EVERSPACE™ 2 Review Summary

Beautiful graphics and engaging story with deep ship customization are marred by puzzle fatigue, repetitive missions, and frequent loading screens.

Extensive ship customization options: Players praise the wide variety of ships, weapons, gadgets, and visual customization. The ability to tailor ships to different playstyles and the depth of the upgrade system are highly valued.

Engaging story and writing: The story is well-received for being good without being overly complex, and the voice acting and writing are praised for their quality and character development.

Nostalgic Freelancer similarities: Many players note strong similarities to the classic game Freelancer, particularly in combat and overall feel. This nostalgic connection is a major positive for fans of the genre.

Variety of playstyles: Players appreciate the diverse tactical options from different ships, weapons, and devices, allowing for boundless playstyles and high replayability.

Beautiful graphics and worlds: The game's graphics, location design, and planetary surfaces are described as stunning and detailed. The visual presentation is a highlight for many players.

Excessive puzzle fatigue: Players find the frequent puzzles later in the game tedious and frustrating, breaking immersion and causing fatigue.

Repetitive mission design: Missions quickly become repetitive, involving constant fetch quests and backtracking with little variety, leading to boredom.

Frequent loading screens: Numerous loading screens appear frequently, often as raw black screens without visual transitions, disrupting gameplay and immersion.

Slow and delayed fast travel: Fast travel is unlocked too late and travel between locations takes too long, making navigation feel slow and tedious.

Not a worthy successor: The game fails to meet the high standards set by previous titles like Freelancer and Starlancer, disappointing fans expecting a worthy successor.

Excellent arcade space combat: Players praise the core space combat as fun, intense, and arcade-style with 6 degrees of freedom, dogfighting, and good controls. This is the most frequently mentioned mechanic.

Deep ship customization and classes: Customization of ships is highly praised, with options for modules, paint, weapons, and shields. Each ship type acts as a class with unique perks, ultimate abilities, and distinct strengths.

Open-world space RPG looter: The game is identified as an open-world RPG looter shooter set in space, blending RPG elements, min/maxing, and looter shooter mechanics. It is frequently compared to Freelancer.

Handcrafted open world exploration: The game features a large, handcrafted open world with multiple star systems, stations, planets, and caves to explore, offering curated exploration rather than procedurally generated content.

Rewarding perk and loot system: Players like the perk system (every 5 levels up to 30) and the loot/upgrade mechanics, including scavenging and RNG loot. The system is rewarding and encourages progression.

Frequent and varied crashes: Multiple users report crashes, with some citing rare occurrences and others experiencing frequent crashes or system reboots, especially during screen transitions or on specific encounters.

Performance issues and frame rate drops: Several users report bad frame rates, horrid performance, degraded performance after updates, and low FPS on mid-range GPUs like the RTX 2060 Super, with the game often running poorly even at medium settings.

Inconsistent Linux performance (Proton issues): Performance on Linux varies: some report it runs fine, while others experience random hangs, slow Proton performance, or rare crashes (one in 250 hours). This indicates mixed compatibility with Linux systems.

Strong performance on high-end PC hardware: Multiple users with mid-to-high-end hardware (RTX 3070 Ti, etc.) report solid performance, stable 60+ FPS, and a polished technical experience.

General positive performance and stability: Several users report good performance, stability, and polish on various systems, including outdated laptops and modern rigs, suggesting the game can run well depending on setup.

Great for space combat fans: Fans of space combat praise the game for its action-packed, pick-up-and-play experience with exploration and gearing.

Appeals to Freelancer fans: Players who enjoyed classic space games like Freelancer and Privateer find this game highly recommended.

Worth only on sale: Some players feel the game is only worth buying at a discounted price, not full price.

Not worth purchasing: A minority of players strongly advise against buying the game, even heavily discounted, and recommend skipping it.

Try demo first: Players advise trying the demo before making a purchase to ensure it fits your taste.

Community fair range: $20.00 - $40.00.

Game completion: 40.0h.

Everspace 2 has a slow start (first few hours) with tedious puzzles and repetitive missions, but unlocks deep fun around level 12 when players understand systems, obtain meaningful loot, and experience satisfying progression.

Friction: Tedious and repeated puzzle sections; Repetitive mission design (go there, deliver, kill); Boring empty space travel between objectives; Level scaling that undermines sense of progression; Slow start in the first few hours; Overly long exploration tasks with minimal reward.

Unlock drivers: Understanding of combat mechanics and ship systems; Meaningful loot progression and ship upgrades; Introduction of more weapon and ability variety; Sense of power growth from dominating engagements; Addictive grind loop for better gear; Balanced pacing between action and exploration.

Veteran Space Sim Pilot: Explores and completes with deep familiarity; compares to classics like Freelancer, Descent, Freespace. Motivation: Nostalgia and desire for a modern spiritual successor to classic space combat sims. Stance: sale.

Looter-Shooter Grinder: Grinds loot, levels up gear, creates builds, seeks best-in-slot items. Motivation: Progression via loot, gear upgrades, and build optimization. Stance: sale.

Puzzle-Averse Completionist: Wants full completion but is frustrated by mandatory puzzles, minigames, and exploration tasks. Motivation: Completionist goals like 100% map exploration, achievements, and finishing all content. Stance: no buy.

The game performs well on low VRAM Windows systems and high-end Windows/Mac hardware, but mid-range VRAM shows mixed results with some lag or stability issues.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Reports indicate playable performance on medium settings around 50 FPS and 70 FPS at ultrawide, with no serious complaints.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: mixed. Most reports praise smooth performance at high settings or 4K, though one user notes lag in dense areas and another uninstalled mid-play through a second system.

Windows 16GB+ VRAM: positive. All reports are positive, noting high frame rates on Mac M4 and smooth max-settings performance on Windows, with only one minor visual bug fixed by enabling upscaling.

Steam Deck: The game is generally playable on Steam Deck with controller support and some positive reports, but suffers from performance issues under Proton, black screen transitions requiring input method changes, frame drops in menus, and the need for custom control layouts, indicating notable tinkering required.

Linux and Proton: User reviews show a split in Linux/Proton compatibility. Some users report terrible performance and slow speeds, while others report flawless performance and stability. No specific tweaks or workarounds are mentioned, suggesting the issues may be hardware-dependent.

Monetization: User reviews focus on base game pricing concerns and DLC cost, with no evidence of microtransactions, pay-to-win mechanics, or predatory monetization. Gameplay frustration is mechanical, not monetary.

External guides: The primary user complaint is the need to consult external guides or walkthroughs to overcome confusing puzzles and hidden object mechanics, indicating a barrier related to learning systems and finding content.

Pricing and update policy complaint: Players express dissatisfaction with the game's pricing model and update policy, feeling that it does not justify ongoing costs.