Hardspace: Shipbreaker breaks out of early access next month

You’ll soon be able to smash ships in low orbit on Xbox Game Pass.

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Zero-gravity salvage simHardspace: Shipbreaker’s two-year orbit through Steam Early Access is coming to a close next month, as developer Blackbird Interactive opens the workshop for a full release on Steam and the Windows Store and Xbox Game Pass on May 24.

Hardspace, in case you missed it, is adeeply satisfying gameabout carving up derelict spaceships from your orbital breaking yard, peeling apart shuttles and freighters until they’re nothing but spare parts and scrap. Of course, spaceships are complicated beasts, and the threat of explosive decompression, engine core breaches, or getting slammed in the noggin by ten tons of untethered steel is a constant occupational hazard.

At release, all Hardspace had to offer was a loose handful of ships to unlock and tear apart—and honestly, that’s all it really needed. But over the past two years Blackbird has bulked out Shipbreaker with more ships, more tools, ahome to decorateand even afully-voiced campaignthat dives harder into the game’s critique of high-orbit labour violations.

Blackbird hasn’t yet revealed what new stuff will arrive next month, though I’d assume another act of the story to wrap up the campaign, and hopefully a few more ships and tools to boot.

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20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she’s not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it’s the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.

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