Hardspace: Shipbreaker on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Equipped with cutting-edge salvaging tech, carve & slice spaceships to recover valuable materials. Upgrade your gear to take on more lucrative contracts and pay your billion credits debt to LYNX Corp!
Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a space, sci-fi and simulation game
developed by Blackbird Interactive
and published by Focus Entertainment.
Released on May 24th 2022 is available only on Windows
in 9 languages: English, French, German, Simplified Chinese, Russian, Italian, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil and Traditional Chinese.
It has received 20,217 reviews of which 18,089 were positive and 2,128 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.8 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 12.24€ on Steam with a 65% discount, but you can find it for 3.98€ on Instant Gaming.
The Steam community has classified Hardspace: Shipbreaker into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Hardspace: Shipbreaker through various videos and screenshots.
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- Processor: Intel i5-6600K / AMD Ryzen 3 1300X
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: 4 GB VRAM, GeForce GTX 770 / Radeon R9 380
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 4 GB available space
- Additional Notes: 30 FPS in 1920x1080.
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
This game is monotonous and boring. It is also a good game. If you don't understand how those two statements can both be true, then it's possible this game may not be for you. But for some, it scratches a certain itch. The adaptive soundtrack is great, and the gameplay is, at times, fun to get the hang of. But I wouldn't describe the overall experience of this game as "Fun" although that doesn't mean it's a bad experience. The only issue I really have with the game is it's theming and message, and is honestly one of the only reasons I'm writing this review. The game isn't so much heavy handed in it's message as it is iron fisted. There is zero subtlety as it beats you over the head with its messaging every chance it gets. The game tries to take itself somewhat seriously, but its impossible to take its message seriously when its constantly brought to its extremes. It feels more like a satire of a game having a message about corporate power and greed rather than a game that's genuinely trying to have a message about corporate power and greed.
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It feels as though there is still a lot of untapped potential here - true, procedurally generated ships to disassemble could offer almost endless replayability for those who just want to zone out and cut stuff apart without worrying about an overarching storyline. As it is, the game is rock solid in the 'relax and disassemble' department, but it suffers from a limited selection of ships with minimal randomization as to their layouts. If you disassemble a certain ship type once, you've seen pretty much everything there is about that variant, barring some minor differences between location of specific equipment between ships and which rooms are locked/pressurized or not. What's here can easily offer a hundred hours of enjoyment and justifies the price, but I was really hoping for even a bare-minimum level of procedural generation of new ships once the main content is finished.
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Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a genuinely phenomenal game, but it is NOT perfect. I just want to go over some of the common complaints from the perspective of someone who still recommends the game in spite of them. The most common complaint from Early Access was the enforced 15-minute shift timer; this is still present in the game's "career" mode (which functions as the campaign), but there's now an option to play a free-mode without the timer. The forced shift time is a requirement for the campaign to function, but playing with it is now optional from the moment you load up the game - so if it was putting you off, don't worry. Secondly, a lot of complaints leaving early access were the number of ships. I somewhat agree; the game revolves around the internal systems of the ships becoming increasingly complex, but if you progress quickly through the levels (ie: if you're good) then you'll reach a point where you've seen everything a little quicker than you might expect. This means that the only real "challenge" the game has is how cleanly you can salvage a ship - the focus is no longer on learning, but on perfecting; however I'd say that only now, 70 hours in, have I reached a point where I can perfectly salvage any ship. Some more variation would be nice, but I wouldn't say it makes the game not worth playing, there's still plenty to learn before you hit that plateau. And thirdly, the story. BBI explain in their FAQ that they believe a game to be "a conversation between the developer and the community", and while it's a sentiment I agree with, in H:S's case it is VERY literal. The story takes the form of a series of dialogues that the player listens in on; you cannot interact in any meaningful way, and the only "choice" you have is at the very end of the story. Because there is no interactivity, and there is ONLY dialogue, the characters come across as very 1-dimensional. There's no way for the player to know these characters outside of what they say, so they kind of have to put their whole personality out from day 1; this leads to a heavy use of cliche and trope that makes the story itself predictable and bland. The actual quality of the voice acting is pretty decent, which makes it not intolerable, but again if you progress through your salvage goals quickly (ie: you're good) you will be getting unskippable dialogue between AND during EVERY shift, and there's probably only one character you actually care about (Weaver my beloved). In my opinion, BBI needed to pace their story WAY better. They've used the line following the prior quote, "the other side of that is that sometimes we value different things", to seemingly shield themselves from any form of criticism; but when you make a game about having a relaxing time breaking ships, and then have your story sort of... get in the way of that? You literally just needed to have the frequency of dialogue be lower and it would've been fine, avoid trapping the player in the HAB between shifts and just let people interact with your game. Maybe if there was any way AT ALL to be involved in these conversations it would've worked in its current form; but having no choice but to sit and wait, with literally nothing to do, while your characters monologue at me for 5+ minutes at a time is NOT a compelling way to tell a story. HOWEVER. You CAN just turn down the volume for voices; while the dialogue can get in the way sometimes, it's not actually too often - mostly just towards the campaign's conclusion. And the worldbuilding, oh my; it's genuinely really compelling. I just wish the main storyline explored it a little. So, why do I recommend it? Because H:S isn't really ABOUT the story. That's not why you play the game. You play the game to deconstruct ships in Zero-G, to get better and better at it, to overcome a seemingly insurmountable debt; you play the game to see number go up, and feel like your skills and dedication have a tangible impact on how quickly that number changes. The physics are fantastic, the visuals impeccable, the soundtrack enchanting - everything that isn't the story is done with a level of polish that would make AAA studios blush. All the complaints above amount to minor annoyances that don't really stop you from enjoying the game for what it is; that's why I kept playing it, that's why I recommend it.
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It's fun and relaxing in a way, has great art, music, worldbuilding and unique gameplay, but slightly pricy for the content and can get repetitive. The premise is that you're stripping spaceships apart, separating the salvaged material into 3 different categories/bays. The gameplay is excellent, it's fun and satisfying to find your own routes on how to accomplish this safely and swiftly, cutting slices and ripping out components as you float through space. The thrill of being near extremely volatile systems with your fancy 1000 degree laser knife is also strongly felt. However, it's not perfect. You really only get 4 unique ship classes. While each ship class has many variations which do keep them pretty fresh throughout the campaign, it's a shame there aren't more. Even the biggest variations have the same core ship design, but are longer or fatter. I wish we could get absolutely massive ones that'd take >4 shifts (15 minute periods) to salvage, but so far I've managed to keep them under 1 hour per ship. Also, since you're doing the same thing over and over, it can also get rather repetitive. Especially when nearing the endgame, you've basically seen all the hazards and you'll have most of the unique upgrades unlocked. If you enjoy the gameplay however, it won't be as much of an issue, but don't expect any drastic stages, upgrades or surprises. You'll never leave your limited size shipbreaking bay. Other than that, the game's really well done for what it is. The graphics and art direction are gorgeous, from the design and engineering of the ships themselves to the massive imposing structures floating around you in endless space, which make the whole futuristic setting believable and stand out. The dynamic soundtrack was also nice to listen to during your shifts, changing depending on your location and situation. The story is fine as well, I enjoyed the characters, their interactions and the bonds they all form with you included, even though you never see them in person and you play as a silent protagonist. It's not a huge plotline, but I still enjoyed the writing and how it all tied with the worldbuilding. Overall, it's definitely a quality>quantity type of game. I beat it in around 25 hours on my most recent playthrough, compared to the 35€ price tag, I enjoyed all of it though. You can play these weekly races, try the other difficulties or collect all the lore scraps, but it doesn't look like any new content will be added. 🥚🐔 Check out my [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35998380-Eggs-Chickens/] Eggs & Chickens curator page for bite-sized game recommendations 🤙🎷
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Fun game, very zen. Like clipping a bonzai tree. Except sometimes it explodes.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 12 April 2025 08:04 |
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| SteamSpy data | 09 April 2025 16:15 |
| Steam price | 15 April 2025 04:26 |
| Steam reviews | 13 April 2025 04:06 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Hardspace: Shipbreaker, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Hardspace: Shipbreaker
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Hardspace: Shipbreaker concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Hardspace: Shipbreaker compatibility
Online players
264
Developer
Blackbird Interactive
Publisher
Focus Entertainment
Release
24 May 2022
Platforms
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