Greetings, Pilots!
Our first patch including community-requested features, tweaks, game balancing, and overall performance improvements, as well as several bugfixes, is out. Steam reviews are sitting at 1700+ with 92% positive, sales are beyond expectations, and current outstanding wishlists are through the roof (as in over 3x compared to the predecessor after 30 days post-launch).
There’s no denying that things are looking really good so far. On the other hand, avid space pilots from around the globe have already burned through the current content and are demanding MOARRR! Well, that’s definitely a good problem to have, and we’re already working on lots of new stuff.
Roadmap 2021
Our first content update is on track to be released in April, featuring various additional side and mini-missions as well as new activities taking place in Ceto and Union. There will also be new loot as well as two new player ship sub-classes.
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 Puppet Works, based in Budapest, look forward to continuing the story campaign in Union, bringing back the beloved WIP TTS voice-overs (and maybe some more 4th-wall-breaking dialogues), only available during Early Access.
Now, we’ve also received a ton of questions about what’s coming and when. We love your excitement, yet we also want to manage expectations, as adding new content and features to a complex “open-world action RPG with spaceships” is no joke for a small indie dev team of 25—we already feel the pressure 😅
Even though we just launched in Early Access, some media outlets are touting EVERSPACE 2 as “Roque Squadron meets Diablo,” being “The Witcher of Spacer Shooters,” “Nailing Those Freelancer Vibes So Far,” praising it as “Descent and Privateer had a baby.” No doubt, we love these kinds of headlines, but as an indie studio, we also don’t want an overblown sense of hype around our game, while we also aim to make EVERSPACE 2 stand out on its own.
To manage expectations, as “the hub” in EVERSPACE 2’s game world, Union will be the largest of our planned star systems. While some will be substantially smaller, each star system will feature a unique look & feel and offer new types of activities.
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.
Space Critters
As some of you have already seen in the sneak peek of our live stream from two weeks ago, space critters will be a thing in EVERSPACE 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iReG0syyUo
We’re still working on their “abilities” and experimenting with how they can interact with the player, but look forward to saying hello to Cave Crawlers (the name might change) in the first content update.
Ok, that’s it for now. If you wanna know more, join our next “ROCKFISH Recap,” hosted by Erik the Shredder, Community Ambassador and ace pilot, on Twitch and YouTube, today from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm CET / 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm ET / 11:00 am to 1:00 pm PT. Rumor has it that he’ll have some all-new content to show! 🚀👀💥🙌
Keep it civil on the forums, and see you in space!
Michael and your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team