I’m floating in the cold expanse of space, laser cutter in my hand, trying to slice a cargo container from a spaceship’s hull. The ship itself is in motion after being knocked by a lump of debris, and I’m trying to line up the perfect slice by rotating my cutting angle, attempting to match my own rotation with the ship.
It goes slightly wide.
There’s a loud hiss and my heads-up display starts pinging alerts, warning me that I just pierced a pressurized room. I don’t have time to react before the force blows me back and the ship breaks apart in front of me, chunks of hull and the remains of destroyed electronics sucking out into space.
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A piece of debris smashes into my helmet, puncturing it and switching my radio station to some deranged Saturday morning cartoon jingle. The force of that second impact throws me back some more, and my brakes aren’t enough to stop me from being fed into the giant recycling bay where I usually deposit ship parts – a big blue maw that eats metal leviathans.
I die with a horrific crunch.
The world fades to black and the soundscape of a space shipyard is replaced with sloppy noises; fluids sloshing around and sickening slurping, like someone sucking the dregs of a cup of intestines through a straw. This is the sound of my body being reconstructed – a process that guarantees only a 0.02% chance of DNA corruption. Before I know it, I’m back to work, laser cutter in my hand.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker isn’t always like this. When you’re not being set on fire, irradiated, crushed, electrocuted, eaten by cargo bays, suffocating, or suffering blunt force trauma, it’s actually one of the most relaxing video games I’ve played. It taps into that same part of your brain as games like Unpacking, where you’re tasked with cleaning up and organizing a virtual space – something that I don’t find relaxing in the meat world.
It gives us a vision of the future where capitalism still reigns supreme, and people are suckered into dangerous manual jobs with the promise of high wages and adventure. In truth, the costs of getting you there, reconstructing your body when you die, and all the components you bust up while doing the work become billions in debt you’re immediately saddled with. It’s the student loan trap in video game form.
Before you even start your new life as a shipbreaker – salvage professionals who break down inactive spaceships – you have to sign a consent form that forces you to confirm you‘re not a union member. Between jobs, you have a “dedicated sleeping period”. You’re often warned that death can lead to lower profit margins.
You’re eventually embroiled in a battle between middle management and other shipbreakers who want to form a union, but there’s always a bit of a disconnect because you have no agency in these conversations. It’s just fairly uninteresting characters talking at you, while you’re itching to get back out there and do the work – because it’s fun! – which doesn’t exactly vibe with the overall themes. Shipbreaker’s criticisms of capitalism aren’t clever or original. It knows what it wants to say – but the themes just don’t successfully mesh with the mechanics. It doesn’t help that strange audio distortions sometimes mask conversations, and you can only fix it by reloading.
Outside of those minor gripes, Shipbreaker is an excellent game. There’s something romantic about it – you’re a gold miner on the new frontier, floating through the cosmos, listening to Americana on the radio, and methodically taking apart hulking spaceships. That’s cool! It’s a vibe.
Of course, this being big business, you’ve got quotas to meet. Every job is on a timer, so you’re always looking for ways to optimize your process – which varies from ship to ship – of recycling, scrapping, and ferrying away the parts.
There are three loading bays – the blue one takes good bits of the hull (and sometimes you), the furnace takes scrap (also sometimes you), and the barge underneath (though sometimes it’s above you because this is space and there is no underneath) takes things like chairs, computers, and door controls. You can grab these parts with an energy beam and whip them towards the bays, or you can use energy tethers, which pull them to an anchor point as you work on slicing up some more.
Just cutting ship parts in this game is better than shooting someone in the head in dozens of first-person shooter games. It’s incredibly satisfying the way components hiss off when removed from an unpressurized cabin, slowly floating away from the cut point. When you hit something you shouldn’t have, the resulting carnage leaves you slack-jawed.
Each ship comes with a bunch of yellow cut points, and you can either use a concentrated beam (which takes a few seconds) or a quick slice (at the risk of accidentally damaging other ship parts) to get the job done. Every ship has its own quirks and they’re all intricately designed. It’s genuinely impressive. Sometimes it’s a job in itself to find the way into the maintenance corridors to reach the cut points. You also need to methodically work your way through each ship to depressurize rooms, if you don’t want the ship to break apart and potentially suck your entire body through a pinhole. Or you can use a controlled, forced depressurization to crack it open like an egg, if you’re brave.
Some ships also come with more durable cut points, which require remote breach charges to cut apart. Then there’s the fact each comes with its own hazards, from nuclear material to fuel lines and reactors that are prone to meltdown. One stray cut can turn a relaxing day into a series of unfortunate events. The various combinations of ship types, hazards, and components does a great job of keeping you engaged.
There are also plenty of cool nuances to each of the mechanics – like how you can use the tether to travel more quickly by hooking onto a heavy object and reeling yourself in, or how you can use environmental hazards to expedite the demolitions process (if you know what you’re doing). Later, you’re given an extra objective that asks you to collect specific components from ships so you can build your very own and escape your corporate nightmare, adding another layer of progression to your equipment upgrades and constantly evolving ships.
It eventually gets repetitive, and as a result, it feels like a game I’d rather dip in and out of, rather than spend 30 hours mainlining it. It also drip-feeds the mechanics at a rate that’s slightly too slow for my liking, but it’s not a deal-breaker. Hardspace: Shipbreaker is still well worth your time. It’s gorgeous, relaxing, and occasionally awe-inducing. Just mind you don’t recycle yourself, eh?
Written by Kirk McKeand on behalf of GLHF.
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