Underspace Review Summary

Freelancer spiritual successor: Players consistently praise the game as a spiritual successor to Freelancer, often calling it 'Freelancer 2.0' or 'Freelancer for the 2020s.' It successfully captures the original's arcade-like space combat, exploration, and trading mechanics, while adding its own unique elements and improvements.

Highly enjoyable early access: Players are highly enjoying the game in its current state, finding it fun, playable, and mechanically sound. Despite being in early access, it feels complete with core features, and the active developers are frequently updating it, showing great potential for a polished full release.

Rich content and exploration: The game offers a vast amount of content, including a huge galaxy to explore, a captivating storyline with twists, and a wide variety of missions, puzzles, and events. Players find it highly addictive with plenty to do, ensuring long play sessions.

Ship customization and variety: The game provides good ship customization options, allowing players to visually personalize their vessels with colors and decals. There's also a decent variety of ship types, each with distinct designs, and players can upgrade them with various weapons and components.

Active and responsive developers: The developers are highly active and responsive, consistently communicating with the community on forums and Discord. Their passion and frequent updates are seen as a positive sign for the game's future.

Missing or poor voice acting: A significant number of players are disappointed by the complete absence or poor quality of voice acting, including AI-generated voices. This negatively impacts immersion, makes dialogue hard to follow, and contributes to a feeling of incompleteness.

Clunky controls and UI issues: Players find the controls unintuitive, janky, and unreliable, leading to a frustrating experience. There are also issues with controller compatibility despite being advertised, and the UI is described as messy and overwhelming.

Severe performance and optimization issues: Players frequently report significant performance issues, including lag, choppy frame rates, and colossal FPS drops, even on high-end PCs. Optimization is described as terrible and in its early stages.

Poor station and on-foot experience: On-foot station interactions are limited, unrewarding, and feel like a waste of time due to long, empty paths, invisible NPCs, and excessive cutscenes. The walking sections on planets are also seen as barren and unnecessary.

Fails to meet Freelancer's standards: Players frequently compare the game unfavorably to Freelancer, noting that it falls short in terms of polish, graphics, story depth, combat mechanics, and overall satisfaction.

Cosmic Horror & Eldritch Themes: A significant aspect of the game is its cosmic horror and Lovecraftian themes, featuring eldritch monsters, mysterious storms, and a pervasive sense of dread that adds a unique twist to the space exploration genre.

Freelancer-like Gameplay & Controls: The game is frequently compared to Freelancer, particularly in its core gameplay loop, arcade-style space combat, and intuitive mouse-driven controls. It builds upon these foundations while introducing new elements.

Fun, Intuitive Combat: The combat system is praised for being fun, fast-paced, and easy to learn, with intuitive controls that make dogfighting enjoyable. The campaign also features satisfying boss encounters.

On-Foot Station Exploration: The game includes on-foot sections within stations, allowing players to walk around, interact with NPCs, and engage in first-person exploration, adding another layer to the gameplay.

Dynamic Economy & Trading: The game features a dynamic economy with trade good tracking and mechanisms to prevent exploitative trading, encouraging players to find optimal trade routes and engage in commerce.

Long Save Load Times: A notable issue is the excessively long loading times for game saves. This significantly impacts the player experience by creating frustrating delays.

Playable on Low-End Hardware: Despite general performance concerns, some players have found the game to be playable on lower-end hardware when settings are adjusted to their minimum. This indicates some level of scalability.

Early Access: Promising but Unfinished: Many players acknowledge the game's early access status, expressing a mix of current enjoyment and anticipation for future development. They often recommend it with caveats, suggesting it's worth supporting now for its potential, but also advising others to wait for more polish and content.

Desire for Multiplayer: There is a clear desire among players for the inclusion of multiplayer functionality, indicating it would significantly enhance the game's appeal and longevity.

Expand Eldritch Theme: One specific piece of feedback suggests that the developers should further develop the eldritch theme in the game's art and audio design, implying it's a unique and appealing aspect.

Motion Sickness Not Game's Fault: A reviewer clarifies that motion sickness, if experienced, is not a fault of the game itself, suggesting it's a personal issue rather than a design flaw.

Dedicated and Responsive Developer: The developer is highly praised for their responsiveness, dedication, and active engagement with the community. Players are willing to support the game's development, often citing the impressive scope for a solo project.

Rich Lore and Writing: The game features rich and intriguing lore, often with Lovecraftian themes, and well-written dialogue. The world-building is a highlight, though some players note awkward exposition in the introduction.

Strong Atmosphere and Aesthetic: The game's atmosphere, aesthetic, and unique visual design are highly praised. Players appreciate its ability to create a sense of mystery, tranquility, and even cosmic dread, utilizing elements like fog and unique structures.

Abundant Content, Some Grind: The game offers a substantial amount of content for an Early Access title, with more planned for the future. However, some players feel there is too much grind, which can make the game feel easy.

Limited Language Support: Players have noted the current lack of localization for several languages, specifically Russian and Portuguese (Brazil), indicating a desire for broader language support.