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Keen Software House

Keen Software House

Space Engineers now available via Steam early access

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Tom Senior at

I'm hoping that Space Engineers can overhaul the reputation of the humble space engineer from psychotic limb-chopper Isaac Clarke of Dead Space to something more placid and workmanlike. Space Engineers lets you drift around in a spacesuit, building scaffholding and welding plates together to build spaceships that you can crash into other space ships. Not that serene, then, but it's interesting enough to be one of the 14 space games we're excited about right now. That doesn't necessarily mean you should go out and pay £12 / $15 for the early build that's just arrived on Steam, of course, but if you're convinced you'll enjoy the ship-building, ship-crashing sim, then here it is.


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Space Engineers trailer shows its destructive side, Steam Early Access launch date announced

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Phil Savage at

The last alpha footage of Space Engineers focused on creation, and how the volumetric-based physics sandbox enabled construction, engineering and maintenance. Luckily, if sounds too much like work, there's going to be plenty of destruction as well. Here's the game's "crash test" trailer, showcasing what happens when you fling spaceships into asteroids, space stations and other, bigger spaceships. It comes ahead of a Steam Early Access release, due later this month.


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Miner Wars 2081's source code cracked open for modders who own the game on Steam

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Tom Sykes at

Keen Software House, developers of Miner Wars 2081 and owners of a fantastic company name, have opened up the source code to their "action-survival space-shooter simulation-game", dishing out the code to both the game and its engine - providing it's used to create mods for Miner Wars, and you own the game on Steam. They haven't quite made it open source - they still own the rights to the code - but if you're the sort that enjoys poking around in the guts of games to make new and interesting things, this could be very good news. Miner Wars 2081 is currently 75% off in the Steam Spring sale, until March 29th.


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Miner Wars review

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Tim Stone at

Perhaps if I keep my fingers jammed on the fire and boost buttons, and my eyes fixed on that stunningly beautiful asteroid, I’ll stop noticing how disappointing this space sim is.

PEWPEWPEW! WHEEEEEE! OOOOOOOOH!

Nope. No good. Like the solar flares that periodically roll across its fetching mission spaces, Miner Wars’ flaws – bland combat, a crash-happy campaign, over-reliance on scripted tasks – can’t be ignored for long.


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Miner Wars 2081 enters beta, new trailer shows co-op base assault

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Tom Senior at

The Descent-like first person space blaster Miner Wars 2081 is now in closed beta. It's only available to pre-order customers at the moment, but it's a sure sign that it's nearing a full release. It's taken developers, Keen Software House, three years to reach this feature-complete build, which currently contains 31 missions and a multiplayer mode that supports 16 player co-op. "We're disclosing much of the game content in this update. It's no longer a technological demo; it's got those things you've been waiting to sink your teeth into," they say on the Miner Wars site. Catch a sneaky snifter of some four-player co-op carnage in the beta trailer below.


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Miner Wars 2081 is a space combat sim with destructible terrain, will have MMO version

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Josh Augustine at

The developers of Miner Wars 2081 describe it as a "first-person action-survival space simulation game set in the year 2081," but there's a lot more going on than that. For starters, the developers are working on two versions of the game, both set to release later this year: a small-scale multiplayer version and an MMO.

Oh, and its custom-built game engine makes everything in the entire persistent game world completely destructible. Take a look at the E3 trailer for the game with high aspirations and some awesome destruction tech below.


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Miner Wars demo out now

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Tom Senior at

Miner Wars is a game set in space in which you can mine the destructible environments, discover alien artefacts and fight territory wars over the mineral rich asteroids of each sector. A demo of the pre-alpha version of the game has just been launched. Read on for details.


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