Rockfish Games has formally announced that Everspace 2’s Early Access launch will be delayed until next year. The announcement was made in the Kickstarter updates recently, along with a statement from the CEO and co-founder of the studio.
The reason why the game’s Early Access launch was pushed back was influenced by the delays of other games during the holiday season. CD Projekt Red will soon launch Cyberpunk 2077, which will be a challenge to other games being released during this time. Cyberpunk 2077 will be sure to dominate the news and social media, making it difficult for other games released during this time to be noticed.
Rockfish Games is moving forward with other plans. The company has decided to send out pre-release keys to those who pledged in the “Just A Digital Copy, Please” tier and higher with Closed beta access at the beginning of the month. These players will get to play the first ten hours of Everspace 2 a month earlier than everyone else. The company plans to give away 200 additional beta pre-release keys as well through media partners and through weekly community steams.
The news was announced alongside the first details about the Gunship. This ship is a heavy and heavily armed fighter subclass. It has a devastating 360-degree targeting automated turret as its ultimate special ability. The new ship class and crafting are planned to be added in Early Access next year.
Not everyone will get access to the closed beta, and the early access is weeks away. Players interested in trying out the game can play a free demo now located on the game’s Steam store page. They can also wishlist it now to receive notifications and other news.
Michael Schade, CEO, and Co-founder of Rockfish Games, commented on the announcement, stating:
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. 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.
Everspace 2 is now planned to launch in Early Access in January 2021.
