In The Black

Short version: very good look and feel, but a bit shallow on content. Review written after Update #1 Pro's: Newtonian physics better than anything else I've played. Ship designs are actually practical spacecraft but still feel good. Interplay between the different ships is very unique and cool. Different matchups require different strategies to win. Group fights require tactics or at least some sense of BLOB to win. Flies great with only mouse and keyboard. Could make an E-sport I would actually find interesting. Con's Only five different hulls of ship currently available, with three variants each for a total of fifteen options. Progression feels slow to me given the amount of content available. It's in that mercurial "wow this could be REALLY cool!" phase where hopefully it catches on a bit more among simmers and maybe some shooter fans. Watching teams compete in this would be sick, especially if they could get the playercount up higher and we could see whole squadrons fighting. Side note: I do love that the Shrike is a nimble little sniper pod built around a railgun and not a space knife-fighter. I caught a target lacking attention at 19.8km and it felt reeeealllll good.

This game is VERY alpha. Weapons don't look very good. Kinetic weapons basically shoot white dots. Laser beams you can't see half the time. Sound effects are lacking, along with mission types. You'll see the same part of space or interior base for every single mission. Some ships have cockpits while others don't. You have modules on your ship that you can't upgrade or modify. You can basically just change weapon loadouts and the colors of your ship, and that's it. I've put about 40hrs in so far and if there's something more to it, I'm not seeing it. I would wait a year and see how the updates have progressed to improve things. Right now it's just a frustrating low-payout grind with nothing really to work towards, and the same scenery over and over and over again.

I just love the game! I do tend to get drawn into games with unorthodox mechanics and steep learning curves, and this definitely is one of those games. I also enjoy space sims, from Evochron Mercenary, Avorion, Space Engineers, and Elite Dangerous. What makes this game different is - it's smaller in its scope. It's like an arena combat space simulator, instead of big open space survival type of games. You log in, and jump into action, be it solo or co-op pve missions, and pvp combat missions. Only bugs I've encountered was occasional Man menu mouse glitch, which is solvable by simply pressing the escape button. I don't know if it's game related, or is it linked to me being on Linux and using Proton. I've encountered no bugs while playing the simulation part of the game. For a price of a burger, the amount of fun I already had, and I plan on having in the future, I have a hard time understanding all of those negative comments... Ah, well. Recommended for sure for all of you real space combat simulator lovers. Fly safe!

First off -- Play The Demo!! Before you buy, play the demo to see if you like it. This is a well-executed game for an under-served niche, but not everybody enjoys this niche! In this game, momentum matters, consideration of your thrust vectors matters, all three spatial dimensions matter! I enjoy arcade sims and dogfight games like Squadrons, but sometimes I want to scratch the same itch that the space battles in The Expanse scratch. Mindfulness and planning are as important as speed and distance. (This is especially true during the missions that take place inside large interior spaces -- momentum matters, and that wall will not jump out of your way!) I highly recommend space and flight enthusiasts check out this game, it's a version of flight and combat that you don't see very often. The game is early access so it's still in development (don't expect it to be a finished product yet), but it has a good level of polish already. But please, for everyone's sake, try the demo before buying to see if you actually like it.

without a doubt the best spacecombat game i´ve played to date. if you yearned for EXPANSE-esque CQB... you´ve found it. you can feel this is EA (a little rough around the edges), however having a flight/combat-system this in-depth, complex and realistic that is FUN to play in is pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unique :D especially set in space. can´t wait to see what this develops into.

Good potential, satisfying combat and progression, nice looking ships. Still EA but can become a great game

Excellent! I really like it! Space sim in "realistic", no fancy FTL , ridiculous space monsters or other BS. Which can be fun as well of course, but we have seen a lot of that and nothing like this game. So , it might not work for everyone ( arcade fans should look elsewhere...), but it does for me! i highly recommend it and I really praise the devs for the idea and their work. For my sake, just polish it, add more contant (campaign, whatever) over time and keep it going. thank you! (free off charge demo available, so try it!)