One of our favourite space shooters leaves early access in a couple of months

Very pretty space shooter Everspace 2 has finally got a release date. After two years of early access tinkering, the game PCG's Steven Messner once said was "close to being the new gold standard for space shooters" will come out exactly two months from now, on April 6.

The devs at Rockfish are promising a whole bunch of new stuff to mark the game's 1.0 release, including "more enemies, rewards, challenges, catalysts, equipment types and attributes, polished cinematics, perks, customization options, new boss fights," as well as an "all-new trading map". Map aside, there's not much in the way of specifics about what form those things will take, but I suppose we won't have to wait long to find out.

To top it off, Everspace 2 will also be adding one more character to its roster of companions that you can team up with over the course of the game, as well as an entirely new star system. One thing, though, if the thought of those additions compels you to finally buy the game, you'll want to do it sooner rather than later. Rockfish is upping the price from $39.99 to $49.99 on February 20, two weeks from now.

Everspace 2 is a bit of a left-turn from Rockfish. Everspace 1 was great, but the studio decided to upend the formula and swap out the first game's roguelike stylings for a narrative-driven, open-world framework with RPG elements. It looks like that was a smart choice, though, the game is currently sitting pretty with 87% positive user reviews on Steam, and I suspect there'll be more than a few PCG staff members dipping back into it when it hits 1.0.

If you fancy a jaunt past the final frontier, you can pick up Everspace 2 ahead of its price hike on Steam and GOG right now.

Correction: This piece originally said Everspace 2 would launch a month from now. It actually launches two months from now, on April 6. Your humble author apologises for his complete inability to read a calendar.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.