There have been several instances over the last few years of previewing and reviewing games where an email lands in our inbox for a game that wasn’t previously on our radar. Be it for the scale or the small development team (sometimes both), there is often a lot to be impressed with in those titles. SpaceBourne 2 is one such example, a sci-fi epic that two weeks ago none of us had heard about, from solo developer Burak Dadak. A sequel to 2020’s SpaceBourne, the game launched into Early Access on Steam earlier this year. There are a lot of comparisons to be made with popular sci-fi adventure games like Star Citizen and EVERSPACE but as someone who has not played either, my thoughts on the game will be based on how SpaceBourne 2 stands on its own two feet.
One thing that’s apparent about SpaceBourne 2 right from the get-go is that it’s ambitious. Even as I was creating my character, I was surprised at the customization options available. I spent a good thirty minutes reading through the various backgrounds and sliding the numerous feature dials to make the protagonist I wanted. Just as quickly as you notice the ambition, you also start to notice the cracks. As impressive as the game is, there are shortcomings as well around every corner. Sticking with the opening, for example, I noticed that the description of the Freelancer’s character background is incomplete, with the paragraph ending abruptly mid-sentence. And there were numerous instances where I noticed grammar or spelling mistakes in the text.
Moving onto gameplay, once you create your character, you find yourself in a Star Wars-like desert city where you pick up your first mission from an NPC. SpaceBourne 2 has dialogue options, allowing you to really put yourself in your character’s shoes. Whether you want to lie and plead or be assertive and defensive, the choice is yours to make. However, the bold decision of having AI narration for dialogue ends up being a double-edged sword. It’s great that every character has spoken lines and it immerses you into the world like reading dialogue boxes never quite does. But whether it’s exasperation or menace, the AI voices rarely capture any emotion, and more often than not the dialogue ends up flat. Additionally, the dialogue boxes tend to glitch out at times, either skipping a dialogue or being stuck on one.
Once you navigate the dialogue to get your first task, you can hop in your spaceship and fly, up to the sky, through the atmosphere, and into the expanse of space. From there you can select from a map of hundreds of planets to explore and discover, and the freedom is impressive. The feeling of flying a ship off a planet’s surface and traveling to space or vice versa never gets old. Playing with a controller can be a bit convoluted for piloting and though the tutorial tries to be comprehensive in flight training, it doesn’t work smoothly. To avoid any confusion I would suggest playing with a keyboard and mouse. Though be warned, the controls can still be overwhelming. The flight training goes into flight combat as well and once you get a hang of all the controls (locking on, switching weapon groups, and staying in pursuit) you can get into some real Top Gun: Maverick-in-space style action moments.
Once your gravity boots are on the ground, you can also engage in armed combat with rifles and pistols. The gunplay in SpaceBourne 2 feels like a floaty version of Mass Effect shooting, which is to say that it doesn’t feel super satisfying. You shoot in the direction of an enemy and they eventually go down but it lacks any real tension or engagement. To make matters worse the enemy AI is pretty dumb, often looking in the entirely wrong direction during combat encounters.
Thankfully, the general act of exploration, which is at the very heart of SpaceBourne 2, is good. You can walk and run but why do either when you have a jetpack you can fly around with? Even while in space, you have the option to eject from your ship at any given time and check out what you want. The aforementioned gravity boots help stick you to a surface, giving you greater freedom of movement.
SpaceBourne 2‘s ambitions go beyond just exploration. The goal of the game is to conquer the galaxy and the game puts a lot of control in your hands. You can upgrade both your ship and your character to match your style and the galaxy adapts to your decisions with regards to galactic trade, diplomacy, and more. You can even create your own factions, choosing everything from its policies to military organization. While there are primary objectives, you can always go off the beaten path too and follow whatever shiny thing catches your eye.
If you want to simply know if SpaceBourne 2 is worth the price of admission, the answer is unfortunately a bit complicated. If this was a Kickstarter, I would say yes, it does deserve your money. If only for the fact that the gameplay experience I had promised some great things to come. And I hope to return to the game after the full release and give it another go. However, as it is now, SpaceBourne 2 has too many rough edges, confusing controls, and cut corners (understandably so might I add) that I can’t give a blanket recommendation for everyone. That being said, SpaceBourne 2 is available now in Early Access, and there have been such regular updates from the solo developer coming in that if you have the depth of wallet to do so, I would recommend making the purchase to support the developer knowing that it may not be an ideal experience until full release. SpaceBourne 2 is available for $19.99 in Steam Early Access. A code was provided by the developer for preview.
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