Rockfish Games just announced today, via a Kickstarter update, that Everspace 2's Early Access release has been pushed back until January 2021.
In an effort to tide fans over for the holiday season, Rockfish Games has decided to send out pre-release keys for the closed beta to all Kickstarter backers that pledged on the "Just A Digital Copy, Please" and higher tiers.
Today's release was also accompanied by an early look at the Gunship class of heavy fighters. The heavy fighter includes 360 degree targeting automated turret and its ultimate special ability.
There was also a sneak peek at the game's new crafting system. This crafting system will come into play after earning rewards that "aren't always what a player is seeking for their ideal build." You can craft valuable equipment from those lower-level items. Primary weapons, secondary weapons, and ship modules can all be improved. There are also rare blueprints that can be used to build epic weapons and equipment.
Here is the message that Rockfish Games passed along to backers today on Kickstarter.
“Porting the original EVERSPACE to last-gen consoles was quite a challenge for us back in the day, so we can only imagine what a challenge it must be to bring a massive title like Cyberpunk 2077 to Xbox One and PlayStation 4,†says Michael Schade, CEO & co-founder of ROCKFISH Games. “Unfortunately, this is also a major blow for any other game that was scheduled during that week. We know from our community that there is quite an audience overlap between the two titles, so we decided to get out of the way and push back our release to January. We are aware that EVERSPACE 2 fans will be unhappy, but competing with the arguably most anticipated video game in history is just not a good idea. To give this a positive spin, we’ve decided to send out pre-release keys with closed Beta access to all eligible Kickstarter backers on November 2nd, so they will be able to play the first 10ish hours of EVERSPACE 2 a month earlier. Furthermore, we also plan to give away 200 additional Beta pre-release keys good for the closed beta only through media partners and our weekly community streams to ease the pain for a few lucky space pilots.â€
