Relic Space - review

 I'm following Fourfold game's journey from quite some times, from early 2016 when he started to release Xenomarine (a turn based Warhammer 40k inspired game of fighting aliens).

Behind fourfold game's there is only one person ( as far I understand ) and it's amazing how much quality he's able to put on his new game, Relic Space.

 

an ordinary day, a new quest

Premise of the game is the main planet ( earth ? ) is destroyed in a cataclysmic event that forced survivors in live in a asteroid belt. Of course resources are scarce, factions are fighting for survivals and you are in the middle of this, as pilot in the relic space.

This premise catch me up, because I'm watching Expanse last season ( you know, the one with spaceships, aliens, and more important a huge faction in the asteroid belt ) and I'm loving it. 

Relic space's graphic is really good, with the right colors, people's character design and spaceship design too. On thing that after a while catch your attention are the frequent events, like the factions are expanding, attacking each other and the "feel" of a living universe ( something also done in Soldak's games ). I don't know how much this "living" aspect of the game is deep, because I have one problem in this kind of games..

 

"In space no can hear you scream"

 

What I mean with this?  In rogue-like games like Relic Space I'm a pirate/space cadet/whatever I want, fighting one time with one faction, another time against them. For me is difficult to "feel the story" or "attachment" for a character, because everyone are the same. A tool to complete the quest, get a bigger ship, destroy bigger enemies.

In my opinion Relic Space has the same problem (at least in the demo I've tried today). All feel the same, enemies are the same again and again and even if the premise is interesting ( fight in one asteroid belt, instead of open space, with 4x factions around of me) the lack of "setting" or better "writing" don't help. Don't get me wrong. The game is fine, only.. I'm not so attached on it and I think could be interesting to you only if:

- you like evolving setting with fighting factions 

- you like item / skill / ship optimization 

- you don't care about the setting or characters

In conclusion, why write this review ? 

Because I like this kind of games ( and Relic Space too ) I want them to succeed, but also on the same time I think they lack of some key elements to make them more interesting to me. So I hope Fourfold games will take this as a "proposal" to make Relic Space even more interesting, adding more setting, characters development and "story" and don't let the player do all the job.