Test: I wouldn’t need triple-A if all games were like Hardspace: Shipbreaker!

The relaxed dismantling of old spaceships feels like a real job and is embedded in a down-to-earth narrative.

From orbit, I can see the big Earth just below me, the moon directly overhead, and numerous space stations and docks around me. Country is playing on the radio while I use a laser to cut the glass from the cockpit of an old spaceship. From the outside, the artificially transmitted sounds penetrate my helmet as I put the glass into a kiln and thus secure a prize.

What does a game need to tie you to a monitor or television? I was immediately captivated by this two years ago when it went into Early Access. Floating through a spaceport and using heavy tools to dismantle ramshackle ships holds a huge attraction for me, largely because Hardspace: Shipbreaker immerses you in a world that feels real. So real, as if you could actually live in it because you have a normal job.

Good, although normal is relative. After all, by signing the employment contract, you are basically selling your soul to the LYNX Corporation. And his body, because once you’ve rolled your fingerprint onto the contract, LYNX is already extracting genetic information needed to create later clones. According to the contract, the pain of the extraction is bearable. The original body is then lost. A good start, isn’t it? Independent developer Blackbird Interactive, who is responsible for Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, the newly announced Minecraft Legends and the upcoming Homeworld 3, has a winking eye at the dystopian continuation of our present.

In any case, cloning is practical, because after a fatal accident you can be transported into a new self. The only thing that is a little less advantageous is that the resulting costs result in a debt of more than a billion dollars to LYNX – which fortunately can be repaid very slowly by working as a scrapper. A maximum of eight hours of sleep is allowed. The air in the quarters of the spaceport is changed every two weeks to keep the atmosphere “fresh”. And because LYNX cares about the well-being of its workforce, at some point you even get a supervisor who is supposed to motivate you to do better with carrots and especially sticks.

Of course, it doesn’t really matter to him whether you pull a class two reactor out of the wreck without an accident or whether the thing blows up before it arrives safely in the barge. This is where you have to ship all the parts that can be reused, i.e. computers, batteries, turbines or even seats and containers, etc. Other parts are melted down in the furnace, while high-quality materials, such as those used in the fuselage, belong in the recycler.

How to get them there? You use two main tools: a laser cutter to cut through materials, and a kind of electronic lasso that you use to grab an object and then pull or push it in any direction. The laser cutter is used to first separate the composite pieces that hold a large part of the ship together, and then the components that have been removed in this way are taken to the recycler, furnace or barge. This is the basis of disassembly.

It quickly becomes more complex where many pieces of the torso are so heavy that the “lasso” can hardly move them. If you try to pull those parts towards you, they just stay put, so you’re pulled towards them instead. That’s right: That’s a really cool way to float through the spaceport, by the way, and it’s also much faster than the little space suit jets! You just have to make sure you stop in time.

In other words, you cannot transport heavy items yourself; you need so-called tethers, i.e. lines or tension ropes, which are fastened between any two points and then tighten like a rubber band to attach the lighter object to the pull heavier ones. Let me tell you this: It is outrageously satisfying to attach such a strap to a part of the hull that has already been loosened but is still attached to the ship. Because as soon as the corresponding piece slowly peels out of the thick wall to leave an almost perfectly cut hole… great!

You can also use the tethers in a completely different way – find out for yourself how you prefer to use them. That you get hold of simple tools to gradually develop little tricks; own techniques, with which one works faster, better or simply cooler, is namely the real clou. It makes scrapping feel like real work and playing with it like stepping into a “real” world. And that’s why I love video games!

It’s not just a matter of detaching the connecting pieces. Some engines must first be disconnected from the fuel tank, which should also be turned off to do so. To remove a reactor, one must disable the environmental controller attached to it by removing its coolant tanks. Electrically charged fuses should not be ripped out of their moorings thoughtlessly, vent rooms filled with oxygen before flying in, otherwise the entire contents will come at you with a lot of pressure. And if you accidentally edit the fuel supply with the laser, you can then clear away a number of pieces of debris, which is both annoying and reduces its value. After all, you have to make sure that careful scrapping makes enough profit for the debt coffers.

Hardspace: Shipbreaker is never really complex. Like a jigsaw puzzle, it always demands attention and consideration as to the order in which you should carry out which movements.

The bottom line is that the different ships are always assembled in the same way, and Shipbreaker actually has a certain monotony to it. Perhaps this is where you feel most of all that the production costs of the indie development were manageable. Special events are missing, such as severely deformed or even jammed shipwrecks and completely different ships. I might have also found LYNX patrols flying by the dock every few minutes, so you have to be quick if you want to remove certain parts for yourself rather than salvaging them for the employer.

After all, you look for spare parts in every wreck in order to repair your own small ship at some point. The story not only revolves around the dangerous working environment and the repressive breadwinner, but above all a group of colleagues who sometimes chat with each other for no reason, but sometimes also secretly help to set up a union and get angry about the stubborn supervisor. Of course, this blue-collar crew won’t save the world – that’s what makes their story so likeable.

One must not forget that scrapping, which is dangerous for people and the environment, also exists in reality and is mostly carried out by men who risk their lives for a pittance. Now independent developer Blackbird Interactive, who is responsible for Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, the newly announced Minecraft Legends and the upcoming Homeworld 3, is not waving his index finger, but is mainly interested in the methodical scrapping. At the same time, LYNX and its own alter ego are very well intended as representatives for the Global North and South, which is just as thought-provoking as good entertainment can be.

Hardspace: Shipbreaker – Test Verdict

You never know what the coming months will bring, but for now, Hardspace: Shipbreaker is my game of the year! Because even if there was a lot more to the concept than just welding old spaceships apart in the same way, this scrapping is not only unique, but also extremely entertaining. In any case, it feels great to dismantle the sometimes huge pots piece by piece until only the hull is left and finally disappears in the kiln. The fact that you have to master this craft, but at the same time have a lot of freedom and handle tools that you are increasingly adopting, is at the core of the futuristic everyday simulation. And so I float through the dry dock to relaxed country, lose myself in a narratively manageable, but equally serious and lively science fiction and know once again why the question of whether triple-A or indie doesn’t play the slightest role as long as the experience me as captivating as this one!