Everspace 2 Early Access has been delayed due to GDC's postponement

(Image credit: Rockfish Games)

GDC was postponed last week due to concerns about the coronavirus, which has also revealed just how much developers and publishers have come to rely on the event. A lot of plans and announcements have been pushed back, including Everspace 2's Early Access plans.

Rockfish Games was meant to be meeting with "platform operators and potential co-publishing partners," according to a press release, but now everything's been rescheduled, pushing back testing phases and the Early Access launch. It's also trying to avoid launching at the same time as another big sci-fi shooter, Cyberpunk 2077, which is due out in September, when Everspace 2 was originally going to appear.

The Early Access launch has been pushed back to December, with a closed alpha and beta kicking off in May and August respectively. Ahead of that, prospective pilots can check out new cockpit interiors, ultimate abilities and more, which Rockfish has detailed in a new blog post.

Each subclass of ship will have a distinctive cockpit design, with different fully-functional instruments. Rockfish says that the third-person view has lots of advantage when it comes to combat, but some people prefer to stay in the cockpit for that extra level of immersion—that's why it's putting some extra effort into making each of them look like they belong in that particular type of ship.

Unlike its predecessor, Everspace 2 has ventured deep into looter shooter territory, and just like Destiny, Apex Legends and Borderlands, your ship gets an Ultimate. They're specific to ship subclasses and need to be charged up by shooting enemies and, eventually, via other methods. When it's ready to pop, you can unleash it, maybe giving you a massive boost in defence by giving you a reflecting energy shield, or perhaps by turning your weapons into lightning guns. You can see the lightning guns in action in the blog post.

Rockfish will be showing off more cockpit interiors, the Assault Fighter revamp and more footage of the lightning gun Ultimate on Twitch, YouTube and Mixer at 6 pm GMT/10 am PT today.

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