Space Engineers 2 PREVIEW
Space Engineers 2 is an open-world sandbox game set in the vastness of space in the Almagest system. The project is intended to be the culmination of years of developer experience and a kind of rethinking of the original.
At the time of writing, there is no story in this Early Access version of Space Engineers 2, as the story campaign mode is still in development and will be released later. However, there is a creative mode open to players to explore and be creative. Become the first space engineer in the distant Almagest system, a completely new and uncharted world that serves as a platform for your creativity and discovery.
Being an open-world sandbox game, you can conquer the vastness of space. Create anything you can imagine with a variety of building blocks, as well as a new unified grid with drawing tools such as snap to grid, paint tool, partial copy and paste, and more that make creation much easier. There are even powerful assembly tools that allow you to correct the smallest details of the space station assembly, such as a voxel arrow, symmetry tools, and line or plane construction, as well as the ability to undo and redo the entire grid for flexibility.
In addition to building a space station, you can even build your own spaceship! Customize your ship however you like, equip it with ion engines to make it feel like you’re hurtling forward, or make it as massive and wide as humanly possible. But if you’re not too savvy with the technology of building spaceships from small pieces, the Concordia Research Center has you covered. Fly and explore in any of the four available ships, or mine small floating asteroids with your giant mining rigs.
Another thing that looks amazing is the graphics. The visuals are gorgeous and the realism is astounding. Even the smallest details are well rendered and look amazing even on lower graphics settings. Higher graphics settings will probably allow the game to take full advantage of ray tracing and increase the realism even more.
Of course, since the game is still in Early Access, there are bound to be some bugs and glitches, as well as some optimization issues. While the visuals are stunning and high quality, and the game runs really well for the most part, you may encounter some issues with clipping, gradually passing through walls, and getting stuck and unable to interact with anything.
Space Engineers 2 looks incredibly promising, with a detailed roadmap full of exciting content coming soon, as well as constant communication and updates from the developers to make sure everything is working as intended.
However, in its current state it is unfinished and will not appeal to everyone, especially those who may not have experience with the series. We would definitely recommend it to those who are already well-versed in the game mechanics or have had similar experience with other games, but for newcomers, they may want to hold off on this one for a while to wait for more content updates and get to know the first Space Engineers first.
