During the Opening Night Live conference at this year"s gamescom, German developer Rockfish Games took the wraps off EVERSPACE 2, the second in its series of space combat games.
For folks not familiar, the first EVERSPACE launched two years ago, after being helped during its development by the Kickstarter that the devs set up in 2015. The title is a 3D space shooter with roguelike elements, from some of the same folks that worked on the Galaxy on Fire series under the Fishlabs moniker.
The sequel will go for an enhanced storytelling experience, opting for an open-world design, featuring classic RPG elements and persistent player progression. Furthermore, there will of course be more ships to choose from for your space fights. The studio will still be using the Unreal Engine as its base, a particularity which is visible in the trailer above showing off pre-alpha gameplay footage.
Of the game"s goal and setting, Michael Schade, CEO and co-founder of Rockfish Games, stated:
"With its innovative concept of rapid space battles with rogue-like elements and exciting storytelling,EVERSPACE™was able to excite over a million PC and console players, but many of our fans and space game enthusiasts were still longing for an open world space shooter with classic RPG elements in the EVERSPACE™universe [...]
With EVERSPACE™ 2, we are making a big leap towards an open world space shooter, but will still remain true to our DNA and offer exactly what our fans love: a beautiful fantastic sci-fi world paired with uncompromising space action that gets down to business right away."
Rockfish Games will launch a Kickstarter campaign for the game on September 9, with a funding goal of €450,000. Afterwards, EVERSPACE 2 will land in Steam Early Access in late 2020, with a planned final version arriving at the end of 2021 on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. No word yet on whether a next-gen variant is also planned, as the Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5 should both launch next year.
Source: Gamasutra