Everspace 2
Rockfish’s sci-fi sequel junks the Roguelike format of its predecessor for the grand expanse of the open world. In many ways it typifies a formula honed by the likes of Assassin’s Creed over several iterations – except, of course, that almost all of it takes place in the airless void of space. Vistas of rolling hills are thus replaced by the art of the skybox, painted with hula-hooped planetoids and splendid orange gas clouds, while towers and caves switch out for clusters of asteroids harbouring mineral deposits, and hanging space wrecks torn apart by some forgotten war.
That stratospheric difference gives this open world without a world a certain honesty. It places front and centre a reality that many examples of the genre obscure – that you don’t explore their lands so much as beeline toward map markers, getting distracted by further markers that ping invitingly onto the HUD as you go. The concept of fast travel takes on a new meaning here as you belt across millions of miles in a minute in hyperspeed, with no pretence that the real estate between highlighted points of interest needs stuffing with empty-calorie morsels of interactivity.