Recently, a small four-man studio by the name of AtomicTorch released the alpha version of their first game, VoidExpanse, to the internet. Much like with Freelancer, playing VoidExpanse involves you becoming an interplanetary badass as you hop between star systems, becoming friends with factions and blowing pirates to smithereens. A space action-RPG, essentially.
It looks like this:
I gave the current, surprisingly polished alpha version a chance myself, and found it to be really smooth (though I had to tweak a config file to get it to run). Combat feels as exciting as it looks in the trailer, with twisty-turny ships and hand-aimed lasers, and when you manage to destroy an enemy craft, the resulting explosion, screen shake and loot makes you feel really good about yourself — though I did die four or five times in the space of about twenty minutes. I assume that will improve once I get out of the starter civilian ship.
Overall, if anyone else played Drox Operative, well, it feels like that — only with more in-your-face combat and on a smaller scale. No blowing up planets in this one, as far as I’ve seen. I look forward to messing around with the alpha more, personally… provided I can tear myself away from Reaper of Souls.
Currently, no final release date is known for VoidExpanse, but when it will be done, it will be released for Windows (and later, Mac and Linux), both through its official website and through Steam, if it manages to get greenlit. For now, you can either participate in the buy-in alpha yourself, or follow the developers’ blog for updates.
VoidExpanse [Official Site]
Comments
12 responses to “Space Action-RPG Plays Like Freelancer’s Top-Down Little Brother”
Can’t put my finger on the game it reminds me of, but it gives me a nice nostalgic feeling. Will keep an eye on this one..
Solar Winds, perhaps?
Man, that was a kickass game. That’s one of the few shareware games I actually paid for an upgrade for.
OMG Ive been TRYING to think of that games name for *YEARS*!!!!! Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!! @beeawwb
Glad to be of help, enjoy the nostalgia trip. 😀
Space Pirates and Zombies?
Or Escape Velocity?
Warpath? Continuum?
Escape Velocity?
Ahh. The awesomeness of EV.
Everyone should play EV:Nova – and they should play through the many varied storylines.
This game and Syndicate DOMINATED my childhood.
Yea, reminds me of Escape Velocity Override.
I remember Escape Velocity… The number of mods that people made was so good for it – Star Wars mod in particular stands out