Hardspace: Shipbreaker Review (Xbox Series X)

STAFF REVIEW of Hardspace: Shipbreaker (Xbox Series X)

Monday, October 10, 2022.
by Adam Dileva

While probably not in my lifetime, I can see ‘Shipbreaker’ being an actual job title and career path in the distant future when we aren’t confined to only living on Earth. What is a Shipbreaker you ask? Exactly as it sounds, a salvager that breaks apart derelict ships to reclaim parts and materials for salvage or recycling. I’ll admit, I probably wouldn’t have normally picked up Hardspace: Shipbreaker (simply referred to as Shipbreaker from here on), but given it arrived for review and is on Xbox Game Pass, it looks as though it was fate for me to put my shipbreaking skills to the test. I’m extremely glad I did, as I’m still having a hard time putting it down, fully embracing my new career as a cutter.

You work for the LYNX Corporation, a company that single handedly rules over the salvage industry thanks to their patented EverWork technology. You see, Shipbreaking is an incredibly dangerous career path. Sure it pays extremely well, but the risks are immense when you’re in space deconstructing massive ships. Thankfully, LYNX has found a way around this, by being able to clone you should you accidently meet your untimely death. No harm no foul right? Oh, you thought using their EverWork technology was free? You’ve signed up for this new ludacris paying career, but you’ve got a massive debt to pay off and nothing is free, evening joining the company. You actually start your new career $1,252,594,441.92 in debt, so you better get to work and save every penny you can to start paying back that debt, even the $7.50 for the displaying of fees report. There’s smidgens of humor throughout if you take the time to read the computer terminals and listen to your coworkers over the radio. If Amazon was in the space salvaging business, I bet it would be run just like LYNX.

Salvaging ships in space with zero gravity takes some skill and a lot of getting used to. You can’t simply blast apart a ship though, as there may be core reactors and other expensive materials that need to be salvaged properly, so Shipbreaker is akin to a puzzle game, finding the best and most efficient way to do so without getting yourself incinerated, electrocuted, crushed or slung into deep space; easier said than done. With plenty of modes to play the Career in, you can play a much more relaxing experience in 'Open Shift' without many time or resource restrictions, or play in a handful of other difficulty related modes adding much more restrictions like timers and respawn limits. You can even choose to have no O2 drain so you don’t have to worry about your oxygen if you want to simply work on your debt from job to job. I get enough pressure at work in real life, so I chose to not have that burden in game as well.

Every job has a derelict ship placed into the LYNX bay, an open space that gives you enough room to maneuver around it in every direction as you salvage it down to every individual part for components. As you break apart the ship, you’ll need to place them into the correct collection areas, from the red furnace for scrap, blue pit for salvage and the green area below for other components. Before you even begin start cutting away and tearing apart the ship, you’ll need to use your scanner to show you an x-ray like vision of every component of the ship in front of you. This is how you’ll know what part is meant to be tossed into what collection area.

To do your job you’re given two main tools to begin, aside from your space suit equipped with thrusters of course. You’re given a Grappling Beam and a Cutting Tool. These will be how you break apart and dismantle each ship, one part at a time. Ships are large and engineering miracles though, so don’t expect a quick and easy job taking them apart, instead needing a surgical approach if you want the maximum amount of profits to work towards your debt.

Do you use your plasma cutter and cut a massive hole in the side paneling of the ship, or do you instead use the airlocks, go inside the ship and melt away the connector parts that hold everything together? Sure you could cut a huge hole in the ship, but then you don’t earn as much, so you’re better off trying to solve each ship’s ‘puzzle’, the best way to dismantle to get the most rewards possible. This will require planning and solving the best way to maneuver through each ship and which parts to disassemble first. This only comes with practice, so your first few ships will probably either end in disaster or very low income, but eventually you’ll learn how to dissect each ship type with precision and skill, like a surgeon.

While you’re in zero gravity, you still won’t be able to push parts where you want to go with your suit thrusters, which is where your Grapple Beam tool comes in, an integral part of any Shipbreaker. With actual physics in play, you’ll need to be very aware of how heavy items are, what angle you’re trying to push or pull them, and thinking logically. Even without gravity, your tools have limits as to what materials they can cut through, melt or even move with the grapple beam.

Your cutter has two main modes: a pin point laser that melts material, meant for the smaller connection welds, and then a line cutter that does just that, cuts in a straight line. Keep in mind you’re floating in space, so you’ll need to make sure you’re angled and rotated the way you want to cut before doing so to avoid any accidents. The line cutter can be rotated to vertical or horizontal cuts, sometimes needing to be used to cut larger parts into smaller chunks to be more maneuverable into the collection bins.

The Grapple Beam is your other tool, able to help you ‘lift’ and move much heavier and larger materials. You can also use a ‘push’ with it, flinging your beamed material in the direction you’re facing, but remember, physics plays a larger part of the direction it will go, even in zero gravity space. My favorite upgrade you get early on is the Tethers, allowing you to place a retracting beam on one object to another. These are much more powerful than your regular Grapple Beam, so they are to be used strategically, as you have a limited amount before needing to repurchase more (adding to your debt). You can use multiple tethers for one object for much more pulling power, or use to link numerous items together like a train, it’s all a matter of what you think would work best to get the materials and components to the correct collection bins.

The first few ships are quite basic, easy to dismantle and separate, but every time you level up, so do the ships in a sense, becoming not just larger, but more intricate or adding new components that can cause a disaster if not dealt with properly. Some ships will have a reactor that needs to be extracted, but as soon as you disconnect it from its housing you have a limited amount of time before it explodes like a nuke, obviously only leaving you scraps and probably a death. This means you need to plan ahead, not only being careful of where you cut and what parts you disconnect, but having a clear path to deposit it quickly and properly before doing so. This is where being methodical comes in and will help your career. Eventually you'll also get access to demolition charges, and you'll need to decide the best time to use these if you want to be successful.

Eventually you’ll also need to deal with electrical lines, fuel pipes, and even figuring out how to properly decompress parts of the ship to avoid an explosion or death. Nothing quite like accidentally melting the connection plate to a panel and having the ship decompress, instantly killing you. You’ll be nervous the first time you deal with these new additions, but once you figure out how best to ‘solve’ them, they become just another mundane (yet exciting) step in your day-to-day activities as a Shipbreaker. You know that scrap doesn’t pay well, so you’ll do what you can do salvage all the parts you can for the best progress on your insane amount of debt to LYNX.

Not only do you need to salvage every piece and component that you can for your debt, but it’s also how you’ll level up, earning Mastery and LYNX points. One is your overall level, unlocking new tool upgrade slots and ships to work on, the other is basically upgrade points, used to improve your tools in numerous ways. Each tool, including your suit and helmet, all have a skill tree that can be improved in many ways, so it’s up to you to earn more points by doing well on jobs so you can make subsequent jobs easier and quicker.

Each upgrade is optional and unlocks at specific levels, so it’s up to you if you want to spend your points as you earn them or save up for ‘better’ unlocks. For example, I really enjoy using my tethers so I made sure to spend my points on that when possible, able to carry many more before needing to repurchase refills. You’ll eventually unlock demo charges, scanner upgrades and it’s really up to you how you want to upgrade depending on your playstyle.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting much from Hardspace: Shipbreaker initially, though to be fair, I hadn’t really been following it previously either. I’m glad I’ve experienced it though, as it took me completely by surprise and even though I’ve not reached the maximum level quite yet, I’m having a hard time shutting off the game at the end of the night, wanting to do ‘just one more shipbreak’, which the relaxing soundtrack helps with.

An odd mix of relaxing and stressful, Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a really clever and addictive puzzle game at its core, unlike anything else I’ve really played. Sure the zero gravity controls take a little getting used to, as does the ‘proper’ way to disassemble a derelict ship, but once all this comes together you’ll truly see how satisfying it really can be to earn the maximum rank on a ship, just make sure that OSHA isn’t watching while you work.

**Hardspace: Shipbreaker was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 9.2 / 10
Gameplay: 9.5 / 10
Visuals: 9.0 / 10
Sound: 9.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Hardspace: Shipbreaker (Xbox Series X)

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