we honestly don’t know yet]. Of course, we’ll update the roadmap every three to six months, accordingly.
Greetings, Pilots!
PHEW, what a launch week! EVERSPACE 2’s start in Steam Early Access exceeded our wildest expectations. So far, we’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback from fans and press all over the world. After we started Early Access with more than 260,000 wishlist entries on Steam, we were very confident. However, we would never have dared to dream that we would land at number 1 on the global Steam Charts in no time and stay in the top ten for six consecutive days, resulting in 
Last week’s sneaky reveal: You wanted it, you got it: EVERSPACE 2 is available on NVIDIA Geforce NOW!
After a few hours, we saw over 3,000 concurrent players, which is more than double the record of the lower-priced, original EVERSPACE during its first big summer sale. With currently 93% positive reviews, we seem to have hit the bulls-eye with tens of thousands of space shooter fans. The critical consensus from the media and content creators is also overwhelmingly positive, and we’d like to share a few articles and our favorite video previews with you:
“Everspace 2 is close to being the new gold standard for space shooters | I like tinkering with graphs and plotting galactic domination as much as the next guy, but I'm enjoying Everspace 2's singular focus on energetic combat and exploration. Even though it's an Early Access game that Rockfish says still needs 12 to 18 months of work, Everspace 2 is absolutely worth buying when it releases on January 18.” - 
Concept Art: Right now, visitors will find a side mission, assignments for various jobs as well as shops to trade goods at Noah Damaris Starport. And there is much more yet to come! Rest assured, we didn’t build this sprawling beast of a station just as a pit stop.
But wait, there is more! We’ve also been busy working on the first patch bringing various bug fixes, QoL improvements, and further performance optimization to be released sometime next week. Here’s the kicker: Everyone can jump right into it by switching to our all-new Experimental Branch on Steam.
To access the EVERSPACE 2 experimental branch, right-click on EVERSPACE 2 in your Steam library -> select Properties -> pick Experimental Branch under BETAS. The Experimental build changelog can be found 
Greetings, pilots!
We know, we know! Waiting sucks, but it's finally happening: EVERSPACE 2 will launch in Steam Early Access on January 18 at 7 pm CET / 1 pm ET / 10 am PT.
Priced at €37.99 / $39.99 / £31.99, the game will launch in English with professional voice acting for the first 12+ hours of the story campaign and several side missions that take place in the first two star systems of the final game. The initial version will be good for at least 25 hours of gameplay, while introducing pilots to EVERSPACE 2’s core gameplay mechanics of space combat, exploration, mining, puzzle-solving, traveling, trading, itemization, crafting, ship customization, player and companion perks. You’ll be spending all that time in five different player ship subclasses. Lots to play with!
The full version for PC, including Mac and native Linux support, will be released at a reasonably increased price in the first half of 2022 and come with UI and text language support for German (incl. voice dubbing), French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
[previewyoutube=jeBXVhuURKI;full][/previewyoutube]
After multiple rounds of community testing by some 2,000 players, and great feedback from various gaming outlets and content creators on the closed Beta, EVERSPACE 2 is ready for Early Access, and we can’t wait to receive your much-appreciated feedback on the initial release version. If anything does not feel right, is missing, or you got a great idea, make sure to let us know on the Steam forum. Rest assured, we will read every single comment.
Of course, the game is far from being finished. On top of the two star systems pilots will be able to explore in Early Access at launch, we plan to have four to six more as well as several additional player ship subclasses beyond the Interceptor, Sentinel, Striker, Gunship, and Scout at launch, to be gradually added on a quarterly basis. In the final game, players will also be able to enjoy twice as much story content plus lots of worthwhile endgame activities. We look forward to working closely with you guys and gals over the course of the next 12 to 18 months to make an outstanding narrative-driven open-world space looter shooter.
If you're still on the fence to even wishlist, check out our 
Greetings, pilots!
Today’s production update will be the last for this year. Obviously, we had a different main topic planned for this one. We’re fully aware that many of you still feel bummed out about our new Early Access release date, even though we have received a lot of understanding for our reasoning from our backers. So thanks again for your support!
We’d like to conclude an unprecedentedly rough year for probably all of us on a high note. Thanks to our new timeline, we got some cool new content and features to share that would not have made it into the Early Access release version (our code freeze was pushed back by two weeks, the content freeze by four weeks).
Concept art overpaint of ruins of The Ancients on Cephas II, a moon of the gas giant Cephas within the Union system. While you won’t run into any Ancients yet, we squeezed a couple of their mysterious ruins in as a teaser for the initial Early Access release, thanks to the extra time.
Encountering The Ancients without any warning whatsoever was a major highlight in the original EVERSPACE. Their ability to transfer energy into matter as well as control time and space added new challenges in combat, the opportunity of fast-travel, as well as some wicked alien tech to play within the endgame—all must-haves in any great open-world space RPG, right?
So, how better to introduce the mysteries of fast-travel as well as “mind-bending” weapon technology and devices (with a chance of surprising side effects) in the universe of EVERSPACE than utilizing some ancient alien tech that nobody seems to know much about yet, hence the generic name. But what if The Ancients turn out to be deeply connected to the established lore? Definitely not a new concept but proven in popular sci-fi classics many times before, and yet endless possibilities for adding new ideas in EVERSPACE 2…
Around Prescott Plaza (concept art overpaint), travelers will be able to delve into all the human, as well as alien, guilty pleasures you can think of; as an antipole to the grim reality of living a harsh life in the DMZ, far, far from Earth, moral and ethics have no home in this place, especially in the uptown district.
Concept art of the casino’s bar from a story campaign cutscene; this is where experienced shooters hang around when on the hunt for challenging high stakes assignments.
Concept art overpaint of the space docks at Prescott Starbase, a rather dark and filthy place. While officially under the control of the Prescott Port Authority, opposing mafia clans call the shots, literally. Even though these families live by different morals and conducts of doing business, unconditional loyalty is non-negotiable. “If you need it, we have it” is the mantra at this infamous black market within the DMZ; just don’t ask where the goods came from. Greed for profit and deep loathing towards the Colonial Fleet and the Okkar Authorities is what holds this sizzling melting pot of questionable human and bizarre alien individuals together. For anyone good at operating under the radar and willing to play by a different set of rules, this is yet another place where to look for risky but very profitable “business opportunities”.
While it is still under development and far from being complete, we’re excited to announce that Prescott Starbase will be explorable on day #1 and that we’ll add more functionality and opportunities to interact over the next year during Early Access.
Greetings, pilots!
Let’s get the cyber elephant out of the room right away: The Cyberpunk 2077 release has just been pushed back to December 10, which is a major blow to our planned EVERSPACE 2 Early Access release in mid-December. Not only will every media outlet and content creator cover the arguably most-anticipated AAA game in history throughout the entire holiday season (and not much else), we also know that there’s quite a bit of audience overlap within our community (and our team), so...
After a quick consultation with our marketing friends at Evolve PR, Plan Of Attack, and Swordfish PR, we’ve decided to push back the EVERSPACE 2 Early Access release to January. We know that sucks, but hear us out! There’s actually some good in this.
Every open-world RPG player knows, defeating opponents and completing activities at lower-than-player level might be inevitable to progress in the story campaign, but it can also be fun - who doesn’t enjoy ripping through a bunch of low-level mobs every now and then? However, loot drops from lower-level opponents and activities will mostly be underwhelming. Here is where crafting comes into play, supplementing that good shoot-and-loot feeling by providing a convenient way to turn trash loot into valuable gear. This approach helps when tackling issues that especially come with the looter-shooter genre:
Here's a preview comparing your freshly crafted item with your currently equipped gear to see if it suits your playstyle - or not.
Generally, crafting items from scratch starts with the lowest rarity (common) for each of the three gear categories. Primary Weapons, Secondary Weapons, and Modules. After choosing which type of gear to craft, you’ll have to spend enough crafting resources to receive a new randomly generated item of your chosen rarity.
Furthermore, by dismantling items, you’ll be able to progress your "crafting experience" which can then be used to unlock new blueprints. These new blueprints will allow you to craft specific item types like pulse lasers, shields, mine launchers, and any other equippable item over time. But that’s not all!: You’ll also be able to unlock higher rarity blueprints via companion perks.
When an item was crafted or is modified, it receives an icon label "Improvised" and cannot be modified any further. That means an item is only upgradable once and a crafted item cannot be upgraded any further. However, we might allow further upgrading/modifying with perks or special NPCs at a later stage - crafting can be a deep rabbit hole.
Say hello to the Gunship, a Heavy Fighter subclass armed to the teeth by using four primary hardpoints as well as a devastating 360° auto turret Ultimate.
Bulky and intimidating, but that’s what fans of this subclass were looking for, right?
Before we move on, I’d like to take this opportunity to give a warm round of applause to our PR experts Aidan, Astrid, Christopher, Freyja, Laura, Lee, and Vytautas doing a fantastic job in helping us spread the word, find and secure promotion opportunities, as well as proof-reading every production update and interview since we finished the Kickstarter campaign successfully. Don’t worry, we’re still indie-style, and every piece you read is from us, but comes with professional polish because top-notch marketing & PR is equally important as making a killer game :)
Well, if you are excited about the new Gunship, want to learn more about crafting in EVERSPACE 2, and maybe even win a pre-release key incl. immediate closed Beta access, make sure to join today’s stream on 
Greetings, Pilots!
Time is relative, indeed. For us developers, it is flying because the next major milestone is always just around the corner. But for you all it probably feels like forever until you can get your hands on the next pre-release version of EVESPACE 2, right? Well, we’ve got some great news.
Unfortunately, the new animated main menu background did not make it into the stable Beta build on Steam. We wanted to give an early look at this improvement with you here because it adds a sense of the deep exploration that all of you can look forward to when EVERSPACE 2 launches with the additional “Union System” and even more new stuff in Early Access this December.
So, what has changed since the previous production update, you might wonder? Well, apart from new content in the Ceto system that we want you to discover for yourselves, we made further UI/UX improvements based on the much-appreciated feedback from Alpha backers. We implemented cockpit view featuring fully functional instruments, improved the visual quality of several environmental assets and the overall performance of the build, and, of course, fixed a ton of bugs. More side missions, job variations and enemy types, points of interest, and puzzles have been added as well. Last but not least, Gero, our Sound Director, has been tweaking and adding sound effects and in-game music tracks. Basically, the Beta is a heavily revamped Alpha with a few content additions as well as more and better LOOT!
You can win THIS — just head over to our dear friends at PC Gamer before the contest ends in a few DAYS!
There are quite a few entries already, but when has an EVERSPACE pilot ever let the odds get them down? In the case you are not a lucky star on this one, there will be another run with even better starting conditions - hm, where have we heard that before?
Spoiler Alert: The Okkar trader Tareen from the EVERSPACE - Encounters add-on will have an important come back in EVERSPACE 2. You'll find out more about his role as another companion in our narrative piece on PC Gamer.
Make sure to join today’s official Beta reveal stream on 
Greetings, Pilots!
For any of you who might have been hiding under a rock in a galaxy far, far away, we would like to get the following major news onto your radar.