14 DAY TRIAL // Just as a cannon is ready to fire, an enemy energy beam disables it. My character sprints to the tools that can repair it, with the other ship weapon returning fire. Another character is dealing with a fire and a crack in the floor of the ship. We’ll win this fight, but I worry that the structure will take such a beating that it will become vulnerable to the coming dangers of the universe.
This Means Warp is developed by Outlier and published by Jagex Ltd. The gamer is now in Early Access on Steam, with the companies saying that it will continue development for about 12 months. This is a cooperatively focused rogue experience with a thin narrative and plenty of hectic moments.
A starship, crewed by one to four players, needs to deal with the mothership of the Norg after an unprovoked attack. This requires navigating through space, battling enemies, and making sure that your vessel stays in one piece, and everyone has air to breathe.
Everything in This Means Warp is tedious to do. Taking down an enemy ship involves players manually moving ammunition to weapons before targeting and shooting. Enemy hits breach walls, which means someone needs to get to the tools, then to the wall, and then push a mouse button to repair it. Fixing up the ship after a battle is very important, but at least victory magically delivers a chest filled with upgrades.
This Means Warp has a fairly generic art style, livened up with good use of color. It’s relatively easy to know what you need to do at any moment, but the universe and characters do not have much in the way of personality. I never cared about anyone’s fate. The soundtrack is surprisingly good, with some cool, pumping, retro-future tracks to make the action sequences exciting.
Conclusion
The problem with this kind of game is that it will only get a big audience if it gets a core group of players to engage with it in the long term. The core mechanics are simple to pick up and ask groups to work together to deal with challenges. But there’s no real innovation and little in the way of surprise in the campaign, which might be a problem when This Means Warp reaches its launch date.
Preview code provided by the publisher.
