Everspace 2 Review

Consoles are rather limited when it comes to deep space exploration experiences. That is all about to change this year with the launch of Everspace 2 and a little later down the line the much anticipated Starfield. Here though I’ll be going over my time with the ambitious sequel to the successful 2017 release of Everspace. This time we see more flexibility, freedom and encouragement to go off and explore in an open-world setting. Whilst the first adventure took us on a linear path, this game promises a vast expanse to go off and divulge in and by god is it beautiful. After a good chunk of time in early access on PC, we finally get to go hands on with the Xbox release and better still, it is available to all as part of Xbox Game Pass.

The first thing that grabbed me with Everspace 2 was how incredible everything looks and feels. Are we finally seeing the power of these current generation consoles? The first couple of days was hampered with some freezing and frame rate issues but this was swiftly fixed within a couple of days. Hats off to the development team for getting this sorted so quickly. The game sets off with a short introduction on how to navigate your spacecraft alongside engagement into combat scenarios. Everything felt fluid and silky smooth in this respect and you’ll understand what I mean when you get to fly through some tight spaces. The controller is fine tuned to operate with every twist and turn with precision and it honestly feels great to play.

You’ll be pleased to find that it isn’t just mindless flying around, there is a storyline that provides structure your space adventure. Whilst you can just go off on your own discovery path, there is sense of direction on what the objective is. Similar to the first game, it takes place in the demilitarized zone of Cluster 34. Almost the entirety of your time witht the game will be in the cockpit of your spaceship apart from cutscenes between actual segments of gameplay.

Everspace 2 seems to nail the atmosphere and vastness of space almost immediately and whilst you can mainline the story, there are often side missions that you can interact with. For instance, you could be flying along minding your own business and hear a distress signal nearby. Do you react to it or just continue on your flight path? The decision is totally yours. Bring with this the potential ambush from unkown craft and territories, you really don’t know what you’ll find out there.

As for the story itself, I don’t want to go into too much detail since I don’t want to spoil it for the readers. A slight overview won’t do any harm though. We play the game as Adam who flies across the galaxy assisting miners and ensuring everything functions well. After getting in the middle of conflict, we become captive. Eventually Adam manages to escape with his friend who isn’t in a good way. That is as far as I’ll take things with the story, since it is fun to unfold things for yourself. It is nice that the meat of this adventure wraps around a chunk of fun story uncovering with deep space exploration and discovery. Everything you do in the game seems to feel like you have a sense of purpose, always watching over your giant metal shoulder as you pursue.

As you bumble along through the darkness you’ll gain experience for engaging in combat and performing certain actions. Currency is also present, allowing you to invest in better and stronger ship capablities over time. Drawing materials from mining and hoovering up space loot all goes to great use over time. The customisation and upgrade system for your ship is impressive. Being able to alter components such as boosters and the attacks you can deploy is a dream for players who love to tinker with personal builds. Think along the lines of tuning a car on Forza, but with your spacecraft and you’re pretty much there.

With most RPG’s you can sift through your inventory and bin off stuff you don’t want or flog it on. Everspace 2 is no different and these methods are all there. You can even dive into a complex perk system and also manage your own crew. The beauty of all this is seeing your ship evolve from the barebones craft you started with to your own personal design. Getting stuck into the midst of intense ambushes and swooping around with new boosters alongside thrusting a new attack in the face of several enemies is super satisfying.

What I did find after a good 24 hours of playing Everspace 2 though, was that a lot of the missions tend to become quite repetitive. You do get the sense of rinse and repeat but I perhaps didn’t feel it too often as almost always I flew off distracted by other occurances throughout. I imagine that it is logistically dificult to create more variance in missions since the entire gameplay loop is spent flying.

Everspace 2 is a stunningly beautiful adventure in space that allows the player to go off the beaten track a bit and explore. Yes the missions can be a bit on the repetitive side, but if you go into the game with an open mind and you are of the mindset that you want to look everywhere, then you’ll have hundreds of hours of gameplay here. Those who invested time into the first title will know exactly what I mean when I say that the second game has taken one giant leap for mankind!