Look up, planet-lubber. Space Engineers 2 launches into the starry depths of early access today, although it is currently limited to a single player creative mode. It’s the sequel to the sci-fi shipbuilding game we quite enjoyed here at RPS. At this early alpha stage, the not-yet-a-survival-game invites players to create galleons of the galaxy, block by shiny metal block, and then drive those ships into one another at 300 metres per second.
That’s the new top speed you can travel in this sandbox sequel, we’re told. And you don’t even need a ship to reach it. Step into the vacuum to discover your boosty backpack will send your little spaceman flyin’, so you can catch up to any drifting vessels.
The other new stuff so far includes a fancier graphics engine, a more stable camera while you’re wandering on space rocks, undo and redo functions, and the ability to make “blueprints” for quick modular gizmo duplication. Not to mention an improved grid for the block-building system (in short: big, medium, and small blocks now snap together more intuitively).
The first Space Engineers slowly dug itself a deep well of features over its own years-long journey through early access. It’s one of our reader’s best space games. That means developers Keen will be playing a bit of “content catch-up”. Their development roadmap shows a few plans. They’re going to add planets, multiplayer, NPCs, a story mode, and a bunch of other stuff, they say. Although the road map doesn’t say exactly when each new shipment of goodies is planned to arrive.
Regardless, I have today strapped myself in to watch the various tutorials and briefing videos Keen Software have been steadily drip-feeding us, like zero-gravity lab rodents. There’s a smattering posted on the game’s news feed on Steam. I’ll need them. The committee for space antics at RPS has appointed me meteor-explorer-in-chief, and requested a timely review of what this game is like to play so far. I travel in ill-fated footsteps. Not because the previous game was bad – far from it. But because a four-person crew of our finest wayfarers once shot off into that inky frontier and reportedly descended into space madness over the course of a few months, culminating in a terrible disaster.
I’m sure I’ll be fine.