Everspace Review

Everspace  is an action-focused single-player space shooter developed and published by Rockfish Games a few months ago. The game also features roguelike elements and promises great visuals with an intriguing story.

With the major Encounters update, we get a chance to lay our hands on Everspace and share our first impressions with you, space invaders. I must admit that I am highly excited for this one since I grow up dreaming space and looking up to stars, like most of you did.

Everspace puts us into the shoes of Adam, a scientist who has suffering from some kind of amnesia. He remembers that he was at odds with some serious and powerful people and managed to escape from their wrath. But what really happened to him will be revealed us as fragments, in time. In order to remember and recover his memories, Adam needs to travel through the galaxy and unravel his story only to find out that he is the first man created by a greater force, which is God. Just kidding, yet there is no doubt that this mysterious story got me attached to the game faster than I can imagine.

During our journey to find out who we are, we will be accompanied by a friendly AI. Everything about this game reminds me of a movie that I love or a book that I admire, I can’t stop putting familiar faces to replace them. I must point out that I am amazed by the AI even though I always think that they are secretly evil.

Watson, fetch my ship!

At the very beginning, the game asks you if you would like to play the game in first-person or third-person perspective. And how amazing is that?! For me, it is always first-person.

We begin our action-packed journey with a ship and head out to explore, yet we are now paralyzed by the beauty of this universe. Everspace looks shiny and more polished than I could imagine. I am surprised how detailed the environmental design is and I need to control myself since this universe is dangerous as it is beautiful. It is dangerous in a beautiful way, even.

First, you will encounter with some enemies which you will find easy to get rid of. Yet, it is just a presentation of what is coming later. It is like “hey, you better know what you are doing because things are going to get much more complicated from now on, but first let’s see what you can do.” These first enemies are there to warm you up to the game and to the controls, and show you how to collect resources. This is what you are going to do during your gameplay, but in a more complex way.

After you successfully destroy your enemies, you will go to HUB and thus, will learn how important the fuel is while playing Everspace. Always, you need to keep an eye on the fuel level or you may regret your lack of attention. You see, in order to unravel the story and get Adam’s memories back, we need to visit seven sectors and each sector has several nodes. Fuel becomes extremely crucial since a jump between nodes requires 20 units of fuel. Fuel can be found from enemy depots or by blowing up enemies, yet it is always a dangerous mission. If you don’t have enough fuel and you want to risk the jump regardless, you will also risk your ship. Most likely the jump will damage your ship’s engine or life-support systems and you’ll need to fix them in a limited time.

Apart from the fuel, your ship needs maintenance if there is damage. Little nanobots will take care of that for you. Resources you gather will come handy when you are crafting and upgrading your weapons and other items. Like always, blueprints matter when it comes to crafting while playing the game. Other than that, you can always trade with non-hostile factions and races of the game.

Species of Everspace

Everspace features various species which you can run into while your space travels: Ancients, Outlaws, Okkar, G&B, Colonials and such. The ship’s AI will introduce them to you when you come upon them during your journey.

The Okkar are hostile species to us and can be encountered in every sector of the game. And, oh man, if you spend too much time wandering around, you will be smashed by waves of Okkar ships. So, open your eyes. Should I mention that they are reptilians who are at war with Colonial human forces?

There are different types of Ancients and they have various attack styles. There are ways to make them act friendly against you. Ancients tend to turn into black holes if get close enough, so keep your distance!

Colonials are all humans and their ships are rarely seen like G&B ships. G&B Prospects is a mining corporation and they are usually friendly when they are not disturbed. They are easy to spot, since they are not marked red on the screen.

It is always easy to pick a fight during your gameplay but there is another part which is highly amusing when it comes to combat. You can turn your enemies to each other and enjoy the combat. This way, you will get help while trying to beat larger and stronger ships.

Adam is also star dust

Like I’ve mentioned before, Adam has a weird story to unravel. So when you die, and you are going to die a lot, Adam’s consciousness will be transferred to another clone which will be our new protagonist. The most discouraging thing is that your progress will be lost if you die. You will turn into star dust, honey. Yet, you will still have the money in order to upgrade your ship and other items. After every death, you can go to hangar and upgrade your ship with the money you earned during your gameplay. You can access the perks menu with just one button click on your keyboard. Actually, it is all one user-friendly menu and you can access all the information you need via this menu.

Yet, you will try not to die by upgrading your ship and gaining new pilot skills. Your ship can be upgraded and equipped with new accessories, weapons and such. There are two other ships which you can unlock during your gameplay. With Encounters update, there comes another ship, Colonial Sentinel which features electronic warfare capabilities and a special shield along with much more capacity. Once players reach Sector 2, the new content will become available and things will get more and more complicated.

Everspace expansion also brings new weapons to the game which will help defeat our enemies in various ways. New space stations are available and the most charming part is that we are now able to pay a visit to Okkar Homeworld.

Along with that, now we have five new quest lines and new friends. Everspace features side missions and challenges in order to make the game more challenging. You can always check your in-game menu and check them.

Well, we are not finished yet. I started to play the game right after the expansion and I am glad it turned out this way. I was able to check out six new weapons and new skins of ships.

If you have enough money, you can purchase another ship and continue your space adventure with it. Yet, you need a large quantity of money if you want to do that. It is better to focus on the ship you have at first and upgrade it as much as you can. Between your jumps, you will spot containers scattered into the space. It is a high possibility that you will find gears and parts in them. You can either swap your ship’s part with what you’ve found or scavenge them. If you choose to swap, you better scavenge what you left, since resources are crucial during your gameplay and you will not get them easily. You will always have to fight for them.

Across the sea of space

If there is anything I should mention about Everspace, it is the endless space. Everything is designed so good and everything looks and feels so smooth when you are playing the game, you can’t help but get lost into the beauty of it.

Everspace offers glorious sights to see and lots of screenshots to take. Even though you can not spend as much time as you like while gazing through the space because of enemies, you will not forget what you’ve seen for a long time. I feel like a high-quality space game was what I needed for a long time after I’ve played Everspace.

When it comes to soundtrack and music, I would say muchas gracias. It is always in harmony with gameplay and suits the concept of the game.

The only thing I would criticise is the way the game tells Adam’s story. You see, Everspace lays an intriguing story under all of this and it is interesting to see how it unravels while you progress. I like the story but I did not like the way it opens up. After you complete every sector, you will witness a cut-scene which will tell you the story of Adam. It could be so much better and much more effective.

Another part is that if you have or find enough fuel, you can easily skip the scenes and events between the jump points and leave the sector. There is not much thing to keep you there, if you are not fond of great and mesmerizing views. But, I like how it works as a bait. You want to find fuel and leave the place as faster as you can, but it is so beautiful that you want to stay longer and admire it, yet when you stay longer than you supposed to be, you will draw the enemies’ attention. Well done, Everspace, well done.

Overall, Everspace gave me much more than I expected from a space shooter. Everything looked and worked perfectly fine during my gameplay and I had glorious scenes to witness. I don’t know why but I consider myself lucky for laying my eyes and hands on this game. A great effort and a game to admire, from my point of view. I encountered with no bugs, crashes or technical issues and the game runs smoothly on PC. Everspace is a must, if you consider yourself a space traveler.

Everspace was reviewed using the Steam key provided by the publisher.