Everspace 2

[bertram_tung]

this games awesome. been playin all night.

This right here has got me to install.

i'm 60 hours in and i still stand by my comment. this game is a blast

 

[PapaPetro]

this games awesome. been playin all night.

This right here has got me to install.

i'm 60 hours in and i still stand by my comment. this game is a blast

Yeah from what I tried, I'm liking it. The controls are arcade smooth and glidey and the graphics are cosmic eye candy.
I mean if you slow the game down and take a look, the attention to detail is beautiful:

 

[Insect Hordes]

This is like scuba diving except I'm BBQ'd in outer space.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Does someone know if there's an easy way to deactivate more elements of the HUD, without deactivating the whole thing? The options are quite barebones. The games is gorgeous but its unnecessarily cluttered with markers, mission text, enemy names(this is particularly grating when there is a swarm of drones and ships). Is anyone familiar with Unreal Engine 4 and knows if this is hard to do via modding? Or if its possible by editing some game files?

 

[Fedora Master]

Those endless puzzles suck the fun out of the game.

 

[fantadomat]

Playing the game,having great fun lol. Didn't expect to like a space sim that much. Pleasantly surprised by the writing and mostly the great level design.

 

[pickmeister]

Never played Everspace but I'm thinking of trying it out. Should I play the first one or jump right in the second one?
And since I'm asking, I never played Freelancer either. Is that one worth my time? Recommend me which one of the three to play.

 

[cyborgboy95]

Legendary Limiting | State of Gamepass | Hotfix 1.0.33633 | In-Progress

Greetings Pilots!

The launch of EVERSPACE 2 has been an amazing success! We’ve never seen so many pilots in-game at one time—with more than twice the copies sold compared to our first game during launch week and seven times the number of pilots in space, it’s safe to say that this launch is our best yet! We can’t thank you all enough!

Legendaries
Back when we first announced Legendary items in the Ancient Rifts Early Access Update, we said that due to the significantly overpowered and unique natures of these items, we’d be limiting how many can be equipped at one time. Now as more and more players have hit the endgame of EVERSPACE 2, we have been hearing comments about this decision. As we continue development, our teams are discussing if there is a good solution for players who want to use more of them.

The current version of EVERSPACE 2 has only been tested with a maximum of two Legendary items equipped—allowing players to use more than this limit at this time may cause game-breaking bugs, and we’d like to approach any possible expansion of the number of equipable Legendaries with caution. This conversation is ongoing and we’ll share more about any changes that come from decisions in future news updates.

A note from our design team explaining some of the thoughts behind the design of Legendary equipment.

Legendaries are not supposed to be just the next rarity after "Superior" like in a lot of other games, but instead, truly special and game-changing items.

We want your hard-earned Starforged Superior items to remain valuable and for you to feel rewarded for finding fun synergies. With that in mind, by only equipping a limited number of legendaries, it pushes players to make the most out of their options. This goes very much in line with the rest of the game's design philosophy, e.g. the player perks requiring you to choose between three options.

There are currently 18 legendaries in the launch version of EVERSPACE 2, with one or two per equipment category. Removing the limitation entirely would mean that many players who have been diving into Ancient Rifts would likely be flying around with the exact same loadout come endgame, "Bird's Nest" for example is currently the only legendary secondary weapon. Partially because of this limitation, we decided to make legendaries properly unique and extremely powerful items you can find in-game today.

We want you to have a good time in the game and be presented with proper challenges regardless of your playtime. And yes, we know that for some of you a "good time" involves obliterating hordes of enemies with god-like powers and invulnerability, but that's something difficult to provide while upholding a proper balance.

Gamepass Version 1.0.33479.0
Our 1.0 launch on PC Gamepass did not go as planned due to a cert error on our end, and we’re working to correct this. The version made available on PC Gamepass was very near to 1.0, but did have some known issues, including certain achievements not triggering, broken plugins affecting features like DLSS and TrackIR, and most notably, how cutscene videos can’t be played. Saves created in this version of EVERSPACE 2 on PC Gamepass should have no issues when switching to 1.0.

Today, Microsoft accepted our 1.0.33479.0 version for PC Gamepass and it will be available to players very soon. This build, unfortunately, still contains a few of the current video issues that will be fixed in a hotfix update. Today, we’re submitting our latest build (details below), which we are confident will pass, bringing PC Gampass players fully up to par with version 1.0 of EVERSPACE 2.

We’re sincerely sorry about the delay. It is a fairly complex process with many changes under the hood since our last submission to full(!) certification for the Microsoft Store five years ago. We will continue to update on this topic on Discord and our social media accounts.


Hotfix 1.0.33633
Thank you to everyone who has reported an issue, especially if it was done so in our Steam Community Hub bug reporting area. Today’s minor update brings a number of requested fixes and tweaks to existing features.

Please note that we have not yet been able to find and fix the cause for the quite nasty and elusive "Flak Crash/Freeze". We are still investigating and hope to be able to release another hotfix for the issue soon. We cannot entirely confirm, but it may help to play in DirectX 11 instead of 12 to get rid of the problem for now.

You can find the full changelog below:

Changelog - 1.0.33633
Tweaks

• Further performance optimizations
• Tweaked Faction Battles in Drake that could be lost within seconds
• Integrated localization changes suggested by Crowdin community
• UI: Added Unreal Engine logo to startup screens

Bugfixes

• Fixed that main missions stopped after completing "Blakemore's Wrath" if continuing from an auto-save that was created right after mission completion. (Players affected by this can now dock to homebase and the follow-up mission will start.)
• Fixed main mission blocker in "Crash and Burn" when managing to quickly undock from Ships & Supplies before the "undock" task was activated
• Added missing "Change Compare Item" default binding ("Left Trigger") for Gamepad Scheme A
• Updated one of the "vision" videos which still was an older version before
• Fixed that "Show Current Gamepad Bindings" screen was empty for "custom" bindings
• Fixed that achievements could fail to register when two or more achievements were unlocked at the same time
• Fixed that force feedback effects did not get triggered when cam shakes were turned off
• Fixed that inversion and other axis settings of some axes (especially when used with modifier buttons) did not work
• Fixed red screen vignette flashing up when repairing hull at low HP
• Fixed that in some instances a level up was not triggered even though XP requirements were met
• Fixed a crash that was related to the dynamic job system
• Fixed an edge case in side mission "Vaultworthy" which blocked the mission progress
• Fixed "two drones with one mine" challenge not working with Teleporter's "Parting Gift" mine
• Fixed that some bonus attributes were not working for flak cannons
• Fixed that the warden in the main mission "Smokes & Mirrors" in Forlorn Vale could not spawn properly, resulting in a blocker
• Fixed a missing mission hud marker in side mission "A Custom-Made Error"
• Fixed that two "kill from a distance" challenges could not be achieved with flak cannons
• Fixed excessive VRAM usage when playing via wine/proton and viewing animated cutscene videos
• Fixed FSR2 plugin not being loaded on the Gamepass version
• Fixed TrackIR not working on Gamepass due to missing NPClient.dll
• Fixed that an intended loot drop at the end of Battle Support events did not occur
• Fixed that in rare cases the Ceremonial Drone was still present at the end of Side Mission "The Convert"
• Fixed that female scientist on BRI Bioplant neither had a name nor portrait assigned
• Fixed being able to activate signal decoders in Ancient Rifts
• Fixed that a Lava Bomb could be dropped at the 4th Socket before the 3rd in Side Mission "Gang Wars II"
• Fixed an issue in first mission stage of "Parasite" side mission in which all awoken ships must be destroyed
• Added missing dismantling quality bonus attributes to legendary cargo units
• UI: Fixed that tutorial boxes could not be dismissed using keyboard or gamepad in some cases
• UI: Fixed that ships at homebase could be changed in customization screen which could break ship layout in some cases
• UI: Fixed that modify show preview action was active after modifying an item sometimes, even though it should be disabled
• UI: Fixed a bug that multiple modify operations could be executed right after another in some cases
• UI: Fixed that menu header credits delta amount could get stuck during animation

In-Progress
As the team works on coming PC updates and our console release, we’ve got a number of other projects on the go! The EVERSPACE 2 digital soundtrack is in production as is a very hefty artbook; more on both of those soon. We are exploring bringing French and Japanese voice acting to EVERSPACE 2. As it takes some time to find 20+ talents, record the four-hour-long script, edit recordings, add SFX, and implement the sound files in-game, we expect this new V/O will be added either in the free update or alongside our console release this summer.

Physical rewards for our Kickstarter backers are in production and we expect to be able to start delivering items around or shortly after our console release. We are working with as many European and North American manufacturers as possible to reduce potential shipping delays. We’ll share more on this front with a Kickstarter Update in the near future.

That’s all from our side today! See you pilots in space!

Lee & your dedicated ROCKFISH team

 

[fantadomat]

Never played Everspace but I'm thinking of trying it out. Should I play the first one or jump right in the second one?
And since I'm asking, I never played Freelancer either. Is that one worth my time? Recommend me which one of the three to play.

Never played everspace 1,but this one is great,would recommend it first. Freelancers is cool,but it is old,it has aged elements like grinding for money to get good ships. Also it lacks side content,everspace 2 have nice side missions.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Never played Everspace but I'm thinking of trying it out. Should I play the first one or jump right in the second one?
And since I'm asking, I never played Freelancer either. Is that one worth my time? Recommend me which one of the three to play.

You can play this one directly. Game tells you first ones events in first hours in short. First game is kinda rogue like ish. This one is a proper RPG and feels much better.
Having a blast with 2nd game right now. They really upgraded on first game on many fronts.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Everspace 1 was really good as well.

It was Rogue-lite, with you carrying over XP-bought abilities, meaning with persistence it became easier. I was suprised by it's quality and polish.

You progressed through solar systems similar to FTL: Faster Than Light, with an enemy 'front' chasing you.

Each system was a small 'open world' with stuff to explore, for fuel, loot, etc; including ruined outposts, natural caves, asteroid fields, etc. When you progressed a handful of systems, you reached a jump-gate out of the sector. There were about 7 sectors total if I remember, with an end-game quest in the last one.

Other German devs are not known for their bug-free releases, to my memory, but I encountered no bugs, no jank whatsoever, no unfair barriers to progression, smooth controls, and perfect graphics. I really like that this game has super-easy strafing (where most sims go with Star Wars-style aerial combat); that actually makes sense in space, where motion is Newtonian.

 

[somerandomdude]

I just started playing this, I've only played it for a couple of hours, but so far it seems decent. The game is fairly well optimized, there's no odd frame rate hitches. It should run full frames on high refresh rate monitors if you got the specs. Perfectly functional with K&M or controller.

 

[Jinn]

Paging Strange Fellow to discuss in more depth what he considered to be the very shallow gameplay. Still interested in this but would like to see a bit more discussion on it before I put the money or time in.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Paging Strange Fellow to discuss in more depth what he considered to be the very shallow gameplay. Still interested in this but would like to see a bit more discussion on it before I put the money or time in.

Bear in mind that I played it for less than 10 hours more than a year ago, and the one word I would use to describe those hours is "forgettable". I'm not able to be very specific.

The gameplay mainly consists of flying around in space, fighting groups of enemy ships, collecting resources, trading with trading posts, and upgrading your own ship. The gameworld is segregated into zones which you can warp between. Each zone generally has a few points of interest, which might be small asteroids, concentrations of space debris or trading posts. The general gameplay loop is to fly around each zone, fighting the enemy groups as they appear and then space-Roombaing up everything you can find afterwards. The loot amounts to resources (think Unobtainium Fragment x3), or stuff you can add to your ship, like weapons.

There are a couple of different weapon types, with some having a high rate of fire and being effective at close range, others being slower with long range, some variants of heat-seeking missiles, and so on. There isn't a great amount of variety, and mostly you'll be finding the same set of weapons over and over again. The weapons are RNG-based, so you get an infinite number of copies of the same gun, with small variations in optimal range, damage, shield damage, etc. Generally though, the level stat is king. A level 15 Spacegun will be so much better than a level 5 Spacegun that you'll be stupid not to switch, even if the level 5 Spacegun has an ideal combination of attributes for your setup. As I recall there are also colour-coded rarity tiers, with all that that entails.

Enemy ships are also infected by the level stat. You can see the level of each enemy ship as you get near them, and generally speaking, enemies with a lower level than you are a joke, enemies around and slightly above the same level as you are fine to fight, and anything above a certain number of levels above yours have so much health, shields, and damage output that fighting them is a dangerous slog. There's very little tactics involved, because you're usually fighting in empty space. Sometimes you can play popamole around an asteroid, and you can often try to pull lone ships away from the pack to deal with them individually, but usually combat amounts to who has the longest range on their gun, and/or who has the best DPS and shields. The flight and combat mechanics are arcade-like, and while I'm aware that this isn't trying to be a space sim, it means that there's not much of a learning curve to them. Just point and shoot, basically.

The upshot is that I experienced almost no sense of progression throughout my time with the game. It leans heavily into the loot treadmill. You need a level 15 Spacegun and a level 15 shield to deal with the level 15 space bandits, who drop a level 18 Spacegun which you can use to take on the level 18 bandits, and so on and so on. Meanwhile, the actual gameplay remains exactly the same. There's also never any reason to think. Quest markers and intrusive UI elements will tell you exactly where to go and what to do at all times.

The story is as generic as you could possibly imagine. I remember nothing about it, nor anything about any of the characters. Quests are similarly generic, with lots of "Kill this group of bad guys", or else "Collect 5 Unobtainium Fragments (0/5)". There were a few quests I encountered that were a bit more involved, but all that amounts to is basically a chain of the two aforementioned quests, interspersed with some uninteresting dialogue.

Again, all of this is based on very vague memories, so if someone wants to correct me I would trust their info over mine. Also, I will reiterate that the game is absolutely gorgeous. It's definitely a competently made game, and the gameplay is not unfun, so if you want some low-effort space porn you could do a lot worse than this game. I don't regret the hours I spent, but I do regret paying 30 dollars for it.

 

[fantadomat]

Paging Strange Fellow to discuss in more depth what he considered to be the very shallow gameplay. Still interested in this but would like to see a bit more discussion on it before I put the money or time in.

The gameplay mainly consists of flying around in space, fighting groups of enemy ships, collecting resources, trading with trading posts, and upgrading your own ship.

Nigga it is space sim game,you do that shit in every single one. It is like describing rpgs as running around,finding better gear,putting them on and clicking on things to die.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Paging Strange Fellow to discuss in more depth what he considered to be the very shallow gameplay. Still interested in this but would like to see a bit more discussion on it before I put the money or time in.

The gameplay mainly consists of flying around in space, fighting groups of enemy ships, collecting resources, trading with trading posts, and upgrading your own ship.

Nigga it is space sim game,you do that shit in every single one. It is like describing rpgs as running around,finding better gear,putting them on and clicking on things to die.

If you keep reading, you'll find that there's a whole post right underneath that sentence you quoted, which explains what I mean.

That sentence isn't a value judgement, by the way. Yes, you could describe all RPGs as running around, finding better gear, putting it on and clicking on things to die. But within that framework there's a lot of variety, which is why there can be games that do it badly and games that do it well.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I never played Freelancer either. Is that one worth my time?

it's objectively one of the worst games ever, this coming from someone who sort of likes anything with a starship. its cult has no explanation whatsoever. ships are shit (and just 3, literally just 3, with varying power levels), weapons are shit (there may be 5 here, same deal as ships), navigation is shit, trading is shit, combat is like stepping on shit while you're force-fed shit-shitting shit, it has absolutely not a single redeeming value, not even uninstalling it is enough to cleanse yourself from this stain on humanity.

 

[Jinn]

Strange Fellow, thank you for the HUGE response, friend! Definitely didn't mean to make you drop a wall like that, but it's very helpful. I'm a big fan of space sims, and definitely know this isn't one. Sad to hear that it hardly goes further than a standard ARPG, except with space shooties though. I played the demo quite awhile back, and what you describe is kind of what I feared from that experience. Though, we both played versions well before the current released one, so maybe it's a bit different? I know they changed the level scaling way for the better, so maybe that allows for a little leeway in what you were describing in terms of progression.

Haven't written it off yet though. Would still be interested to hear some other thoughts on it, particularly in its V1.0 state.

 

[somerandomdude]

Sniping stuff with a rail gun is pretty heavy cheese. I picked up a rail gun with 4.5km range, and I can pick off targets far outside of their ability to shoot me back. Weapon range for most of these outlaws seems to be 1200-1500m, so they have to close 3km on me before they can even shoot back, and I can backpedal and kite them as they're trying to close in, so they can't even touch me before getting shredded.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Although I've played less than 10 hours, my impressions are very close to Strange Fellow 's . I just didn't feel compelled or challenged by the game's mechanics at all, it's just a simplistic loot/level treadmill with very little player freedom. It looks and runs well enough, but I'm glad I didn't spend any money on it.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Yeah, it overstay it's welcome. Completely feels like just another open world shooter """"RPG"""" with crafting and light story elements. There is zero challenge unless you attack higher leveled enemies, which is really unrewarding because you cannot use anything dropped from them.

I'm playing mostly for the space porn. Enviroments are really well done, especially main space missions. I like the ships, they are different enough to make gameplay different, I guess. But ships having tiers and being hugely random on shops is irritating.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

I hate loot shooter mechanics and level scaling. Fortunately the progression is fairly slow and you're not forced to reconfigure your gear every 5 minutes or so. I'd say you can often play for ~1h or so without having to change much of your loadout. It is not so intrusive that it would ruin the game, but I have no doubt that game would be better without it.
The positive part and I would say its the most important part, is the core gameplay and feeling, i.e. flying and shooting. And that works very well. The gameplay lacks variety but the core is very solid and remains fun for a good time. It has arcade gameplay and feels like a fps in space, while looking gorgeous due to the space setting. You can cheese by using long range weapons. Its a design weakness of Everspace 2 where you basically always have access to such weapons. This was handled better in Everspace 1, where the rogue like gameplay mixed things up more. I highly recommend to try out other weapons and ships if you get bored by the current playstyle. It can mean gimping yourself, but it helps to keep things interesting.
I would recommend the game If you're looking for gorgeous short lived space action. I would not recommend it if you are looking for game more akin to the X series or a "physics" based simulation.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Definitely didn't mean to make you drop a wall like that

I didn't mean to write one.

Though, we both played versions well before the current released one, so maybe it's a bit different?

This is very possible. After all, if you want to be cynical about it, all game design is just a scheme to stave off repetition for as long as possible, and some more variety can do a lot for this type of game.

Doesn't sound like much has changed, though, and it's a difference of degree rather than kind in any case.

 

[fantadomat]

Paging Strange Fellow to discuss in more depth what he considered to be the very shallow gameplay. Still interested in this but would like to see a bit more discussion on it before I put the money or time in.

The gameplay mainly consists of flying around in space, fighting groups of enemy ships, collecting resources, trading with trading posts, and upgrading your own ship.

Nigga it is space sim game,you do that shit in every single one. It is like describing rpgs as running around,finding better gear,putting them on and clicking on things to die.

If you keep reading, you'll find that there's a whole post right underneath that sentence you quoted, which explains what I mean.

That sentence isn't a value judgement, by the way. Yes, you could describe all RPGs as running around, finding better gear, putting it on and clicking on things to die. But within that framework there's a lot of variety, which is why there can be games that do it badly and games that do it well.

There is not a lot of variety,the difference in the writing and the setting. Nobody cares about the different colours of the same mechanics that rpgs have. RPGs are games based on the player's imagination and curiosity. Gime a strange world to explore and mysteries to learn and i will be happy guy. Don't care if i have to waste dozens of hours in repetitive combat . Also lol,not gonna read your wall of text,learn to write a lot of sense in a few words.

Sad to hear that it hardly goes further than a standard ARPG, except with space shooties though.

Actually that is the least thing i a do in the game. Most of the time i spend in exploring an area for hidden loot and level ups. There is quite a few puzzles too,not something hard tho. If anything,that is one of my biggest gripes with the game,it is too hard to find those puzzles and hidden shit. Secrets are fine in a shooter or rpgs,since the perspective is limited and it is easier to find,while in space sim they are shit since is the three dimensional movement and you could put it anywhere.

In general it is a nice and gorgeous space shooter with good level design focused on story and exploration. I am not in to space sims since i find it repetitive and boring,but i will finish this one because it is fun. Most likely will buy it when on discount.

Yeah, it overstay it's welcome. Completely feels like just another open world shooter """"RPG"""" with crafting and light story elements. There is zero challenge unless you attack higher leveled enemies, which is really unrewarding because you cannot use anything dropped from them.

I'm playing mostly for the space porn. Enviroments are really well done, especially main space missions. I like the ships, they are different enough to make gameplay different, I guess. But ships having tiers and being hugely random on shops is irritating.

Yeah i do agree with you in general. And fuck,this game gorgeous,it is one of the main draws for it. The level design and the art are just beautiful. That is why exploration is tedious in design but not in implementation. In other words,when people are in beautiful environment,people get bored harder.

Also you get option to buy fixed better ships later,when you level perks of a companion.

Now when i wrote it,the perk system is nice,is interesting and new,do like it.

 

[Fedora Master]

Im disappointed by the small number of ship types. While they do have niches - Like that one that summons drones - it feels a bit lacking.