Everspace 2, the open-world space shooter, hits Kickstarter

Everspace 2, announced back at Gamescom, is shaping up to be an ambitious sequel to the excellent roguelike space game. Developer Rockfish Games has made some significant changes for the second entry, but one thing it's keeping the same is crowdfunding. The Kickstarter launched today and is already well on its way to meeting its goal.

Rockfish has been working on Everspace 2 for more than a year, but now it wants to get prospective players involved to help with feedback, ideas and testing. The extra £400,000 will probably help, too, though the original Everspace was a commercial success. The team's plans for this one are much greater, however, and more costly.

Instead of a roguelike with a FTL-like structure, the sequel is an open-world romp with lots of RPG elements, from ships that work like character classes to a loot system inspired by Diablo. It remains staunchly singleplayer, you'll be glad to know, and should give you around 20-30 hours of story, along with lots of room for exploration.

According to Rockfish, it's essentially an action RPG with spaceships, which sounds very much up my street. And it will be one that will let you do lots of fiddling around as you perfect your build, with ship classes, subclasses, perks, skills, weapons and modules to worry about.

The galaxy's a mix of hand-crafted and procedural elements. The locations are bespoke and permanent, but they're not static. Structures might be destroyed, others might get rebuilt, and the changes range from fleeting to permanent. Loot and resources will change on repeat visits, too, so you won't be done with an area after flying through it once.

As well as flitting about in space, you'll be able to fly inside huge capital ships to blow them up from the inside or engage in dogfights just above a planet's surface. One thing that Rockfish isn't changing too much is the combat—it's still an arcade shooter with mouse and keyboard controls inspired by the likes of Freelancer. This time, however, there will be more support for gamepads and flight sticks.

It sounds promising, but we'll be able to see for ourselves next year, when it's expected to hit Steam Early Access. A full release, however, isn't planned until 2021.

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.