Space Wreck

Highly recommend, you can feel the Black Isle/Troika inspiration in its DNA. Multiple ways to solve quests, multiple ending states for different ships and people, highly reactive to your specific character build, all the hallmarks of a great CRPG. Speaking of character builds, definitely do not try to build a jack of all trades character, you will just be setting yourself up for certain failure. The game is best played focusing on one skill with maybe a point or two in a secondary skill as a back up for certain situations. Combat is optional, with optional being highly emphasized by the developer themself, so I can't comment on that aspect as I didn't interact much with it myself besides just running away from enemy combatants. Which I personally enjoyed actually, the rest of the game is interesting enough to play around in that I didn't feel that I was missing out on anything by choosing to forgo combat. The setting is near-future space travel. The scifi is more akin to Alien than it is Star Trek or Dune, aesthetically speaking. Old terminals, motherboards, utilitarian design, rusted metal walls, it very much feels like Fallout 1 in space, even down to the ambient soundtrack (which at times reminded me of some of the more ambient passages on some Darkspace albums if you're into them). You'll be going to a few different ships across your playthrough of Space Wreck, all introducing you to this worlds factions and their political ideologies. Reading terminals will clue you in to the happenings on earth, not all of which are good. The world building here certainly feels flavored by a post-soviet mind, which fits the game and setting like a glove. And finally, the games length, which I actually think is its greatest attribute. The game is short for CRPG standards but still about as long as an average solo shooter campaign (Metro 2033, Doom 2016, Wolfenstein). I wouldn't necessarily call it a one shot, but it's close. I probably had about 8 and a half hours of actual playtime at credits (had to pause and walk away at times), and that's with side questing. I love this length for a CRPG of this size, the cramped corridors of the ships never overstay their welcome, it encourages actual replayablity with its focus on such narrow and focused character building, allows you to see the full breadth of the game and the ways in which you could come back and conquer it in subsequent playthroughs, all in a single weekend. There are many RPGs out there that I would love to replay to try out different builds and make different choices, but at 40 hours+ its just tough to want to go back and invest that kind of time into something I've already experienced. Especially when there is always something new right around the corner. Game's great, get it, play it.