Publisher Focus Home Interactive and Blackbird Interactive have announced the date Hardspace: Shipbreaker will enter Early Access. The announcement came with an updated Steam page and a new trailer announcing the news.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker stars LYNX, a ship-salvaging corporation. Players work to pay off their debt of 999,999,999 Credits to the company by purchasing salvaging rights to large and valuable ships. The hard work begins with cutting these vessels open and extracting expensive materials.
Players have the various tools to salvage the ships, thanks to LYNX. Players will have various tools such as cutting tools, knives to slice scrap metal, and more. As the game progresses, contracts become more difficult to complete.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker was always planned for Early Access. The development team wanted valuable community feedback.
The Early Access version contains Act 1 of the Campaign, with around 15 hours of gameplay, multiple tools, and suit parts that are upgradable, two categories of ships to salvage, plus the high debt to pay off.
The final version will have around 40 hours of gameplay, leaderboards, daily challenges, and modding support. The final version may also see a change in price.
Trey Smith, Creative Director on Hardspace: Shipbreaker, stated:
We identified early in development that we wanted to release Hardspace: Shipbreaker on Early Access. We have a clear vision for what we think the game wants to be but there are still some things we need to figure out and we thought it would be fun to bring in the Early Access community to help us discover these things together.
The game is estimated to stay in Early Access for around a year, but this may change depending on player feedback and suggestions.
The Hardspace: Shipbreaker news post also discussed starting a “Beta Branch” for testing and gathering more community feedback from the most enthusiastic players. Since the game will be in Early Access, the developer is looking for the best ways to gather more feedback for the game and see how people are playing.
In celebration of the release date announcement, the first episode of the Hardspace: Shipbreaker web series is now available on YouTube. The series is a behind-the-scenes look at the game. Players can join the official Hardspace: Shipbreaker Discord server to stay up-to-date with news and connect with the community.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker launches on Steam Early Access on June 16.
