After a fairly lengthy period of public testing as part of the Xbox Preview Program, space shooter game Everspace has officially launched and is available on Xbox One and Windows 10 via Xbox Play Anywhere.
Michael Schade, CEO and co-founder of Rockfish Games, made the announcement of a blog post and said that it is a truly an exciting time for everyone at the company and for space game enthusiasts.
“It has been a very long road to release since we started development on Everspace more than two years ago, and it’s hard to believe the day is finally upon us,” he said.
The greatest addition coming with the full release is the long-awaited campaign including missions, cinematic flashbacks, and fully-voiced cut scenes (in English and German) with text localization available for more than ten languages including French, Chinese and Spanish.
The campaign
Players who have played Everspace in Game Preview would have experienced that the hero finds himself clueless in the cockpit of a space fighter at the beginning of the game, and completes basic pilot training giving useful contextual information about the game world.
The full version will unveil the mystery behind the hero’s existence and the mission through character encounters and cinematic memory flashbacks. The revamped final sector provides the last piece of the campaign puzzle, with the important objective to accomplish to reach the final destination of the journey.
A long way coming
Schade said that since the initial release into Game Preview in September 2016, Rockfish have been working closely with the community to further improve the gaming experience. The feedback received allowed them to make several major updates with more than 500 additions, tweaks and fixes.
The first major additions were two more player ships, the Colonial Scout and Colonial Gunship, each with different capabilities and a broad range of weapons, devices and consumables.
The Colonial Scout has great maneuverability, the highest top speed of all three vessels, an exclusive cloaking device and a powerful long-range shock rifle. It also features the exclusive Sensor Range perk helping spot potential dangers or the whereabouts of traders and service stations from a distance.
However, the Colonial Gunship flies like a tank with a massive hull and lots of firepower. It comes equipped with a fusion blaster and flak cannon as primary weapons, heavy missiles, cluster mines, combat drones, and an automated turret which can be upgraded.
The ancients
Rockfish Games in the most recent update introduced a new alien faction simply known as The Ancients. The ruins of the once technically advanced race hold teleporters that work as shortcuts, letting players skip a few locations on the journey.
They also contain valuable Glyphs, which function similarly to the sub-routines mentioned above, but with a lot more effects affecting the overall play style.
Functional cockpit displays
The second major addition was functional cockpit displays for all player ships. In addition to the known HUD elements, a lock target info and the component damage overview of the player ship was included.
This addition also came with an option for purists to turn off the HUD elements in first-person mode and solely rely on the cockpit instruments.
