In many ways, Everspace 2 is a lot like my 10-year-old son; both clearly love the sound of their own voice and have a lot to say with little substance, even if they occasionally make me laugh. They both have some quirks that will drive you nuts, occasionally take you places you really don’t want to be, and will bore you out of your mind. But most of the time, they are really, and I do mean really fun to interact with.

If you didn’t play the first Everspace, or you’re like me and jumped in but skipped the story elements, there are a lot of handy “Previously on…” features by way of logs and reminders that will bring you up to speed, but much like the original, I didn’t find it particularly engaging. However, I did make an effort to stick out the same motion comic style cut scenes from the original this time around, which are coupled with what feels like a never-ending stream of banter from the NPCs around you. While this does flesh out the varied cast of characters you’re interacting with, most of them came across as annoying or just phoning in their lines with the sole exception of a broken robot who comes across like he has Tourettes with his broken English and regular glitches. There were also a few of those extended segments where you’re traveling longer distances for the sake of listening to some long-winded banter that took me back to the worst parts of GTA5 when the crew would just be bullshitting in the car. The good news is that the action is the main star in this adventure, and it delivers in most cases, despite getting somewhat repetitive before the credits roll.

Whereas the first game was a roguelike spin on space combat, the sequel is an open-world narrative packed to the roof with story and side quests that will keep you busy for upwards of 100 hours if you wish to complete everything (so the internet tells me). I mostly stuck to the story missions in an effort to get this review out in a timely manner, only stopping for side objectives when I needed to farm some materials or currency to fund my next upgrade. I found it extremely easy to dive in after a long day at work and spend hours blowing the enemy fighters away, but it does get repetitious due to the structure of the missions which rely solely on going somewhere and fighting, fighting something or someone and collecting things, or collecting things and then fighting something. It’s a thrilling experience until it just isn’t anymore, but the variety in the equipment you take into battle does its best to mitigate this for as long as possible, which for me was around the last quarter of the story when my ship felt like it was as optimized as possible.

The ships available to you are divided into three classes: essentially light, medium, and heavy, each with their own pros and cons. I personally stuck with the well-rounded middle tier for most of the game, only swapping out after multiple failures really pushed me to change up my strategy. Regardless of which option you choose, you have the freedom to mix and match weapons, modules, and upgrades as you see fit across the classes, and every upgrade has its own system that allows you to upgrade the upgrade, and then for good measure, you can then add something else to upgrade it. Oh, and then once you think you’re done, you can upgrade it some more. It really is overwhelming at first, but quickly becomes second nature as you keep having to take breaks to sift through your inventory like any of the other RPG on the market. There is a real looter shooter vibe to this that feels like it added the depth of the Diablo 4 class system and mixed it up with the drop rate of Borderlands. I feel like the folks at ROCKFISH took my feedback personally and made for a much more accessible exchange rate as well. You will also level so quickly that it seems as if your equipment is obsolete as soon as it’s attached it to the ship.

The combat is thrilling, easy to pick up, and an accessible challenge to truly master with the only downfall being that the controls are not as customizable as I was hoping. Since most of the battles take place in the emptiness of space, it’s hard to find cover, so your placement always needs to be in the back of your mind. Early on, it started to feel more like this was an FPS game as opposed to a dog-fighting sim. The downfall to this is that your more tricky maneuvers like barrel rolls are mapped in an awkward way that usually left me slamming into something as opposed to doing the expected action. This was also a bit problematic when creating larger explosions that caused the frame rate to stutter like that robot I mentioned earlier, where I continued to move within the game, but on my screen, I was kind of stuck in place at the absolute worst of times only to regain functionality with a split seconds notice that I was going to hit a meteor or ship.

Outside of the frame rate issue that will likely be ironed out down the line due to patches (which I wish wasn’t a thing, but here we are in the gaming world of 2023), the game looks outstanding with an even smoother normal frame rate than the original. It’s on par, if not better looking than Star Wars: Rogue Squadron despite not being backed by EA, which makes it even more impressive coming from a smaller studio. There were times when the HUD was a little busier than I would’ve liked and I absolutely detest the motion comic cutscenes, here and elsewhere, but outside of these minor callouts, I’d say this is easily one of the best-looking games of the year.

Everspace 2 isn’t perfection, but much like your favorite kid, it doesn’t need to be. At the end of the day, it’s an enjoyable experience that will give back what you put into it. Sure, it is rough around some edges that will likely even out down the road, but even if they don’t, you’ll likely enjoy this as is.

8 out of 10

Pros

• Accessible Controls and Gameplay
• Impressive Visuals
• Upgrades and Customization for Days
• The Recycle-Bot

Cons

• Bland Cut-Scenes
• All of the Non-Recycle-Bot NPCs
• Some Framerate Issues
• Gets Repetitive Towards the End

Everspace 2 was developed and published by ROCKFISH Games. It launched on PC, PS5, and XSX/S. The game was provided to us for review on XSX. If you’d like to see more of Everspace 2, check out the official site.

 

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