Rebel Galaxy is made by two veteran action-RPG developers, Travis Baldree and Erich Schaefer (Double Damage Games) who wanted to make their own space sim by only themselves. Daunting task! However, these two can handle it as they have worked on games such as Fate, Torchlight, Diablo, and Diablo II. Their upcoming space exploration game has been shown in a preview build, showing that their hard work is so far paying off.
Rebel Galaxy drops this idea that you have to play an agile fighter with limited firepower. You control a capital ship armed with broadside cannons and turrets. This sounds great, to the space fighter lover in me. Ship combat is more comparable to the ship fighting within the fourth Assassin’s Creed game, as opposed to Star Fox. You line up the enemy’s capital ships against your broadsides and fight away. If anything slips away from that, you can control your turrets to take care of them easily.
Ships have shields and hull plating, meaning combat also has some strategy involved with putting your shields up to recover or to keep battling on. There is also directional maneuvering involved, to make sure you hit the correct side of the enemy. There is also warp drive to escape away, in case you attacked someone way too big for you.
There are also the pesky annoying parts, where you have to get money to upgrade your ship. However, there are many routes to do this which make this process less tedious. There are combat missions, or hunting bounties, or even mining to get ore. There is also the option to become a legit trader by joining the Merchant’s Guild. Or, on the other side, you can smuggle those same goods. These aren’t the only factions, you can join the Militia, one of three pirate factions (Red Devil Cartel, DoubleJack Thugs, or Korian Outsiders) and each faction has unique ships and require you to keep on their good side.
There even is an open world, a primary story and side quests as well. There are so many interesting characters to meet, and the preview build ended at the first of 14 star systems, already giving around 12 hours of gameplay.
There is no solid release date, but they are teasing for later in this year. I am, personally, so excited for this. The sci-fi geek inside couldn’t stop squealing with delight as I typed all of this, and I’m sure others will be just as excited for this game.