Happy about: Everspace 2 (with DLCs)

Since I’m not a fan of roguelite or roguelike games, I did miss Everspace when it was originally released. It was a curious combination of action RPG, space sim (or more space shooter) with the FTL: Faster Than Light inspired structure, where you were jumping between different procedurally generated locations, while being chased by a powerful foe. It did have a story, but the main draw of the game was specifically in that die and repeat nature of the genre and the fact that the space dogfights were quite fun. And then in 2023 the developers released the sequel Everspace 2 (although it was in Early Access for a few years), and with this game they’ve changed a lot in the direction that got me interested. Instead of a purely roguelite structure, a proper handmade world with interesting exploration, story, quests and all of the cool stuff I tend to like, while still keeping the fun space battles intact. Knowing that the game will get updates and DLCs, I decided to postpone my own playthrough and now, when the game is, as developers claim, in the more or less completely final state, I’ve decided to finally give it a go. And while it is quite a bit messy, I enjoyed playing it a lot.

So, action RPG, but you’re a spaceship, right? Basically, yes. There is an inventory, experience, money, items with colour-coded quality, special skills and all of the typical things one would expect from an action RPG or a looter shooter, except you’re not a person with a sword or a gun but a spaceship instead. And you have full six degrees of freedom in controls, which is not the most popular approach to action games in recent years. Back in the 90s it was all the rage – plane and space sims were aplenty, Descent was beloved (and Freespace 2 is still kept alive with plenty of mods). But lately – not too many games do that. So that’s a fresh element to Everspace 2 on its own. I wouldn’t call the controls and handling perfect, but it does feel really fun to pilot a ship in space, be it in a combat situation, or when trying to find secrets and carefully navigating in tight spaces.

But as I’ve mentioned – the levels in the game are not procedurally generated. Well, apart from optional activities. As such, the world is divided into several star systems and in each system you usually have a selection of markers to explore. Between them you move on the “overworld map” of sorts, which is expected from the setting (and fun), but rather uncommon for the genre, as no gameplay other than travel can happen there. But as you move there, some random encounters spawn that you may choose to enter, or you could ignore them and just keep moving to your intended destination. Each main location you enter has a bunch of hidden elements, all of which are hand placed and often involve some sort of puzzle solving and careful exploration and have rather smart breadcrumbing to help you find the general area where something interesting can be. And additionally the areas may have side quests, be parts of main quest or have little tasks that you can complete for a bonus reward.

The main story gradually opens more and more of the world for you, introduces new characters, new passive perks you can unlock, new concepts and mechanics and ways of travel… It’s really well paced, especially if you focus mainly on quests and not 100%-ing everything, and there’s a surprising amount of fun variety in what things the game does. All while keeping the basics of space combat and movement quite fun. Not every idea or mechanic works out as well as it could, of course – I didn’t like some of the mini-games and puzzle types, some of the more unique boss fights were just tedious and the very very occasional attempts at stealth were terrible. But for the most part, this game is extremely fun to play, especially if you’re like me and love exploring and finding secrets.

A huge shame is that a lot of the more optional systems and ideas are very disconnected and do not complement each other. Like – there’s a renown system that you gain through doing procedurally generated (and rather boring) quests. But it affects nothing else and nothing apart from these jobs can affect it. Even random encounters in the overworld that are often very similar in nature to these jobs are disconnected (and they also do nothing, apart from some simple immediate reward). Being a sequel to a roguelite game, this title has a lot of endgame repeatable junk events for the sake of getting cool loot and stuff, but they’re not really fun and constantly get in the way of just trying to play the story missions. You could trade and there are trading resources, but there’s not real benefit to even attempting to be a trader. There’s just a bunch of things that feel like they were added “just because” and all they do is bloat the game, that could be more focused and polished without these elements instead.

The DLCs for the game are kind of a mixed bag for mostly the same reasons. Titans integrates into the flow of the main game, adding two additional small questlines that unlock those repeatable boring things you can do. The longer questline is, surprisingly, less interesting both in concept and execution, while the shorter one is quite curious, but ends very abruptly just for the sake of being the repeatable activity. It’s not a bad addition for the game, but it’s also not as exciting as it could’ve been. Wrath of the Ancients, on the other hand, serves as a proper final chapter + Epilogue on the entire game (and, I guess, the first one too). It adds four new star systems, two of which become available closer to the end of the main game for optional exploration and two others become available after the end of the main game. You get to see interesting new worlds, some cool new ideas, explore more about the characters and it really feels like a natural part of the game. On the other hand, some of the gameplay stuff in the main story is horribly designed and also the music, that is absolutely fantastic in the main game, somehow manages to be very repetitive and grating in this DLC.

Everspace 2 is absolutely worth checking out. There’s a demo, so it should be a no-brainer to play that first. But if you’re interested in fun space exploration and combat, there really isn’t anything that is quite like it on the market anyway. I would’ve cut some locations out, personally, and removed some minigames and puzzles and such, and I also found everything that hardcore fans of action RPGs seem to like the most annoying thing to me. But, even after over 60 hours of playing, I was wrapping things up as fast as I could not because I was bored, but because I just wanted to play other games already, yet Everspace 2 was stealing all of my time. So, easy recommendation for the main game and as for the DLCs – if you want more of the story, grab Wrath of the Ancients (but you can do it after you’ve finished the main quest), and if you just want more of the game, grab Titans. Otherwise, you might be quite content with just the main game.