Who among us doesn't enjoy cobbling together a ridiculous spaceship from spare parts and throwing it against a gauntlet of other spaceships to see which ship is the best?
Probably some of us actually, as that's pretty specific, but it does describe Down with the Ship, a game that released a nice little demo on Steam this week that'll let you fight for asynchronous autobattling PvP glory.
In it, you pick your faction and captain and then use money to draft parts and weapons and hull bits that you snap together into as optimal an arrangement as you can. Each captain has their own suite of parts thrown into the shop after each round of combat, and drafting certain other parts lets you cross over into other factions' stuff. In classic autobattler style you can also buy multiples of equipment to level it up.
It's very similar to Backpack Battles, which got some nice buzz last year and released its finished version this year. At the same time, the spaceship battle theme has some neat stuff going for it in that you're literally constructing your character piece by piece.
The demo that's out now has three factions in it: The careful and precise imperial faction, which focuses on critical hits; the fire-everything-at-once renegades; and the weirdo tech-cult of rust that inflicts degenerating rust effects on their enemies.
You can find Down with the Ship on Steam, alongside its demo. It's planned to release in the first quarter of 2026.
Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.
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