EVERSPACE - Stellar Edition | PS4 | Review

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EVERSPACE finally made its way to PlayStation 4 this week, both standalone and bundled with a few extra goodies in the Stellar Edition; whichever version might take you fancy, picking up ROCKFISH Games’ space-faring roguelike is an easy recommendation.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam

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Developer: ROCKFISH
Games
Publisher: ROCKFISH
Games
​Platforms: ​PS4, Xbox
One, PC
​Players: 1 

Falling closer to arcade than simulation, you’ll pilot a spacecraft as protagonist Adam Roslin, seeking to uncover his forgotten past. Accompanied by HIVE, the ship’s onboard AI, you’ll also learn about the intriguing EVERSPACE universe and its inhabitants, fleshing out a more developed narrative than we’ve experienced in any other roguelike. It’s still simple, and the meta twist is predictable, but the extra effort is very much appreciated.

More in keeping with roguelike etiquette is the brutal learning curve, which you mustn’t let dissuade you. Firstly, we’d strongly recommend playing in third over first-person to get a better view of your surroundings; navigating the game's truly 3D, 360° environments is much harder when confined to a cockpit. This makes flight second nature, leaving you free to focus on the tactical combat encounters coming your way.

With a range of primary and secondary weaponry at your disposal, as well as reusable devices and one-and-done consumables, there are multiple avenues of approach to consider whenever trouble comes your way. Loadouts are largely dependant on what you’ve scavenged during the current run, forcing you to mix things up on the fly and switch between weapons according to their inherent strengths and weaknesses - using a laser to deplete shields before switching to ballistics or explosives and dealing extra hull damage, for example.

Landing hits isn’t too hard, thanks to a HUD element that indicates how to lead shots, but that doesn’t mean you can be brazen - not in the slightest. Simple actions like boosting and shooting consume energy, necessitating conservative play if you don’t want to leave yourself almost completely defenceless during a dogfight. Managing energy consumption during a head-to-head is easy enough, but when outnumbered, as you often are, it becomes a real juggling act.

EVERSPACE has a more developed narrative than we’ve experienced in any other roguelike.

As such, it’s important to pick your battles by keeping a distance and utilising stealth where you can. Entering into a smart engagement - isolating enemies, prioritising targets, managing your shield and knowing when to retreat - can be the difference between life and death. It is possible to play too cautiously though, as you’ll need fuel to safely progress between areas and additional resources both to repair your ship and craft or upgrade items, all of which are dropped by defeated enemies.

Valuable resources can also be gathered from mining spots and containers, or purchased via ports and traders, though a looming threat ensures that you can’t spend too long scouring any one area for booty. Enemy fleets will spawn and hunt you down should you allow them to triangulate your position, meaning you’ll need to keep a considered pace at all times.

You’re sure to meet an early grave with so much working against you, which, as you may have already gleaned from our earlier mention of runs - you clever thing, you - will set you back to square one. Permadeath can be a scary concept, but EVERSPACE boasts extensive persistent progression that’ll help to make losing a time investment actually feel productive.

​Any credits you earn during a run can be siphoned into a vast range of useful perks and upgrades, or even additional ships, though you have to spend what you’ve gathered before redeploying. Not allowing players to save towards more expensive purchases might seem unnecessarily harsh, but this simple tweak ensures you’re always heading back out into the unknown vastness of space with an added in-game advantage and a little extra motivation to hit your desired figure this time around.

Permadeath can be a scary concept, but EVERSPACE boasts extensive persistent progression that’ll help to make losing a time investment actually feel productive.

If EVERSPACE is sounding too difficult for you, then opting for the easy difficulty setting is the way to go. It’ll tip the scales in your favour while docking 25% of your earnings, slowing the upgrade process in order to maintain balance. Similarly, the elite can opt for hard mode and boost their income by 25%, whilst the dangerous can ‘enjoy’ a separate Hardcore game type that eliminates persistent forms of progression whilst throwing you the odd bone.

Whatever way you play, procedural generation will keep things varied and interesting between runs, subtly randomising area layouts and spawns. More significant are the occasional prerequisite area objectives and visually stunning weather anomalies that impact play, while the Encounters expansion (included in the Stellar Edition) makes an even greater impact by introducing numerous random character encounters that blossom into persistent quest lines.

Not only that, but Encounters adds a powerful new ship with an arcing lightning cannon and disabling EMP blast, loads more gear to kit yourself out with, new enemies to test everything out on, and even more, all while seamlessly integrating into the base game experience. It’s a no-brainer at just £7.99, which means the same can be said of the Stellar Edition, which offers a couple of premium themes and a digital soundtrack at no additional cost to buying EVERSPACE and Encounters separately.

Its sharp assets and striking juxtaposition of colours make the game really quite beautiful, especially on Pro hardware, where players can enjoy checkerboard 4K as well as the standard HDR support. Really then, EVERSPACE - Stellar Edition is the full package: challenging, tactical, highly customisable, rewarding, almost endless, and pretty darn gorgeous.

Unless you’re averse to taking to the skies, or refuse to succumb to your mortality at the hands of permadeath, you won’t regret climbing aboard the good (space)ship roguelike.

Pros

• Tense, tactical air combat encounters
• Excellent procedural generation significantly varies each run
• Strong narrative, characters & worldbuilding for a roguelike
• Makes permadeath rewarding
• Beautiful outer space vistas

Cons

• Rough learning curve will immediately put some off
• Opting for a first-person perspective makes the game significantly harder

9/10