Amazing game, but almost no support after the 1.1 title update
really was hoping for some more ships or different challenges

I've always thought that the best thing in sci-fi is when it can take something that is practically fantasy to us, something we might never see in our lifetime and would marvel over for years if we did, and show us a world where that sort of thing is mundane. Floating around the vacuum of space cutting up ships and melting, processing, and salvaging all their individual parts is objectively one of the coolest things one can ever imagine happening, and yet in the world of Hardspace: Shipbreaker it's mind-numbing drudgery. A terrible, dangerous, thankless job in a future where labor rights have gotten so catastrophically bad that, as of the start of the game, you end up paying your employer for the job you're doing as you're battered with endless rents and fees for the privilege to make your boss a profit.

I feel like the big disconnect a lot of people have with the story is that, to us here in the present, breaking down all these spaceships is the coolest thing ever and we would pay for the opportunity to do this job - I mean, if you own a copy, you did. And I think it's well worth it. But for the characters, this job sucks. If they die in the game they die for real, they're floating around in a tin can never getting to see (or later, even talk to) their families, and a big creepy corporation owns all their bioinformatic data down to their DNA and memories and is doing God-knows-what with it, all wrapped up with a functionally negative paycheck for their troubles. And maybe you just can't put yourself in those shoes. Maybe you can, and you still don't care. And that's fine. A lot of people think they have some kind of political issue with this game, but I think for the most part, the issue they have is there is no skip dialogue button. No skipping cutscenes, no passing through speeches you've heard before, no fast-forwarding past lines you read faster than the voice actors could possibly talk. And look, that does some damage to the game, especially since the cutscenes are basically just audio logs, no more detailed than a Codec call from the earlier Metal Gear Solid games. Maybe you had to get up and turn the game off in the middle of a mission that had an especially long intro. Maybe you rage-quit out after exploding a reactor in a really dumb way so you could get another chance, but there goes everybody yapping again. Maybe you really are that mad at the idea of working people demanding amenities, appreciation, and autonomy in exchange for doing the jobs that actually make all those numbers appear next to the dollar sign in the first place. Who knows? Who cares? Even if you are 1000% on board with what the game is trying to say, there's still a chance it's going to bristle against you. I wish that it had a skip dialogue button. I've even, as of writing this review, still got a save file that I keep one button-press away from finishing the campaign just so that I can keep going in a faux-"free play" mode indefinitely, because I do not want to replay the campaign and sit through all those phone calls again. I really wish this game had any kind of skip dialogue button, even if it was just mashing through line-by-line.

That said, that's basically the only thing I'd change about this game. It's equal parts chill and thrill; there are already a million horrific ways to die in space, and when you're swinging around 5000-ton chunks of metal, setting demolition charges right next to fuel tanks and nuclear reactors, and flying way too close to a furnace as hot as the sun, that adds a few million more. There's plenty of minor annoyances to be found, but that just helps sell the fantasy of it being a real job. Hopping into a ship to discover none of the atmosphere regulators work so you have to just cut a hole in the hull and hope the really expensive stuff doesn't get banged around too much or shot too far into the void during decompression feels like just another little trifle you'd really have to deal on this absurd, fantastical, space-faring career path. The production values are great, by the way. While the cutscenes are nothing to write home about, the gameplay is incredibly polished. What little bits of inevitable physics jank appear are very rare and almost never catastrophic - I've only had one death from the physics engine acting weird, and it was kind of my own fault. Grabbing things, launching things, and lasering things all feels tactile, responsive, and enjoyable.

My one space nerd gripe is that "explosive decompression" doesn't really work like how it does in this game, especially not in space: if you put a fist-sized hole in a building-sized spaceship, the air is just going to hiss out like an air mattress, rather than the entire inside exploding out like an overinflated bike tire. Explosive decompression is real, but the area of the hole has to be large relative to the volume of the chamber for it to happen. Of course, that being said, you'd want to either immediately patch or avoid that little hole for dear life until the decompression is complete - if you don't know what delta-P is, don't look it up if you want to sleep tonight - but this is an absurd little gripe that doesn't hinder my enjoyment of the game at all and I'm not sitting here expecting developers to create a perfectly accurate model of physics within a 3D game. Honestly, the way it works now adds some challenge and fun, so what's the harm? Besides, you have to give every space game grace for one egregious mistake, otherwise you'll never be able to play any of them. At least there isn't air resistance in space in this one (though your thrusters can only push you up to a maximum velocity for some reason, but I'm choosing to believe that's just some semi-idiotic safety feature of the EVA suit.)

Either way, if this game looks fun to you, it is. If the story's really annoying you during a particularly long cutscene (though I think there's only one truly long one, and it's only 9-ish minutes) just get up, stretch, maybe mute the game and put on a YouTube video or some music you like until it's over. It's definitely worth a spin, especially on sale. You'll forget all about the yap seshes when you're scrambling to get out of the way of the 200-ton nanocarbon panel you accidentally sent careening directly toward your own head right after accidentally freezing half your body glass-solid with a leaking canister of coolant. Like all good work-games, there's a kind of Zen to be found in this one, and really getting into the groove of Hardspace: Shipbreaker has been one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I've had in ages.

a pretty fun chill game but i cant recommend it. i got hard locked right after the tutorial and after deleting my save and starting a new save it literally wont start the game for me after signing the contract