Everspace 2 drops roguelike elements for "open-world RPG"

In the first Everspace we were greeted with a space shooter that merged various concepts, but after the reveal of Everspace 2 at Gamescom we spoke with community ambassador Erik Schrader about the sequel, which is actually dropping the approach in the first game for something totally different.

"In Everspace we had an arcade spaceship shooter with roguelike elements, and we've been listening to a lot of feedback that we've been getting from the community, and we are dropping that roguelike formula," he explained. "So instead of death being a rewarding gameplay loop, now we're going to an open-world RPG spaceship shooter. So it's still gonna have that frantic, fast-paced combat and exploration that you're used to from the original, but now you care about your life, and you're gonna have very specific missions that are gonna move you forward, with a lot of original concepts from hand-crafted environments."

With roguelike elements removed, this also means procedural generation isn't being relied upon anymore, and Schrader told us in the interview below about the hand-crafted environments and solar systems that fans can expect when the game arrives in 2021.

With regards to the ships and their uniqueness from one another though, "we are furthering that considerably. So there's the three base 'classes', if you will, of your player ship [...] but now the diversity between those is not only going to be from the itemisation itself within the game, almost like a Diablo looting system. Now the ships themselves, you're gonna have a lot more flexibility in the abilities that you're using on top of them, based on that class."

Are you pleased to see roguelike elements gone?