While we’ve played engineers in space games before (see: Dead Space’s Isaac Clarke) it’s not often that we actually, you know, engineer anything. Space Engineers puts that front and centre, tasking you with welding together the ships that you then use to mine asteroids and crash into other players.
It’s certainly an ambitious game. This is how developer Keen Software House describe it “Space Engineers is a sandbox game about engineering, construction and maintenance of space works. Players build space ships and space stations of various sizes and utilization (civil and military), pilot ships and perform asteroid mining.
“Space Engineers utilizes a realistic volumetric-based physics engine: all objects can be assembled, disassembled, damaged and destroyed.”
We’ve seen so little of the game that we can’t say exactly how it will all work. The video seems to suggest that there are big floating scaffolds that you hop about welding the gaps shut. If that’s the case then it doesn’t look like the most exciting game in the world. Though if you’re able to design and expand on these scaffolds then we may be onto something a little more compelling.
Certainly, the developer suggests you’ll be able to do more: “Space Engineers concentrates on construction aspects, but can be played as a tactical shooter as well. We expect players to avoid engaging in direct man-to-man combat and instead use their creativity and engineering skills to build war machines and fortifications. Space Engineers shouldn’t be about troops; it should be about the machinery you build.”
Space Engineers will be coming to Steam Early Access in the near future.