Developer and publisher Benjamin Rommel Games has announced that its roguelike space exploration game Galactic Crew II is leaving Steam Early Access this Spring. Released on PC in Early Access back in May 2021, the full version of Galactic Crew II is now slated for release in on May 6, 2023. The game has spent nearly two years in Early Access during which the developers have added tons of new content to the game along with different bug fixes and improvements with regular updates.
The developer details in the official press release that Galactic Crew II had a successful Early Access period as all promises made during the campaign were fulfilled and the campaign also attracted a lot of new players to the game as well. Galactic Crew II is a roguelike space exploration game inspired by various titles such as FTL and the classic XCOM games. The game takes place inside a procedurally generated universe filled with criminals, notorious pirates, monsters, miners, and merchants. You start with nothing and work your way to the very top by acquiring goods, mining resources, fighting with others, and looting.
The developer has also detailed key highlights from the Early Access campaign that we have listed below for you:
- Economy & Colonization – The first major update featured a complete overhaul of the tutorial system based on the feedback of this amazing community. The process of creating new games was enriched by new character backgrounds and professions. The colonization system was the major feature addition in Galactic Crew II and the first major update added new rooms like the workshop to craft your own items, a botanical garden to grow your own crops, a drone bay to send out mining drones, and a landing pad that enables you to create automated trade routes to NPC space stations to buy and sell goods!
- Exploration – The following update had exploration as a theme, adding mutants as a new playable race that could be unlocked by playing a brand-new storyline. It was accompanied by new items like the beloved flak armor and Grav armor, stimpaks, or medpacks. New dangerous planets were added as a new hazard for your voyage along with new dungeon rooms that introduced boss fights and destructible terrain. New buildable colony rooms like chemistry labs, fusion reactors, and recruitment beacons offered new ways to enhance your colony.
- Combat – The third update not only focused on improving the combat system but it also added a new storyline, introduced robots as a playable race, and added new enemies like the robotic spider that was even deadlier than its organic counterpart. You even were able to craft your own robot crew member in the brand-new med lab room which got available for all your colonies. Upgrading weapons was added to customize all your firearms with the latest tech to add armor piercing, bleeding damage, and more. New race and class skills expanded the existing RPG system and using it was rewarded with new achievements.
- Modding – The game is hopefully fun for everyone. If not, feel free to add your own content by modding it as you like. A new modding API offers you a wide range of customization and ways to add new content. Full Steam Workshop integration enables you to share your creations with others – or use the creative work of others.
- Engine Update – Galactic Crew II uses a custom game engine and this update focused on improving the overall quality of features by optimizing game mechanics and overhauling all underlying components such as shaders, renderers, and processing of models. Not only did it improve the visual qualities of the game, but it also improved the resource load drastically! New treasure maps and an improved level editor brought additional content.
- Going Online! – The last updates all focused on bringing the community together by adding a new persistent universe in which players can trade, help each other and fight for the best highscore. New weapon and mining turret upgrades were added in addition to new items, new crafting recipes, new planetary content, an all-new skill overview, advanced officer careers and so much more.
As you can see from the recap above, the developer has added a lot of features during its Early Access campaign. You can check out Galactic Crew II on Steam where you can either jump into the Early Access version of the game right now or add the game to your wishlist if you want to play it at a later time. The developer is promising support and bug fixes following the full release of the game as well however all feature development will be concluded after the release.
Are you looking forward to playing Galactic Crew II when it launches out of its Early Access? Let us know in the comments section below.
