Flying Wild Hog, just unveiled Space Punks, and we got a closer look at this upcoming adventure. We braved the wild frontier grilling devs and scouring the internet for the low down on this upcoming online experience.
Space Punks is a top-down looter shooter, developed by the same team that launched the Shadow Warrior series, and despite the very obvious visual differences, Space Punks brings a lot of Shadow Warrior’s DNA to the table. The team at Flying Wild Hog referenced Helldivers, the twin-stick action RPG, as one of the main inspirations for this new title. When Flying Wild Hog unveiled Space Punks to the press, CEO Michal Szustak, specifically called out this PC and console classic as a title that everyone in the office used to play together. While space Punks definitely falls into this category of action-adventure, its approach leans far more towards the tongue in cheek brevity and over the top action that defines Shadow Warrior. Over the top graphics, huge explosions, and silly action are all synonymous with the same bravado that drips through the recent Shadow Warrior 3 teasers, after all. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re going to see any ninjas, yet. Players picking up Space Punks will find themselves taking control of a space mercenary and heading out into a dangerous new alien world to hunt down loot and glory. Four player characters are available from the off,
Duke
Duke might be happy to take the money but this model mercenary is all about the glory. Out to make fame, as much as fortune, this scoundrel really just wants to be loved. When other characters are getting technical, Duke keeps things simple. He’s a straightforward shooter, getting in and blowing the hell out of whatever is in front of him and looks like the perfect place to begin your career in Space Punks.
Duke is a master of all trades, providing a good all-around balance. He comes packed with decoy abilities and a bunch of buffs that make this hotshot a good choice when fighting alongside friends.
Eris
Eris is the brains of this outfit. Having brought the Space Punks together, and rescued one of them from a mad scientist, Eris is essentially a leader. She’s also half cyborg, giving her excellent speed and close-range damage. This high damage dealer can utilize her nanobots to do incredible damage but at the expense of durability, so works best with other team players.
Finn
Finn is the unfortunate victim of some unwelcome genetic experimentation. Rather than spend his days peacefully farming, this purple powerhouse was a captive until he was rescued by Eris. Now Finn can be found brawling with his comrades and whatever monstrosity he comes across in Hoardspace. Finn is, as you’d expect, the tank of the group with a sizeable health pool and an invincibility buff, but low shield strength. This means Finn is your front hog when you want to provide cover for high damage dealers.
Bob
Bob is, well, different. This half stick insect, half-man is a tricks and traps kind of bug. Bob might be capable of ranged combat, but he’s able to lay down landmines and drops turrets to assist allies. Easily the most complex-looking character to play, bob looks to have great flexibility and a decent health pool for anybody looking to fill a range of roles.
The Challenge
Just like you’d expect in any good looter shooter, Space Punks powers through the initial premise. You’re a merc and a big load of space loot just appeared across an area of the galaxy known as Hoardsapce. From here it’s up to you to decide if you go solo or share the glory with up to four players in an action combat experience that takes the traditional dungeon crawler and drags it into a new dimension. When we spoke to the team at Flying Wild Hog, Producer Anna Gródek noted that “there is a huge gap in the market for this type of sci-fi top-down looter shooter” and while it might look a bit like Borderlands, this unique new adventure certainly doesn’t rest on any one genre.
During your time in Space Punks, you’ll navigate a range of instanced PvE encounters across a nest of abandoned planets, battling space bugs, odd aliens, and increasingly unusual adversaries as you take on small bugs and epic boss encounters to down the worst that the heart of Hoardsapce has to offer, and while these come plastered in silly comic book KAPOW stickers and accompanied by cheesy one-liners, the action seems to look closer to something like Blizzards’ HOTS or NCSoft’s Master x Master, where action combat, combo abilities, and team strategy all roll into a deliberately comic aesthetic. It’s cear from the early screenshots that there’s a limited number of possibnble actions for each player, jsut a few active abilities and an ultimate, so positioning and using dodge will be key to staying alive.
The Loot
While loot In Space Punks is all about the “space benjamins”, as Flying Wild Hog put it, there’s plenty of other components to gather as you make your way through Hoardspace. This title includes a crafting system designed to give a sense of progression as you move through each encounter. Eager loot hunters will collect blueprints and materials opening up gear mods. These add a variety of different options to character loadouts. Shields, weapons, armor, software, hardware, and talent items are all on offer to increase your power and make you seem increasingly epic. Flying Wild Hog is aiming to push the idea that there should always be some sort of reward and progression to every raid you run, so we’re expecting some seriously diverse and deep crafting on offer.
Road To Glory
Loot doesn’t just come from bashing bugs, however. Space Punks will also give players a Road to Glory reward track. If you’ve played any free to play title with a battle pass add on, then you’ll know what to expect. There’s more free loot with a whole ton of achievements and in-game contracts where you’ll complete missions for rewards. Flying Wild Hog has already confirmed that we can expect to see a battle pass as part of the monetization of this free to play adventure, but this is expected to fit in with their assertion that you’ll only see convenience and cosmetic items being sold for real-life terrestrial benjamins.
Living Games
It’s probably not escaped your notice that Space Punks is free to play and that Jagex is heavily involved in supporting this title. That also means there’s a heavy emphasis on Living games. We had an opportunity to chat to a number of the team behind this title and while the words living Game sound suspiciously like ‘live service’, Flying Wild Hog have emphasized that it’s about creating community as much as anything else. The intent seems to be set on providing a wealth of content that gamers can easily drop in and out of and a persistent community. Bogo Laciak, one of the programming team at Flying Wild Hog, noted that “ Jagex’s experience in Living games very much goes in line with what we want to do with Space Punks”, producing a community and content that players will want to keep coming back to.
Early Access
that’s especially important for the upcoming Early Access phase, where community feedback is going to be critical. Every single member of Flying Wild Hog that we had an opportunity to shake for loot was eager to have players get n board to give feedback via email, in-game, and on the official Discord. Getting into Early access might rely a little on luck, but players can also buy-in with the Founders Packs, announced yesterday.
Founders Swag Pack
The appropriately named Founders Swag Pack is designed to give mercenaries and ner’ do wells a head start and comes stuffed full of loot. For £21.99 / € 23.99 / $ 29.99 or local equivalent, players will get entry into Early Access on 14 July, all 4 characters, a Season 1 Battle Pass, and some other exclusive goodies.
Founders Splendor Pack
The big kahunas can splash out £34.99 / €39.99 / $49.99 or local equivalent for the Founders Splendor Pack, dropping everything in the Swag Pack plus Premium Skins for the 4 Characters and Season 1 Battle Pass plus 25 Tier Skips.
Each of the Founders packs are now available on the Epic Games Store for pre-purchase, where Space Punks will be an Epic exclusive for at least the first year of release, while console players can expect a crossplay compatible version of Space Punks sometime in 2022.
We’re just preparing for our trip into Space Punks and we will have our thoughts about this new adventure when we finish looting Hoardspace for the first time.
