Empyrion - Galactic Survival is a diamond in the rough.

Game Info:

Empyrion - Galactic Survival is a 3D open world space sandbox survival adventure. Build mighty ships, menacing space stations and vast planetary settlements to explore, conquer or exploit a variety of different planets and the allegedly empty space! Fight human, alien and biological hazards and survive in a hostile galaxy full of hidden dangers - on your own or with your friends. The game uniquely combines elements from space simulations, construction games, survival games and ego-shooters. Empyrion is currently under development by Eleon Game Studios.

Review:

I played this game last year and didn't do too much with it.  I thought the game had potential, but at the time, it didn't have enough content to keep me interested in playing it, so I shelved it for a later time.  Well, the time to dust the game off and give it another try happened this last weekend.  I was on Discord chatting with Trusin about space games and the lack of any really good ones when he started talking about Empyrion.  He had read that the game had made good progressed, so we both decided to give it another shot.  I wasn't expecting much, but ended up having a really fun time playing the game with Trusin.

We played on the SBS server which has a Star Wars theme with three factions, the Imperials, Rebels or the Mercenary faction. We ended up joining the Merc faction.  On this particular server, all new characters have one week to leave the starting world and system.  On Sunday, any character in those zones are deleted.  Well, as luck would have it, Trusin and I only had a few hours before the deadline, so we had to work fast to learn enough about the game to build a ship with a warp engine.

We managed to warp to another system less than an hour before the newbie zones were wiped.  Talk about cutting it close.  We had a leaky ship which took a good amount of time to make air tight, and at one point we tried to hitch hike on any outbound ship we could find.  Eventually, we fixed the leak and made it into orbit,  at which point we realized neither one of us knew how to engage the warp drive. After fumbling around the navigation controls and mostly due to dumb luck we activated the warp engine and got the hell of out there.

We warped into a new system and had to pause to admire the game.  There were two planets in the system as well as a space station.  There were also a good assortment of player ships which I was awestruck with.  I  loved Star Wars Galaxies JTL,  but Empyrion was what we wished SWG could have been.  To have the ability to blast off from a planet and fly directly into orbit is amazing.  

We flew about and inspected a bunch of ships.  The scale and detail of those ships was unbelievable.  Our ship looked like it was made of legos and duct tape.  We docked at the space station and just walked around with our mouths open looking like a bunch of yokuls who had left the planet of Tatooine for the first time, which really wasn't far from the truth.  It was like a huge floating mall in outer space.  

Eventually, we left the station and explored a few other systems until we found a decent world to settle on.  We are in the process of building a base and a better ship.  The game isn't perfect and at first glance, it may seem ordinary,  but there are parts of the game which are truly magical.  Empyrion has the potential to be a true beauty.  It just needs some refinement and polish.

Comments:

The ability to build multi player ships in which crew members can access the control panel to manage various systems is fantastic.  Exploration, base and ship building is also good.  With that said, I do think that the game needs more alien creatures so that different planets are more unique.  I have been told that the developers are in the process of creating different biomes from which to spawn creatures.  In the meantime, you will probably see the same alien life forms if you visit different planets with the same biomes.

There are a few multi player servers which have 100+  players on them. It would nice if we could get a bunch of members together and try to carve out a section of space for ourselves.   Anyone interested in being a pirate and wrecking havoc?