EVERSPACE™ 2 - Merro
Pilots, brace for impact! Launch day is here!

After more than five years of development, with over two years in Early Access, v1.0 is finally ready to download on Steam, GOG, and the Microsoft Windows Store! What a ride it’s been… and we’re not done yet! More on that below!

We’ve put together an absolutely amazing EVERSPACE 2 PC Launch Trailer. Longtime EVERSPACE 2 players might spot new scenes in already-seen areas. Let’s see if you catch them all.



With 1.0, we’re adding the final chapter of the campaign, which lets you explore the new star system Khione, unlock tier 4 ships, find the best trading deals for commodities, and face new bosses, plus a whole host of other neat additions. But before you start a new game (strongly recommended) and delve in, let’s stop for a moment and take a look back at the very beginning to appreciate just what an insane journey we’ve been together on.

Looking Back



Boy, oh, boy did we look young… In fact, things started even earlier than August 2019. Our Creative Director Uwe created the EVERSPACE 2 page on our internal documentation system, Confluence, on January 26, 2017. However, pre-production started in November 2017 when the entire team sat down together to define the core features of the massive game we’d all be working on for the next six-ish years—really amazing to see that pretty much everything that we envisioned back then made it into the final game:



For those of you with really good eyes, here’s the high-level concept, last updated June 30, 2020, mostly due to changes in the story synopsis (SPOILER WARNING):



Now, reading through my interview with Gamesindustry.biz right after the 2019 announcement about “Everspace 2: Rockfish's not so difficult second album” again, I do have to smile, I was NOT wrong. Piece-by-piece over the last few years, EVERSPACE 2 has fallen into place. Throughout development, we’ve had articles published on all our favorite sites, seen amazing content creators show EVERSPACE 2 to space fans all over the globe, and read through fantastic suggestions from the community, much of which helped us shape the game as we headed towards 1.0. Throughout, the team has released update after update containing massive new star systems, new ships, additional companions, story and side quests, more languages, gameplay features, and so much more.

Not to say that we didn’t have the occasional hiccup. While we had massive success on Kickstarter, it was a very tight photo finish—so close that the top German media outlet had us written off already! But beyond any stumbles, we had a dozen pumping gameplay trailers, 150+ game dev streams, a global #1 selling Early Access launch, six major content updates, and a massive GamePass deal! Now here we are!

This is a humbling moment for our entire team; we’re incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished and extremely grateful for all the amazing support we’ve received from our fantastic community. So thanks again! We could not have done this without you!

New Star System
Khione, the new and final star system in EVERSPACE 2, is all about frozen water, from vast iceteroid fields and massive space glaciers to ice caves deep underground. As if that environment wasn’t harsh enough, the system’s cold sun emits devastating solar flares that deplete shields in no time in locations close to the region’s central star. This makes the new treasure hunt mechanic particularly interesting, as pilots need to take cover from those bursts to get around while following specific electromagnetic pulse signals.



Final Story Chapter
Pilots who’ve played every story mission in EVERSPACE 2 so far still have a ways to go. The plot leads back to Drake, where you must convince another companion to join your party. His special combat ability will come in very handy in large-scale battles of the final main missions. Before Adam gathers all his allies for the final fight, he’ll be stranded in the new Khione system and has to figure out a way back all by himself. This is also where he’ll be confronted with his past, the very place where everything began.



New Boss Fights
As we’ve teased in the PC Launch Trailer, there are new boss fights in EVERSPACE 2 to go along with the story's final chapter. These unique challenges will throw everything you’ve learned so far back at you and even introduce new mechanics at the same time. These are our favorite moments in the game; the whole team is particularly excited to see how you all handle these. Let us know in Discord and the Steam community hub, but please do use spoiler tags!

New Legendaries
It just wouldn’t be the endgame without new Legendary items! We’ve added a bunch of new gear that can be earned as mission rewards and through Ancient Rift challenges. Last week, our Community Ambassador showed off a powerful Legendary shield that spawns two holographic decoys when depleted—there are a host of other Legendaries for the community to find, each with a unique perk that can completely change the way you play. Thanks to all our backers who provided ideas for this top-tier gear!

New Player Perks
With v1.0, pilots can rise to level 30 and unlock three new player perks. Pilots should be able to complete the campaign at level 25, give or take a few levels depending on gear and skill. This final set of perks is aimed at going super aggressive in Ancient Rifts and was deliberately designed to add some new VFX and SFX—unleash mayhem and let the fireworks begin!



Tier 4 Ships
Investing in Tareen’s Ship Dealer perks will provide access to the highest tier ships at the ship dealer at Kato Palace in Prescott Starbase. We’ve still got a few models in the works—watch out for those in the free update coming later this year.



Commodity Trading
A much-asked-for feature over the course of development has been improved Commodity Trading. We’ve added features in 1.0 that help make the universe’s market seem more alive. Different trade goods now have varying values in different places. Once you’ve figured out a few trade runs, earning credits can now be easier than ever.



Nightmare Difficulty
Some pilots wanted an even greater challenge, and we’re happy to give it to them, BUT they’ll have to finish EVERSPACE 2 first to unlock it. Nightmare difficulty cranks enemy stats way up, so beware, but with this risk comes great reward. Players on Nightmare will occasionally see Legendary gear that is usually only found in Ancient Rifts drop during regular play.

We know that some pilots also wanted New Game+, but that has never been a viable option because it would simply be impossible to balance properly due to the endless combinations of builds and loadouts pilots can have after beating the campaign. We know it’s not the same, but we hope Nightmare mode satisfies some folks asking for New Game+.



What Comes Next?
We’ve made no secret that there will be more EVERSPACE 2. We’ve got big plans, but for now, let’s talk about the year ahead.

First up, now that 1.0 is in the hands of all you PC players, our immediate focus is to ensure there are no reports of critical or game-breaking bugs. In the event there are any, or we see a slew of fixes we can make in a short timeframe, we’ll release a patch to take care of the problem.

Beyond any immediate hotfix needs (the game is in a great state, so we don’t anticipate a need for a hotfix, but EVERSPACE 2 is a very complex game, after all), we’ll be turning our sights to release on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. We don’t have a release date to share just yet, but we are on track for launch on these platforms this summer.
We’ve partnered with Maximum Games to produce a physical edition for both platforms, which will come in a Steelbook case along with a small artbook and digital soundtrack download.



As development progresses on the console edition, we’ll be planning out the contents of EVERSPACE 2’s major free update and what will be in our first paid expansion.

Major update 1 will bring any additional voiced languages we produce for the console edition to PC and new gear, bug fixes, and more customization options. The team is busy planning this out, and we’ll be sure to share more on this ahead of time.

The German government has been very generous with its new grant program focused on supporting the video game industry in our country. Back in January, we shared that we were given 1.65 million Euros to help produce the first major expansion for EVERSPACE 2, and we plan to match that with our own funds. While our creative team isn’t yet ready to share what this new adventure will be, safe to say this will not be a small expansion.

Scope Changes
Now, with all those great additions, we also need to talk about features that didn’t make it into the final game. This might ruffle some feathers, but this is always part of a multi-year-long development where things can change due to unforeseeable technical issues, budget constraints, or changes in the creative vision.

While EVERSPACE 2 became a much bigger game than we initially anticipated, there are still things we would have loved to have more of or be included at all, like more item sets, more catalysts, cockpit customization, and difficulty settings affecting not just stats.



While additional item sets and catalysts are planned for the free major update later this year, we decided to add the option to change the tint of the cockpit windows and engine trails as well as put a pilot model body in the pilot seat even though we now might get complaints that the character is not animated—but it looks much better when taking screenshots, so we think that’s a significant plus overall. The visual impact of the external effects is far greater than we could have done with mere cockpit customization.

In the original EVERSPACE, we had difficulty settings that went way beyond tweaking enemy hit points and damage output, so we wanted to have that in the sequel, too. However, since we dropped the linear roguelike formula for an open-world action RPG approach with looter-shooter mechanics and nine player ship classes instead of three, game balancing became by an order of magnitude more complex, so we had to cut a few corners here. However, we’re very happy with the end result, so not a loss, at least in our book.



However, the biggest change is that the Leviathan and the Dreadnought that we teased with concept art will not come with the free update but the paid expansion in the second half of 2024. Both have been rough ideas at the beginning that turned out to be really hard to implement in a meaningful way without having a proper storyline in place and also come with proper boss mechanics and/or worthwhile replayability. In other words, instead of adding just two very expensive set pieces to an already meaty base game, we rather turn them into iconic endgame activities in the paid expansion that we’ll be working on for at least another year (it’s also the only way to make those part of the German government grant covering 40% of the development cost of the paid expansion as their rules say we must not have started with development of what’s going to be part of the new product).

The latest change is that we won’t have native Linux support even though we’ve committed to that many times. We did spend quite a lot of time and effort on a native Linux build. Still, it turned out that due to the broken and incomplete nature of the Vulkan implementation in Unreal Engine 4, our graphically complex game runs at 50% - 80% performance compared to simply running the DX12 Windows version in Proton. At the same time, some features like SSGI cause frequent crashes due to video RAM leaks.



After talking to our friends at Epic Games, there’s little hope that these issues will be fixed in UE4 since all their focus is now on UE5. As probably everyone will understand, fixing source code of the engine ourselves is completely out of question for us—even if we had the development resources, it would make future updates even more cumbersome as we’d have to build a custom engine while maintaining two separate code bases (a painful lesson we had to learn from native Linux support in the first EVERSPACE).

However, we’re still working on optimizing the experience using Proton for Linux pilots nonetheless. Any backers who pledged on the PC version not being happy with this solution can request a full refund on Kickstarter, no questions asked (refunded keys will be revoked). Native Mac OS support is next on our list, followed by Steam Deck optimization.

Last but not least, we also have a few features that the community begged us to have in the game over and over again, but we turned those down for various technical and/or game design reasons; until we didn’t, and now they are in the v1.0 release: the aforementioned pilot body in the cockpit, naming saves (on PC), and the possibility to continue old saves even though we cannot offer technical support and pilots would miss out on certain content/features that have been added between the Early Access launch and now—use at your own risk, you have been warned!

With all that out of the way, enjoy the full changelog below!

Changelog - 1.0.33479
Features
  • Added new main missions (completing the storyline)
  • Added new star system: Khione
  • Added new ship customization options (ship modules, engine trails, window tint)
  • Added level 30 perks
  • Added achievements
  • Added codex
  • Added markers that can be placed in locations to tag points of interest
  • Added Tier-IV player ships
  • Added backer rewards: Legendary items
  • Added backer rewards: Stranded Pilots
  • Added backer rewards: Special backer-compiled ships with unique names are now occasionally offered at ship dealers
  • Added backer rewards: NPC names chosen by backers (used in "Hitman" jobs)
  • Added new enemy type: Outlaw Teleport Drone
  • Replaced all remaining Text-To-Speech audio with proper English voice recordings
  • Added German voice recordings
  • Added Color Vision Deficiency modes
  • Made keybinding screen navigable with controllers and updated look
  • Added a few more stats to the data/player stats screen
  • Added option to configure auto-aim strength for mouse+keyboard (previously only available for gamepad/joystick)
  • Added better commodity availability, new price ranges, stack sizes, and price information for improved trading opportunities
  • Added a feature to acquire jobs occasionally on the map
  • Re-enabled collisions and atmospheric drag in supralight
  • "Nightmare" difficulty is now unlocked after having completed the storyline
  • Added force feedback effects (vibration) for controllers
  • Manual save games can now receive a custom name
  • Added loot drop at the end of a faction battle event
  • Added more situational dialogues
  • Added more variations to NPC pilots' background chatter
  • UI: Added animations and transitions to ingame, main, and pause menu
  • UI: Added difficulty selection menu when starting a new game
  • UI: Added savegame info widget to load and save screen
  • UI: Added gamepad controls scheme selection when starting a new game with gamepad
  • UI: Added new screenshots gallery for every "The Story So Far" plot point entry
  • UI: Added start screen before the main menu
  • UI: Added team credits to the main menu
  • UI: Added "Mark all as read" feature to data tab and codex subcategories
  • UI: Added "Mark all as seen" feature to crafting tab affecting crafting resources and blueprints
  • UI: Added gamepad controls overview action to pause menu when opened with gamepad
Tweaks
  • Replaced or refined all ingame sequences
  • Tweaked some main and side mission base levels and XP rewards
  • Levels of NPCs in random supralight encounters are now determined by the average location level of the system region in which they appear
  • Don't offer jobs with difficulty higher than the highest current location level of the respective system
  • Random encounters except for shooting challenge now won't grant XP anymore (depending on type renown and/or credits are given)
  • Time-sensitive events and puzzles are now made easier on lower difficulties
  • Sort missions in missions screen depending on the time of activation or completion
  • Black Market Dealer now sells Signal Decoders
  • Tweaked mesh, cockpit window, and trail colors of elite and normal G&B fighters to distinguish them further
  • Hardened ore patches, plasma harvesters, and location challenges will now count toward the location progression
  • Improved plasma harvesters' visibility and interaction
  • Time is now slowed down when selecting equipment via gamepad or when key is assigned (can be turned off in options)
  • "Play It Safe" perk will now only trigger with warfare devices
  • "Relentless" perk is now based on the number of installed support devices
  • Register resource for map info the moment it is registered by the ship's sensor, not only when mining it
  • Improved Flak radial damage hit registration
  • Slightly reduced number of enemies during "Scavenger Baiting" random encounter
  • Increased amount of attackers at Nepthys Plains during "Spares & Scrap"
  • Enemies in Ancient Rifts now show an "ancient-possessed" graphical effect
  • Balancing: Increased Flak energy consumption and slightly decreased fire rate to compensate for improved efficiency
  • Balancing: Reduced Vindicator drone base damage
  • Balancing: Reduced Homing Missile fire rate
  • Balancing: Slightly reduced Gunship Coil Gun Turret base damage
  • Balancing: Ancient Rift stage mutators are now stacking
  • Balancing: Reduced Annihilator explosion delay and increased its infection rate
  • Markers are now added to the last two remaining targets of a "destroy base" task
  • Prevent stacking of consumable effects by applying a cooldown after use of at least 3 seconds or the consumable's effect duration
  • Redeemer turrets are now immune to EMP
  • Photo Mode camera can no longer clip through geometry
  • Added pilot model for third-person view
  • Added optional task to tutorial mission to use the cruise drive
  • Lots of performance improvements
  • Axis dead zones and sensitivities are now working on "logical action axes" instead of physical ones (different settings can, for example, now be used for the right stick for "Pitch" and "Camera Pitch")
  • Let AI ignore player during jump gate activation and also grant invincibility
  • Spawn some Elite Squad ships instead of regular G&B ships during "Into The Forest" side mission, as they are mentioned in dialogue
  • Show consumables in HUD with low opacity when they are disabled (just like for devices)
  • Removed "work in progress" and "early access" banners
  • UI: Optimized ship customization navigation, including animations and sfx
  • UI: Customization tab - Changed style selection to better communicate custom editable styles
  • UI: Customization tab - Locked decal color selection as long as no decal was selected
  • UI: Added mainframe expansion invest info glow animation
  • UI: Removed modify action for legendary items since they can't be modified anyway
  • UI: Added, tweaked, and fixed numerous menu sound effects
  • UI: Added currently selected difficulty to pause menu and game over screen
  • UI: Added new indication marker logic for shop tab to better highlight mission-relevant items during campaign
  • UI: Improved widescreen support for many ingame menu tabs and sub-screens
  • UI: Re-enabling "new" indicator animations
  • UI: Removed crafting inventory from modal crafting widget
  • UI: Enabled multi-item select for loot container screen
  • UI: Implicitly turn on companion perk tracking after upgrade in case it was turned off
  • UI: Added "new" indicators for reward items (job and renown) that were just claimed
  • UI: Added feature to get back from a data subpage by clicking on the data tab again while it's opened (instead of pressing back)
  • UI: Removed "shine" icon animation from already unlocked device items
  • UI: "Remove level restriction" option is now pre-selected for restricted items when opening the modal modify widget
  • UI: "Buy and equip" of level-restricted items won't show an options dialog first but an error banner right away
  • UI: Optimized button hold durations in ingame menu and consistently block input while held
  • UI: Changed some default key bindings of ingame menu actions to be consistent across all menu screens
  • UI: Gamepad - Increased dead zone for right analog stick to avoid unintentional scrolling
  • UI: Fading background music when loading a savegame or going back to main menu
Bugfixes
  • Fixed that turrets of revived enemies would still attack the player
  • Restrict opening of ingame menu while being pulled into a rift
  • Fixed a problem in which temporary "Lost Cargo" job locations could show up in space again as invalid locations shortly after having left them after task completion
  • Fixed that Destabilizer, EMP, and Web Missile durations were not reduced when fired automatically by special weapon attribute on critical primary weapon hits
  • Fixed cases in which during an "Item Retrieval" or "Destroy Base" job a HIVE line could play even though HIVE wasn't unlocked
  • Fixed that Fusion Hook could not be used when having no primary weapons installed
  • Fixed "Shadow Strike"/"Pango's Pride" cloaking conflict
  • Fixed Retaliator Bomber front shield not getting disabled by EMP
  • Fixed that damage modifiers were twice as effective on instant-hit weapons
  • Fixed Vindicator Re-Animator special not scaling correctly
  • Fixed Vindicator Re-Animator buff not persisting after docking at a station
  • Fixed mines launched by weapons persisting after re-loading or re-entering locations
  • Fixed that Clerical Corvette was invisible when loading a save that was created when docked there
  • Fixed Bloodstar Raid Booster not being dropped by Bloodstar units
  • Fixed that changing the difficulty in rifts affected hitpoints of already spawned enemies
  • Fixed Redeemer bosses in high-risk areas dropping too few items
  • Fixed side missions not correctly leveling up with locations
  • Fixed multiple issues related to ingame sequences
  • Fixed Quantum Tether indirect damage triggering critical hits
  • Fixed that Fusion Hook could not be used when no primary weapon was installed
  • Fixed Interceptor "Crit chance on energy orb collect" passive not triggering under certain conditions
  • Fixed "Omni Manus" legendary attacking targets behind obstacles
  • Fixed async-firing weapons sometimes omitting a fire sound
  • Fixed Outlaw Damage Boosters applying too many damage buffs that would not get removed after the booster was destroyed
  • Fixed proximity mines launched from weapons restoring in a broken state after leaving and re-entering locations
  • Fixed EMP not disabling front shields of Zurilia Bombers
  • Fixed that there was auto-aiming on a "center point" of a jellyfish swarm
  • Fixed some camera issues that could occur when switching between ship dealer and hangar screen on stations
  • Fixed that inertia dampeners could be turned off/on remotely steered drones which made ramen drones easy to steer
  • Fixed that during "The Emissary" the emissary's Corvette was invisible when loading a save that was made while docked
  • Fixed that "lock target" tutorial could remain onscreen indefinitely if enemies in tutorial were killed too fast
  • Fixed that damage bars were sometimes longer than max hitpoints bars
  • Fixed that when encountering Coalition units while having accepted but not finished the "Becoming Invisible" side mission they were friendly, and their HUD markers were hidden
  • Fixed that for neutral low-level "harmless" enemies that turn hostile a wrong "harmless" marker (a square) was shown
  • Fixed that shield bar in cockpit was sheared after a shield break
  • Fixed wrong opacity of health bars of damaged enemies that are neither hovered nor targeted and less than 2km away
  • Fixed that Kato Palace was showing "jobs" indicator at HUD marker and map info widget even before job board was unlocked there
  • Fixed that location entry dialogues for unknown signals would repeat for manual saves made at the location after task was finished
  • Fixed that it was possible to save during some still active tasks at random encounter locations
  • Fixed that one of the locations in which The Flying Dutchess could be called was missing the shop indicator on the map
  • Fixed that button labels for "Left Ctrl" and "Pg Up" where overlapping button
  • Fixed that "input smoothing" setting in menu had "percentage bars" shown, although it is an on/off toggle
  • Fixed axis inversion problems when using the right stick with left-handed gamepad schemes
  • Fixed that menu was invisible when having opened pause menu on top of ingame menu and adjusting gamma, and quickly closing the pause menu
  • Fixed a problem when trying to bind Gamepad Left/Right Trigger to menu actions that are internally defined as axes with two actions for positive and negative scale
  • Fixed a few typos
  • Fixed a few cases in which dialogue text did not match recordings
  • Fixed some audio issues related to the ship's engine SFX
  • Fixed enemy-mounted turrets not receiving damage buff from lunacy in Ancient Rifts
  • Fixed focus loss with gamepad when opening a loot container right after another has been closed
  • Fixed missing ship dealer offer refresh in case there are multiple in one single location
  • Fixed that the autonomous cargo perk did not work in some cases right after upgrading Tareen's storage extension perk
  • Fixed explicit reset of all active device cooldowns after docking
  • UI: Fixed numerous overlapping text issues when using languages other than English
  • UI: Fixed multiple alignment issues and inconsistencies across all screens
  • UI: Fixed that the ingame menu could become invisible or transparent in some cases
  • UI: Fixed that the location info widget could flicker or resize in an ugly way right after hovering a location in the map screen
  • UI: Fixed that photo mode button was shown in pause menu during supralight even though the feature is not available there
  • UI: Fixed a bug where perk actions like "invest" could be opened repeatedly even from other tabs
  • UI: Fixed that scrolling with mouse sometimes wasn't working properly in data sub-tabs
  • UI: Fixed a bug that crafting a lot of items through the inventory tab could lead to memory issues
  • UI: Fixed that perks could be shown as completable even though resources were still missing
  • UI: Fixed that the player perk unlock banner did not open the player perks panel but companions instead
  • UI: Fixed a bug that prevented players from claiming job rewards even though there was enough cargo space available
  • UI: Fixed that restricted items could not be properly marked in expand cargo view due to accidentally showing "equip" action
  • UI: Fixed a bug where a broken compare info widget could be triggered for devices in some cases
  • UI: Fixed that the discard confirmation modal widget in the options menu was triggered twice and led to wrong destination after confirm
  • UI: Fixed that the "craft missing components" action was shown for locked blueprints as well
  • UI: Fixed that affordability of items within shop tab wasn't updated in some cases
  • UI: Fixed that setting waypoints to under-leveled HRAs was possible using double mouse click
  • UI: Fixed that the game over screen was interactable even before it became fully visible
  • UI: Fixed that some items restock costs could be negative in some cases, which led to unavailability of the whole restock functionality
  • UI: Fixed multiple issues and inconsistencies of the action buttons within the tutorial box
  • UI: Fixed confusing UI states in case a blueprint was found and shown before crafting was even unlocked
  • UI: Fixed some visual hiccups of the item info widget right after selecting a new item slot in some cases
  • UI: Fixed a bug regarding the "equip" action that was accidentally shown for unqualified items in ship cargo
  • UI: Fixed that the location info widget wasn't properly updated when reopening the map in some cases
  • UI: Fixed that the scrolling indication handle of a scrollbar could be shown as distorted
  • UI: Fixed some issues regarding display of already-known resources in the crafting inventory

That’s a lot of changes! We hope you all decide to create new save files and begin EVERSPACE 2 from the start because there’s so much we’ve added since our original Early Access launch. Experience new cutscenes, added V/O, new puzzles, and most importantly, MORE LOOT as you play through the final version of EVERSPACE 2’s story.

Join us for a Launch Day live stream on Twitch and YouTube, today from 11am to 1pm PT / 2pm to 4pm ET / 8pm to 10pm CET 🚀💥🙌

Michael and your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team


EVERSPACE™ 2 - Merro
Greetings, Pilots!

Since we’ve had so many of you ask, this is a quick post to share that EVERSPACE 2 will release April 6 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST / 7pm CEST.

We hope you’ll all join us for our Launch Day stream starting at 11am PT, but if you’re busy playing EVERSPACE 2, that’s alright too. ;)

Watch out for further communications including a 1.0 changelog at launch!

Back to it! See you in the skies!

Lee & your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team
EVERSPACE™ 2 - Merro


UPDATE: As we close in on the EVERSPACE 2 PC launch, we thought we’d drop a quick update on this post.

First, the bad news. As mentioned during last week’s livestream, native Linux support for EVERSPACE 2 is going on the backburner. We spent a significant amount of effort pursuing a native Linux build, but due to the Vulkan implementation in Unreal Engine 4, we’re seeing 50% - 80% performance compared to the DX11 Windows version in Proton. We’re also seeing significant issues with features like SSGI which are causing frequent video RAM leak crashes. Long story short, as long as the game is on Unreal 4, we’re unlikely to see any help from the Unreal team on this and even then, it’s a longshot. We don’t have plans right now to update to Unreal 5 as that would be a significant undertaking.

Now the faint good news here is that we’re still working on optimizing the Proton experience. We realize this isn’t ideal for some Linux players, so we’re offering a full refund to Kickstarter backers who specifically wanted to play natively on Linux. No questions asked, but refunded keys will be revoked. Just message us on Kickstarter and we’ll make it happen.

The team is still pursuing MacOS, and support for this platform will come in a post-launch patch.

EVERSPACE 2 has had a number of optimizations done for Steam Deck, but we are by no means calling it quits on this front. We have a number of areas to improve the general quality of play and UI before we plan to submit for the Steam Deck Verified check.


Greetings, pilots!

ROCKFISH Games Communications & PR Director, Lee Guille here! You'll see me pop up between big announcements as we continue to share development updates leading up to launch and beyond.

It’s fantastic to see you all hyped up about the April 6 release date and that amazing trailer put together by the team! Diving into the comments on Steam, Kickstarter, and our Discord, we pulled out a few frequently asked questions that we wanted to get answers out for.

Will Linux have full support on day 1?
We know we have a number of excited and vocal EVERSPACE 2 Linux fans in the community. Ensuring the game is playable natively on Linux is high on our priority list. Right now, Linux support is planned to be included at 1.0 launch, but we do want to caveat that by saying game development sometimes throws unexpected curveballs that can be difficult to field as a small team—we had to learn that painfully from the Linux version of the predecessor, but overall Unreal Engine 4’s Linux support is in a much better state, now.

Of course, supporting the much larger audience of PC players is our top priority as we move towards launch. The team will be spending the next few weeks working on that front before shifting focus to Linux support. We are reasonably confident in hitting the 1.0 date with Linux, but will update if that changes.

Ok! But what if I’m playing on a Mac?
Similar to Linux, we are aiming to support MacOS players when we launch at 1.0 on April 6. The team is still digging into optimization, which OS versions will be supported, and needs on these platforms. While we don’t anticipate MacOS support slipping from the 1.0 date, we cannot rule that possibility out completely. More news on this closer to launch.

What’s the deal with Steam Deck?
Currently, we’re targeting full Steam Deck support for 1.0, but we’ve still got work to do. At this time, full Steam Deck support ranks just below Linux and MaxOS in priority since it wasn’t one of Kickstarter promises. In case work is not completed by 1.0, it will be rolled out soon after.

EVERSPACE 2 has not been fully optimized for Steam Deck yet—we need to well… optimize it further. In addition to thorough testing, we have many changes to make such as adjusting the on-screen text size (that’s a big one), changes to the UI that currently shows mouse and keyboard/controllers, and plenty of other little things that would create an ideal handheld experience.

All that said, Steam Deck owners can pick up and play EVERSPACE 2 right now, and they’ll have a pretty OK time. “Pretty OK” is not the quality bar we’re aiming for though, so more work needs to happen. Naturally, the Steam Deck version will also benefit from general performance optimization that are currently in the works, so we expect to be able to share good news soon.

News on the save game wipe!
We’ve been taking in all the feedback that has been shared by the community on Steam, Kickstarter, and our Discord. How and if we can support Early Access save games has been a long running conversation here in the studio.

For good reason, we’ve said there will be a save wipe at v1.0. Mainly we approach this from a technical standpoint as old saves can become incompatible when making major changes to the game during development. Also, overall game balance changes can impact old saves as new content is added and old content modified, plus you could miss out on content that was added to earlier areas in the game. For instance, depending on how far someone has already played through the campaign, some of the recently announced Visions will not play for them.

While the latter would still be an issue, Andi, one of our senior game designers and gameplay programmers who’s been with us for almost 20 years—where did the time go—came up with a solution to bridge the gap for saves between Early Access and 1.0, so now you will be able to continue playing from the point you left off before April 6th. Using a pre-1.0 Early Access save game will likely create bugs or cut off access to some achievements during that playthrough.

FAIR WARNING: EVERSPACE 2 has changed quite a bit over the course of Early Access, so by not starting a new playthrough at 1.0, you’ll miss out on all kinds of content and loot. For example, mainframe components added in an update won’t appear in containers you’ve previously looted. This means you’ll never get them in that playthrough and you’ll have frustrating moments as you hunt through systems looking for loot that your map completion tracker says should be there.

TL;DR: You’ll be able to continue with any of your saves, but we strongly recommend creating a new save game at 1.0, especially if you are planning any sort of completionist run.


Work in progress in-game messaging. Not final text or layout.

Old save games will be marked in-game and when they’re loaded, you’ll see a message similar to the above (this is a WIP example), so that you know for certain that the save game you are playing may have issues related to it.

That’s everything we have for now. We’ve got lots to do and a deadline to hit. See you in space!

Lee & your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team 🚀🪐👽
EVERSPACE™ 2 - Merro


Greetings, pilots!

It’s official: EVERSPACE 2 will be released for PC on April 6, 2023! We’ve been in Early Access for a little over two years at this point, and in just a few short months, space pilots from around the globe will be able to experience the entirety of the biggest (space) game (that anyone at) the ROCKFISH Games team has ever worked on!

[Insert Story Trailer]


The Road From Early Access to Full Launch And what a journey it’s been!
After a massive Early Access launch with 92% positive reviews right out of the gate and #1 Steam top seller spot during that week, we released six major content updates containing star systems worth of locations to explore, ships to acquire, puzzles and challenges to overcome, and more. Throughout the last few years, we’ve iterated on core gameplay mechanics, UI/UX, world design, and overall game performance through a series of major updates. We’ve added new features, ships, entire star systems, several companions, high-quality voice acting, and other content while listening to community feedback. Through it all, we’ve received incredibly valuable feedback from our dedicated community of players which has allowed us to make significant improvements to the game.

Naturally, with more and more pilots taking a seat in the cockpit, we also got more wishes that either don’t fit our vision and/or are not within our budget, and we know it’s impossible to please everyone. That said, we’re super happy with where the game is currently at, and we’re confident that an incredibly polished 1.0 is very nearly ready for its full release!

Price Increase on February 20th
We were in Early Access for longer than originally planned. Yes, COVID and the entire team working from home was one reason, but also because we were able to bring EVERSPACE 2 to PC Game Pass allowing for a bigger development budget. We took the significant revenue from that deal and decided to create a bigger game, packed with more enemies, areas, loot, story content, and features. This financial boost and the extra time have allowed us to craft a more polished experience for players on all platforms.


Thanks to the Game Pass deal with our dear friends at Microsoft, we were able to add Visions to the game—among other improvements and additions. In these short story beats, Adam experiences dreamlike moments that add another connecting layer between events in the predecessor and the story of EVERSPACE 2.

Given the significant amount of new content and improvements that have been added to the game during its time in Early Access as well as the total scope and quality of the finished game, we made the decision over a year ago to raise the price a few weeks before the v1.0 release. This will allow us to still have a small discount at launch, but it will not be lower than the game’s current Early Access price and likely won’t be for some time. Furthermore, there won’t be any sales before we’ll raise the price from $39.99 to $49.99 / €38.99 to €49.99 on February 20, so now is the best time to get into the game for a lower price before the full release!

What Will 1.0 Look Like?
At 1.0, players focused on completing the main story missions and who only explore a few side missions can complete the game in 30 hours. To fully complete all the side quests, explore every region, solve every puzzle, finish every racing event, gain all reputation bonuses, and wrap up all the other odds and ends, completionists will be looking at more than 90 hours of playtime. We’re looking forward to seeing any and full % speedruns after 1.0 launches!

When we launch in full, the game will be voiced in English and German, and include localization in 13 languages including English, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Spanish.

As the team works on adding more enemies, rewards, equipment types, polished cinematics, customization options, new boss fights, and more for the 1.0 launch we’ll bug fixing as much as possible before release. Please continue to report issues you encounter—our QA team is working with the team to crush bugs as quickly as possible.


Sneak-peek of Khione, the for-now final explorable system coming with the v1.0 release.

Sharp-eyed players may notice that the map currently shows eight star systems in Early Access. Many of you have already visited Ceto, Union, Zharkov, Khaït Nebula, and Drake. At launch, our sixth and final star system, Khione, will open to continue our story.

Having eight systems was our original plan, but we decided to pack a fewer number of star systems with more explorable areas so those vast reaches of space feel less empty. The final event of the campaign will occur in a hand-crafted location for cinematic and dramaturgic reasons in Aethon (no spoilers), and it will not be an explorable system (yet…). You’ll still have 100+ handcrafted locations to explore as promised in our Kickstarter. In fact, we exceed the number of hand-crafted locations we’d planned to create by 20%, but just with a slightly different layout. The map will be updated at 1.0 accordingly.

Post-Launch Roadmap
We’ve talked a little about future free DLC/updates and a paid expansion during our weekly streams without going into too much detail. We wanted to focus on nailing the v1.0 release first and living up to our initial promises before getting carried away by talking about upcoming content. That said, we’re happy to share that we’re planning to have a free content update in the second half of 2023 and that the creative team has already started working on a major expansion, scheduled for mid-2024.


Another banger screenshot of what pilots can look forward to in the final chapter of the campaign.

Excited about launch? Want to know more? Make sure to tune into our weekly live streams as Erik, our community ambassador, continues his latest play session where he’s just recently started a new save file to show off missions, locations, and more that have changed over the course of Early Access.

We’re continuing to stream on Fridays, showing off content from the latest EVERSPACE 2 dev build on the ROCKFISH Games Twitch and YouTube, this Friday from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm CET / 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm ET / 11:00 am to 1:00 pm PT. Join us and ask your questions directly to the dev team!

That’s everything from us for now. We’ll see you in Cluster 34!
Michael & your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team 🚀🪐👽
EVERSPACE™ 2 - Merro
Five years of development. Two years of Early Access. One more week until a release date!

Here's a taste of the coming trailer. Stay tuned to this frequency, pilots! 🚀👀



We'll see you in space!

Galactic greetings from Lee and your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team

EVERSPACE™ 2 - ROCKFISH Games


Hey pilots,

Thanks for all your feedback on the big content Ancient Rifts update (0.10.30110) that dropped about a week ago. Overall, the response from the community was very positive, but a few issues did slip through the cracks. To get those kinks ironed out, our team has been working hard to deliver this hotfix with the changes below swiftly:

Tweaks
  • Balancing: Increased hull HP scaling from ship tier
  • Balancing: Reduced "Devotion" fire rate
  • Balancing: Reduced "Bob" respawn delay
  • Balancing: Reduced "Omni Manus" kinetic damage but increased energy damage
  • Balancing: Increased loot quantity in Ancient Rifts at lower Lunacy levels
  • Balancing: Increased loot quality in Ancient Rifts
  • Balancing: Increased Resolve recharge from enemy kills, even more so for tougher enemies
  • Tears of the Mad are now automatically collected in Ancient Rifts
  • Allow using Tears of the Mad to guarantee legendary rewards from Ancient Rifts at Lunacy 0 and 50
  • Rare items will now always have 2 bonus attributes instead of 1 or 2
  • Improved performance in Ancient Rifts
  • UI: Racing stats are now hidden until the first race was completed (community suggestion)
  • Integrated a bunch of dialog translations for all languages
Bugfixes
  • Fixed that ingame menu was leaking memory when visible
  • Fixed potential memory leak in item shop when switching from grid to list view
  • Fixed periodic performance hitches related to "new" indicator animations (removed animation for now)
  • Fixed that after selecting "show on map" on job board you were not sent back to the job board when pressing "back"
  • Fixed that job offers and random events were created above max level
  • Fixed that rift pull-in at the end of an Ancient Rift sometimes gets skipped
  • Fixed dialog when following armored drone in Union Bridge still playing when drone is already destroyed
  • Fixed that armor was not repaired after destroying an enemy in Ancient Rifts
  • Fixed that camera was clipping through drone mesh for remotely steered drones when switching to first person camera
  • Fixed rotation slowdown of Ancient Lenses when grabbed for the first time
  • Fixed invisible landscape collision in Vesna Mining Colony and built a new light map
  • Fixed bomb drone underwater behaviour causing a blocker in Side Mission "Gang Wars II"
  • Prevent Vindicator drones during side mission "Detoxification" from attacking Redeemers, potentially blocking the mission
  • Fixed a missing scan target in the mission log of Side Mission "Parasite II"
  • Prevent an exploit by not allowing usage of devices during a race countdown anymore
  • Fixed freeze frame during Ancient Rift portal travel animation
  • Fixed unintentional variation in weapon energy output on "Nexus Heart"
  • Fixed Gunship Coil Gun Turret having perfect aim
  • Fixed incorrectly counted secrets in Drake Passage
  • UI: Perk indication icon was not showing completable state in case only credits were missing

For pilots on Gamepass for PC, this latest build has also been submitted to the Windows Store and is currently in certification. It should go live very soon. 🚀💥🙌

Don’t stop being awesome, and see you in space!
Michael and your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team

PS: If you'd like to see a screenshot of yours featured, like the one above by EVERSPACE 2 pilot Kizaw, join our discord and drop them pretties in the #screenshot channel.
EVERSPACE™ 2 - ROCKFISH Games


Greetings, pilots!

Northern Fall is here, and, as promised, we’re dropping our final major update during Early Access, featuring a sliver of endgame content, legendary items, new missions, and much more. Furthermore, your valuable feedback aided in a significant overhaul of our level-scaling approach. This will hopefully make more pilots happy about feeling powerful by leveling up while keeping beginner and intermediate areas relevant later through meaningful game world state changes.

Now, before anyone rage quits because level-scaling is here to stay, let’s hear from our top pilot and Community Ambassador, Erik Schrader, as he explains the major changes and additions:



Overhauled Level Scaling
Let’s address the elephant in the hangar first! We’ve noticed a subset of pilots not being happy with level scaling, especially at the beginning of the game. While others appreciate having a challenge wherever they go and would find fighting underwhelming opponents that drop no meaningful loot just flat-out boring, some pilots just love to obliterate space baddies after they have advanced a few levels and are frustrated if enemies level with them; we get that.

It’s tough trying to make two opposite kinds of player types happy, but we hope we found a fair solution that works for both sides: Instead of having enemies level with you constantly within a given level range per star system — there’s a lot more to the mechanic, but I’ll leave it at that — pilots can now over-level up to a certain point. These are events like reaching a specific player level, a major plot point in the campaign, or entering a new system. If a combination of conditions is met, previous game areas will level up, and you’ll get a message that is even woven into the game’s lore.



Meaning, within the first few hours of the game, there is no level-scaling in missions or while exploring locations anymore. However, after you have made some progress in the second star system, Union, you will be notified that enemies become stronger in Ceto, the beginner area, so you won’t be able to one-shot’em. In fact, if you’re lazy, you’ll be turned into stardust in no time. Enemies won’t chicken out on you or just idle in space without aggro. They’ll put up a fight, thus dropping meaningful loot when defeated. On the other hand, if you’re feeling lucky and rush into higher-level systems, enemies will no longer level down, so you might wanna do a few side missions, distress calls, jobs, or location challenges first to really earn going and find some high-level gear.

It’s a massive change under the hood, so we encourage everyone to start a new game and let us know what they think about the new system, but don’t forget to use all tools available to your disposal: ship devices, consumables, ULTs, crafting, shopping, exploiting weaknesses, dodging enemy fire, and using the environment to your advantage.

New Stuff To Do, Fly & Kill
While the team is still working on the remaining missions of the campaign, including two more boss fights and the final encounter, the fall update offers a slew of new activities. Of course, the most significant addition is introducing Ancient Rifts, which we’ll cover further below.

Now, most looter-shooters are all about the endgame, but, since space exploration is also dear to us, we added even more things to do in the systems currently in the game. So, even if you don’t want to start a new game now, there are plenty of new puzzles, jobs, distress signals, and three new side missions, one in Union, one in the Khaït Nebula, and one involving overhauled racing events.



New job types can be found on the new job board at Kato Palace in Prescott Starbase as part of a new side mission. Introduced via a new side mission, featuring an old and beloved friend from the predecessor, all racing events in the game received a massive overhaul to make them more appealing. For starters, pun intended, you can jump right back to the beginning anytime you fail the course somewhere in between, like missing a ring or crashing into an asteroid. Furthermore, racing events now offer incentives, and the benchmarks have been altered accordingly. You’ll also notice some graphical touch-ups here and there.


New challenges are on! Can you beat our Platinum times?

With the fall update, we also added a new wing set for the Bomber, aka the Titan, when equipped with this new wing type, as well as two new Outlaw units, the Raider and the Tormentor.


The Titan is probably the more elegant version of the Bomber series, with its wide-spread wings giving it a less chunky look than the Cyclops, especially from the player’s perspective.


The Outlaw Raider is a light fighter but comes with armor; it enters drone-like close combat if its target is webbed, so better stay on your zero-G toes!


The Outlaw Tormentor is relatively fast for a heavy fighter. It shoots rapid rocket salvos, so better get your boost-strafe ready for rapid evasive maneuvers!

To give pilots a broader choice of tools to work with when fighting against enemies that dish out a ton of damage, we added the Front Shield Generator with this update. It’s an extremely powerful passive device that you can tweak to your liking: In Avenger mode, the FSG reflects blocked shots back to attackers; set to All Day, blocked damage is converted into weapon energy, and when using On Your Left, the shield is 25% smaller but will automatically turn towards the closest enemy facing you.

Ancient Rifts
In our Kickstarter from 2019 (time really flies!), the Ancient Rifts stretch goal was unlocked by some eight-thousand awesome backers. Back then, we only had a vague vision of how these would look like and how they work, but we’ve always envisioned Ancient Rifts to bring back some of the crazy mechanics and challenges and that “one-more-run-feeling” of the first EVERSPACE.



In EVERSPACE 2, you can now have a similar experience by opening multi-staged rifts that become increasingly stronger with a chance of a legendary item dropping after you defeat the boss in the final stage. Much like in the predecessor, where you could increase the difficulty for each run and pick handicaps between sectors in Hardcore mode, you can now ramp up Lunacy before opening a rift and picking a portal with different modifiers leading to the next stage to define your individual challenge. Of course, bigger risks will yield greater rewards, like a higher legendary drop chance and better loot overall.



As the endgame activity of a fast-paced space shooter, we want you to dive right into the battle with an optimized build and unleash mayhem on your enemies rather than camping behind an asteroid and picking one target after the other from a safe distance. So, to avoid been thrown out of the rift, you must maintain your Resolve score by defeating opponents rapidly and keeping your hull integrity above zero. Sounds intimidating, but don’t you worry! You’ll get all your health and your consumables back no matter if you succeed or fail in a rift. Of course, failing means no rewards, so you better enter fully geared up because your equipment while in a rift is locked.



That said, to prevent pilots from farming rifts like there’s no tomorrow, we’ll implement a system where you have to earn a particular resource to open rifts by completing other activities, beforehand. It won’t be too much of a grind, though, just enough against the inevitable rift cheese.

Before we move on to legendaries, bear in mind that this is just the first implementation of Ancient Rifts while we have a few more endgame aces up our sleeves for the v1.0 release.

Legendary Items
Finally, legendaries made it into the game! We know, many of you have been waiting for this since the tease of a legendary beam laser, the Agent of Redemption, from the EVERSPACE 2 prototype back in 2019. Well, now is the time to go hunting for some legendaries in the all-new Ancients Rifts. If you have watched Erik in the most recent gamedev streams, you already saw some crazy legendary weapons like Eye Of The Storm, Thundercore, Wrath of the Fallen, Bob, Pango’s Pride, or The Final Reckoning. We haven’t decided how many legendaries there’ll be in the final game, but expect to be able to find at least one per main item category.



Then, there are also legendaries designed/inspired by our backers with some cool ideas. To make sure at least some of those are a guaranteed find, we decided to have those as side mission rewards in the v1.0 release, which will also help introduce legendaries to pilots unfamiliar with the looter genre.

Now, while Erik was able to equip several legendaries in his dev build, there are limitations in the official version. Since legendaries are intended to have a significant impact on your build and the playstyle they’re suited for, you’ll be able to equip only one legendary at a time, with a second coming in higher ship tiers or even another slot to be unlocked via a companion perk, maybe. For the time being, players are able to equip two legendaries until we implement the T4 ships with the full release.

QoL Improvements
The team, in particular Andi, Sven, and Ingmar have also been hard at work to streamline game saving significantly. It’s a rather extensive topic and has great impact on the overall experience, as save games are automatically created when reaching mission checkpoints, docking, and entering locations. We've specifically addressed lags becoming more prominent with increased total play time and save file size due to the number of LocationStates growing over time. Ingmar, our Technical Engineer, provided a two-page-long tech document of what has been done so far, basically saying: “we’re not done here!” I’m saving the details for an upcoming deep dive into game performance in EVERSPACE 2. Bottom line: game saving is now twice as fast!


This is what profiling in Unreal Insights usually looks like. This specific session shows our latest improvement, where we keep certain information buffered in an "always ready to write" state to speed up data serialization.

Per community request, the Reflecting Panel also received an overhaul for better handling as the puzzle was a bit fiddly, indeed. The panel itself now has a nice unfold animation, too, both thanks to Toni, our Lead Level Designer.

Changelog - 0.10.30110
Features
  • Removed most of the dynamic enemy level scaling and added a few specific, system-wide leveling events
  • Added the first version of Ancient Rifts
  • Added new side quests
  • Added Legendary items
  • Added new Outlaw units: Outlaw Raider and Outlaw Tormentor
  • Added new secondary weapon: Cruise Missiles
  • Added new device: Front Shield Generator
  • Added new Bomber: Titan
  • Added new Gunship: Dominator
  • Device Mastery modes can now be previewed
  • Added new job types (and job board for Kato)
  • Added new unknown signal/distress call types
  • Added option to keep audio playing when game is unfocused
  • Added new data sub-tab "The Story So Far" to rewatch cinematics and recap the latest story development (mainly placeholder content)
  • Added AMD FidelityFX™ v2.1.1 to the AI-Upscaling methods
  • Overhauled racing activity
  • Overhauled ship dealer
  • UI: Overhauled ship selector
  • UI: Stats tab rework - Added racing stats overview
Tweaks
  • Reworked Sentinel special: now increases primary weapon fire rate by up to 20%, depending on shield charge percentage
  • Zurilia Bombers will now briefly disable their front shield when firing missiles
  • Striker ULT will now automatically deactivate if no further enemies are in range
  • Reduced drop chance for signal decoders as High-Risk Area boss loot
  • Some structures like tanks will now also sometimes drop scrap metal when destroyed
  • Improved speed of save game creation to reduce lag during saving
  • Saving during Enemy Wave Challenge is now no longer possible due to exploitative behavior
  • Missiles fired by the "auto-fire at critical hit" attribute now have a 60% reduced damage/effect
  • Changed look of Service Drone
  • Changed look of Elek's ship
  • Improved boss fight in Ghost Fleet: Better flight behavior that makes it easier to hit the boss
  • Improved boss fight in Ceto before entering Union: More health and better weapons
  • Increased loot quality bonuses of High-Risk Area mutators
  • Improved Fusion Hook "Kunai" behavior to prevent targets from overshooting
  • Completing certain unknown signal or distress call events will now grant a small amount of renown
  • Improved Reflecting Panel behavior for better handling
  • Item indicators for outleveled equipment now take rarity into account as well
  • Weapons are aligned straight forward in sequences now
  • Crafting - Removed general restriction that crafted items cannot be modified
  • Crafting - Added restriction that items above player level cannot be adapted if gap is higher than 2
  • Balancing: Buffed Retaliator units
  • Balancing: Reduced "Downtime Warrior" perk effect from 25% to 15%
  • Balancing: Increased Thermo Gun projectile homing agility
  • Balancing: Reduced Zurilia Drone damage
  • Balancing: Brought damage and hitpoints scaling to equal levels, i.e. reduced both enemy health and player damage potential
  • Balancing: Slightly increased "Very Hard" difficulty
  • Balancing: Increased some NPC armor/shield hitpoints
  • Balancing: Increased Sentinel Expertise scaling
  • Balancing: Increased "Percussive Maintenance" perk proc chance but reduced effect
  • Balancing: Increased Vindicator Expertise scaling for drone HP and damage
  • Balancing: Reduced Executioner damage and increased spread
  • Balancing: Increased Bomber base HP and shield/armor bonuses
  • Balancing: Reduced Bomber secondary energy consumption
  • Balancing: Reduced Gunship Expertise scaling
  • Balancing: Reduced Gunship boost speed passive bonus
  • Balancing: Increased Structure scaling
  • Balancing: Slightly increased Corrosion Injector damage
  • Balancing: Improved aiming precision of Vindicator drones
  • Balancing: Increased credits earned from jobs but decreased XP
  • Balancing: Increased Utility damage scaling
  • Balancing: Increased Bloodstar Repeater kinetic damage
  • Balancing: Increased Cave Crawler corrosion damage
  • Balancing: The primary attributes, Firepower, Precision and Structure, can now roll simultaneously on items
  • Balancing: Increased Umbra DPS
  • Balancing: Increased Homing Missile damage but reduced their fire rate
  • Balancing: Increased missile ammo across the board
  • Balancing: Increased Ceto Ghost Hunt boss hull and armor hitpoints
  • Balancing: Slightly reduced mine ammo across the board
  • Balancing: Reduced mine fire rates across the board
  • Balancing: Slightly reduced Rail Gun charge duration
  • Balancing: Adjusted some device cooldown values depending on device level
  • Balancing: Increased Energy Shield consumable hitpoints fraction
  • Performance: Fixed performance lag when a random travel map encounter is popping up
  • UI: High-Risk areas now display with proper HUD marker in supralight even if not hovered or targeted
  • UI: Secondary weapons with low fire rates now display a cooldown in HUD to indicate when they can be fired again
  • UI: Overhauled Game Over screen design
  • UI: Added message banner for harmless/underleveled signal decoders on activation
  • UI: Added message banner for harmless/underleveled high-risk areas when trying to set waypoint
  • UI: Added indicators to missions and renown screens for rewards that can be claimed
  • UX: The Crafting tab is now hidden until the first crafting inventory item was added
  • UX: Crafting parts of the respective rarity will now be hidden until the first item was dismantled
  • UX: Crafting tab now stays on selected category until ingame menu was closed
  • UX: Made refinements to Crafting inventory when using gamepad and keyboard to navigate to new items
  • UX: Reworked Perks tab navigation and selection priority logic (e.g. implicit selection of investable perks after companion was changed)
Bugfixes
  • Added missing location map image for "Drake Passage"
  • Fixed item grades not correctly applied when claiming job renown rewards
  • Fixed Daredevil master challenge achievable in lower rarity high-risk areas
  • Fixed Renegade Plating not showing correct blueprint progress
  • Fixed doing shenanigans via an exploit by not allowing to access photo mode while the ingame menu is opened
  • Fixed that after a long playtime it was possible that no valid positions for new job offer locations, unknown signals or high-risk-areas could be found anymore
  • Fixed that some Tier 3 ships that don't have Tier 3 wings, yet showed Tier 1 wings as fallback instead of Tier 2, even if that was available (only fixed for newly generated ships on offer)
  • Fixed that secondary weapons received 0 energy when installed, even if not flying Bomber, and thus could briefly not be fired
  • Fixed weapons not tracking the crosshair correctly in first-person mode
  • Fixed that the final fight of the mission "The Convert" could happen in different locations
  • Fixed that vindicator drones left the location after a "Battle Support"-mission was done
  • Fixed unlimited boss invulnerability in gas harvester boss fight if weak points are destroyed too quickly
  • Fixed that there was a regular jump-in instead of a "arrive via bypass"-animation when fast-traveling between Union locations "Torn Station" and "Prescott Starbase"
  • Fixed infinite range on Fusion Hook "Kunai" mode
  • Fixed Magnetic Repulsor "Swing Together" mode affecting invalid target types
  • Fixed Stinger passive incorrectly restoring 100% of shield hitpoint instead of 25% on device use
  • Fixed soft-lock during "The Eye" if dying with a drone right after having hacked a server before gaining control of player ship again
  • Fixed Teleporter "Parting Gift" mode damage scaling
  • Fixed an issue in "Gang Wars 3" and "Battle Support" type missions that could lead to having no NPCs.
  • Fixed hero attributes of items having wrong appearance after replacing them with an item from the shop
  • Fixed Scout Expertise not increasing range of secondary weapons
  • Fixed discovery percentage on map locations not immediately updating after discovering a secret
  • Fixed Anti-Missile Drone shooting beyond its weapon range in High-Risk Areas
  • Fixed that Vindicator drones were still fighting Okkar after wanted state wore off
  • Fixed Sentinel ULT "Static Overload" draining weapon energy
  • Fixed Bomber ULT "ARC-9000" continuing to drain ULT energy after exploding
  • Fixed Striker ULT "Quantum Tether" jumping to invalid targets after original target is destroyed
  • Fixed Bomber ULT "ARC-9000" memory leak
  • Fixed that for some users the game would show a black screen at start for a couple of minutes when having a VR headset connected by removing some default OpenXR plugins Unreal Engine ships with
  • Fixed that player would jump away during "turn around" sequence if jump was being charged when sequence started
  • Fixed skybox artifacts occurring on AMD GPUs
  • Fixed that two Tareens were visible during one of the "Emissary" mission sequences
  • Fixed minor issues in several sequences
  • Added Drake system Spatial Bypass location to "Rips In Space" task locations when Drake is unlocked and Bypass is not yet built.
  • Fixed wrong calculation of weapon damage modifiers at higher levels
  • Fixed Level 25 player perk "Preparation" not removing stacks when deselected
  • Fixed Bomber passive "Target lock-on duration reduced by 50%" not working
  • Fixed that tutorial box for supralight auto-pilot showed "ok" action binding instead of "interact" binding
  • Fixed that player drones could destroy targets during a sequence
  • Fixed that friendly mines could also be included in the "Destroy all mines" task during "Back to Work", which lead to a mission blocker
  • Fixed detonators without timers not being correctly reset after leaving the area
  • Fixed Freelancer Freighter containers not exploding
  • Clamp job item rewards to max stack size (if there is one)
  • Fixed that invasion enemies could spawn above max player level
  • Fixed that consumables became more valuable with higher player levels
  • Fixed DLSS mode being set to off when changing game maps
  • UI: Fixed that side-by-side compare item icons were missing in some cases
  • UI: Added missing scrollbar to map location and ship stats info widget
  • UI: Fixed that when unlocking a blueprint the category and/or rarity was not changed in some cases
  • UI: Fixed that wrong device mode indicator could be shown after a device reset
  • UI: Fixed that player attribute buttons could be unresponsive in some cases
  • UI: Fixed that tab buttons stayed highlighted in some cases even though they were not hovered with mouse anymore
  • UI: Crafting consumables - Fixed that filling up equipped stacks could lead to multiple half-stacked slots in cargo
  • UI: Crafting consumables - Fixed that equip action was sometimes rendered inactive but was still executable
  • UI: Fixed that zoom in and out actions on map were still possible when resource selection widget was shown (gamepad only)
  • UI: Fixed action button captions overlaps in English and German localization
  • UI: Fixed perks details for locked player perks which could show a lock icon instead of the unlock level in some cases
  • UI: Fixed that the craft action button on empty slots was sometimes rendered inactive even though it was active
  • UX: The ship selector is now usable again on the inventory screen when using a gamepad
  • UX: Multiple fixes regarding the crafting screen navigation and input logic
  • UI: Fixed that loot container screen wasn't implicitly closed in some cases after the last item was removed
  • UI: Fixed that perk container label could show a wrong text in one situation
  • UI: Fixed that perk slot invest hint icon could have a wrong state in some cases
  • UI: Fixed that Dax's temporary reactor repair perk could stay after upgrading until a location was left
  • UI: Fixed that the perk slot action buttons could be temporarily hidden in some cases
Tweaks (Only relevant when having played on the experimental branch before)
  • Increased drop chance of "Tears of the Mad" in Rifts
  • The hologram flag on a racing gate is now faded out when getting close for better readability
  • Mounted turrets are no longer affected by Thundercore
  • Updated Rift visuals
  • UI: Story so far - The completion ratio is now hidden (community suggestion)
  • UI: Story so far - Updated description texts and preview thumbnails
  • UI: Story so far - Gallery action buttons are now only shown in case more than one image is available
Bugfixes (Only relevant when having played on the experimental branch before)
  • Fixed that when having cargo unit BOB installed, a new BOB was spawned whenever a drone was possessed
  • Fixed potential freeze when reviving NPCs with "Wrath of the Fallen" while using High-Pressure mode from Energized Boost
  • Fixed that the job list was not showing correct jobs for a station when two job boards were available in the same location and having viewed the other station's job board previously
  • Fixed that NPCs revived via "Wrath of the Fallen" were respawned after reentering the location
  • Fixed that Ancient Wardens were not destroyed after 10s when being revived via "Wrath of the Fallen"
  • Fixed that distress calls of type "Faction Battle" could spawn with invalid friendly faction
  • Fixed that cloaked containers at unknown signal locations of type "Hidden Stash" always had the same loot
  • Fixed that some damage sources were not scaled correctly in Rifts
  • Fixed corrosion mines and missiles not increasing damage with Final Reckoning buff
  • Fixed Bomber Titan wing collision mesh and added missing exhaust effect for Tier 2
  • Fixed that Distress Call of type "Items Needed" could succeed even though ship in need was destroyed
  • Fixed that Maddocks could be killed by his own mines in Sato Orbit
  • Fixed that rarity colors of ships in ship dealer screen were incorrect
  • Fixed interact marker on Spatial Bypass when constructing
  • Fixed Primesense Observer giving too much expertise
  • Fixed legendary weapon Devotion not consuming ULT energy when not placed in first weapon slot
  • Fixed that for "Volatile Goods" job an explosion could still be triggered even though goods had already been unloaded
  • Fixed that drone in "Volatile Goods" job could accidentally be destroyed by AI
  • Fixed that secrets being incorrectly counted for the location completion due to the newly placed Mainframe Components in Zharkov, Khaït Nebula and Drake
  • Fixed that Ramen Delivery Drones could carry objects
  • Fixed "Omni Manus" sometimes causing the Missile Defense System not to trigger at all
  • Fixed crafting inventory not being cleared after tutorial which led to the crystal gathering task already having some progress

Alright, so much for the fall update. It’s not as meaty as the previous one because overhauling level scaling took us quite some time, while the remaining star system and the rest of the campaign are reserved for the v1.0 release. However, we think there’s still plenty of new stuff to check out, and we look forward to your esteemed feedback, as always.

And with that, I’ll leave you to it, hoping to see many pilots in our first official Ancient Rifts live stream on Twitch and YouTube, this Friday from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm CET / 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm ET / 11:00 am to 1:00 pm PT. 🚀💥🙌

Don’t stop being awesome, and see you in the Ancient Rifts!
Michael and your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team

PS: As usual, we timed another sale with the release of the Ancient Rifts update. At 25% off, this is the best deal you can get — unless you’re on Game Pass for PC — before we’ll raise the price a few weeks before the v1.0 release when we’ll also follow Steam’s latest regional pricing recommendation.



EVERSPACE™ 2 - ROCKFISH Games


Hey there, pilots!

The VOD of the latest live sneak peek of the Fall Update, aka Ancient Rifts, is up. Ace pilot and beloved Community Ambassador Erik Schrader took another deep dive into an Ancient Rift, while also explaining the entirely overhauled enemy scaling (yes!) before we flipped the switch and dropped the latest dev build on the experimental branch for all daring test pilots to explore before the official release in about a week or so.



If you want to get into all the nitty-gritty details, here's the changelog and access instructions for the experimental branch. Friendly reminder: please don't spoil any side mission content before the official release, thx! 🙌

Don't stop being awesome, and happy testing! 🚀💥
Michael and your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team
EVERSPACE™ 2 - ROCKFISH Games


Greetings, pilots!

We’re in the middle of the Northern hemisphere Fall, and the next update is only a few weeks away. Time to delve into a very early version of endgame content, aka Ancient Rifts, in EVERSPACE 2.

It’s still early days, and even in the fall update, we’ll present only a small version of what we envision for the endgame at full release, but we simply cannot wait to get your feedback on this first iteration.

So, buckle up and, together with Erik, our Community Ambassador, get sucked into your first Ancient Rift! Let’s see if he can pull out some mighty legendaries from the event.

Join us this Friday on Twitch and YouTube, from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm CET / 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm ET / 11:00 am to 1:00 pm PT.

If you want to catch up on development, check out our short & snappy recaps below:















Don't stop being awesome, and see you in space! 🚀🪐🙌
Michael and your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team
EVERSPACE™ 2 - ROCKFISH Games


Hey there, pilots!

We're a bit late with our monthly recap due to the major content update that dropped earlier this month. Nonetheless, we want to give you a quick wrap-up of what we've been covering in our weekly gamedev & community streams the month before Drake: Gang Wars was released.

So in July, Erik covered the level rescaling to give pilots a better feeling of gear progression, making you feel more powerful the higher the item level that gear is dropping with. We're aware that some pilots just hate level scaling regardless of how integral it is to looter-shooter gameplay. That said we're not done refining the system, so you can expect some changes in the autumn update that will also introduce a snippet of the endgame as well as unique legendary items featuring extraordinary attributes.

Speaking of attributes, Ship Attributes have also been rescaled to provide more impact and make those location challenges more meaningful, so even if you don't like the puzzles in EVERSPACE 2 there's now a good reason to do them nonetheless. ;)

Next are six new perks that have been added to the game; three are unlockable through companions; the other three come available as player perks when hitting level 25. Not listing them here as you can easily pause the video when Erik is talking about them.

In the second half, Erik covers new ship modules for the Vindicator as well as Flak Smart Ammo that prevents killing yourself when firing at targets right in front of you — you're welcome!

Finally, Erik shows that Ships Devices now come with different ranges to make them more distinct and impactful to your playstyle:



Alrighty, this is it for now. If you want to keep on track of what the team is working on in the next few months, make sure to stop by our weekly live streams not to miss out on the latest in development on YouTube and Twitch every Friday 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm CEST / 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm EDT / 11:00 am to 1:00 pm PDT!

Don't stop being awesome, and see you in space! 🚀🪐🙌
Michael and your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team

PS: If you'd like to see a screenshot of yours featured, like the one above by EVERSPACE 2
pilot Flori, join our discord and drop them pretties in the #screenshot channel.
...