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.
Closed Beta Access For All Eligible Backers
To ease the pain for backers who don’t have access to the closed Beta, we’ve decided to send out pre-release keys to all eligible backers on November 2nd. Yes, you heard right, instead of waiting until mid-December, everyone who pledged for a digital copy will be able to delve into the closed Beta this Monday and start experiencing the first 10ish hours of what we have planned for Early Access. Of course, there’s no time constraint, so feel free to melt your PC as long as you want to and share some pretty screenshots with our awesome community on our discord.
Just do us one favor: please make sure to check your spam folders before sending us messages on all channels and dropping comments all over the place if you haven’t received your key within 24 hours. In case you are still missing your key, the fastest way for us to serve you is by sending us a direct message on Kickstarter so we can look you up in our database with only one click and reply with your key swiftly.
Also, in case anyone is wondering, all(!) pre-release keys will be revoked when we hit Early Access, as we will send out new keys for each platform. Everyone who pledged on a digital copy for PC, will be able to choose between Steam, GOG, and the Epic Game Store (provided Epic Games accepts EVERSPACE 2 on their store, we’re working on that) a few weeks before full release.
Last but not least, opening the Beta to all backers who pledged for a game copy means we will get even more quality feedback from up to another 6K backers. It also gives enough time for us to evaluate and make improvements for the upcoming Early Access thanks to an extra four weeks of development time. Our entire team will have their much-deserved winter holidays to recharge their batteries and spend time with their loved ones without making a single mouse click on the project.
Crafting
With this news out of the way, let’s delve into our plans for crafting in EVERSPACE 2. We have been teasing this major feature in our weekly streams for quite a while, and we’re excited to finally share some snippets with you guys (big disclaimer: everything about crafting is SUBJECT TO CHANGE).
In EVERSPACE 2, everything revolves around flying, shooting, and looting. To help with combat against tougher enemies, better equipment is much-needed. To give us better control over player progress in a narrative-driven RPG as well as overall difficulty balancing within each star system, we chose to have player and item levels. Accordingly, items and enemies scale in strength based on their level.
So, when you level up, you should hunt for better equipment by shooting down slightly stronger enemies or completing higher-level activities providing more powerful equipment as reward - so far, so good, RPG business as usual.
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:
- Enabling players to turn otherwise worthless loot into better gear
- Encouraging players to try out different weapon types, especially in the early- and mid-game, before settling on a few favorites (going Beam laser only e.g.)
- Preventing players from hoarding items or crafting resources, so inventory management doesn’t become a chore
- Preventing players from being under-equipped in case of “RNG unlucky” or them not bothering about side quests or certain activities that (might) provide much-needed powerful gear to beat the next boss
Now, as you progress through the game, you’ll gather better blueprints which will enable you to have more control over the outcome of the crafting process, albeit at higher costs the more valuable a given crafted item is. We hope that unlocking blueprints will keep you motivated to max out crafting, which might scratch that completionist itch.
To craft or upgrade an item you’ll need a defined amount of crafting resources and in some cases specific items. The required amount of ingredients doesn't depend on item level but its rarity. When crafting a new item, it will always be at your current player level, so you can use it right away.
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.
Gunship Porn
100% clickbait, I know, I know, but no worries: This section is still family-friendly. It’s just we think the all-new Gunship looks really sexy with its shiny all-metal livery and curved hull.
At the moment, this thicc boi is not ready for duty due to some issues with its targeting software. Basically, it currently is only good for punching big holes into the void and for bragging rights - which is a good start, don’t get me wrong, but we want this baddie to live up to its look. With this Gunship sneak peek, we slowly move it back into the hangar for further tweaking. Rest assured, this beast will be playable at launch of Early Access in January.
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 Twitch and YouTube, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm CET / 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm ET / 11:00 am to 1:00 pm PT, where Erik will share more details without losing his job for breaking our NDA.
The hype is real, see you in the Beta... 🚀👀💥🙌
Michael and your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team
PS: If you like what you see, make sure to wishlist, then follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and join our community on discord.
If you are still on the fence, give the free EVERSPACE 2 demo a try. Please note: This demo is the Prototype from last year, so it is quite outdated. We’ve already implemented a lot of improvements based on community feedback on UI and controls as well as new features and content like additional graphics settings, cockpit view, HOTAS support, and a ton more into the upcoming Early Access version.