This might sound sarcastic as hell, but I'm being very genuine when I say this is a great game for people who like are unemployed and spend all day playing job simulators. Personally, I really love the story and what they were doing with it, the pro-labor messages with a folk music soundtrack full of twangy banjos bring to mind the coal mines of Kentucky or Virginia and the struggles those poor men suffered at the hands of their greedy corporate bosses. But, man, as someone who works a full time job and has a family I enjoy spending time with, I do not have the time to fully appreciate the gameplay that has to exist for this type of story to be effective. I do have to ask myself what about this gameplay is any different from something like Powerwash Simulator, which I do love, and I have to say I think it has a lot to do with the fact that while both are job simulators, Powerwash Simulator is a lot more relaxing and therapeutic (no oxygen, jetpack fuel, or fail state, and washing things makes my brain light up with happy chemicals) while this one provides a bit more of a challenging and technically dense experience, which isn't what I want from from this type of game. Leaving it with a high rating because despite stepping away from it before running credits, I think this game nails everything it set out to do perfectly, and I think that's something to celebrate regardless of my personal feelings.

there is something undeniably satisfying about the slow, methodical unweaving of giant spaceships into their constituent parts, and the zero-g controls that are both intuitive yet complicated enough to sometimes cause catastrophic screw ups lead to a lot of fun situations where you fucking vaporize yourself. narrative-wise, disco elysium this ain't, and everything sticks around just a bit too long to where it starts to feel like an actual job, but ultimately i think the good here edges out the bad.

Kind of an interesting case study in how games can very clearly and irrefutably be 'about something' while also fucking up the thesis so badly as to seem self-condemnatory.

Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a pro-union story that comes across as a propaganda piece meant to make unions look terrible, in much the same ways Starship Troopers is to fascism but accidentally as opposed to deliberately.

Shipbreaker begins on that precarious 'okay' platform that so many games end on and sadly doesn't get better. You, a faceless cog in a machine who follows orders, sign a contract with an inhumane megacorp that gives them the right to kill you and clone you indefinitely. You're then shunted into a gameplay loop which bottoms out at fine and doesn't really get better.
You play a game of Operation on some abandoned ships, ranging from simply dismantling it as one would dismantle a twink to carefully pruning out hazards so that you don't immediately die when you splitsaw is 1% off the mark and hits a ship-wide fuel line. It's... alright I guess. It never really goes anywhere interesting once you get the core upgrades and it unfortunately straddles the miniscule line between "indepth" and "braindead" that makes it fairly forgettable.
Unlike similar games it does tack on new challenges, but at their core they're just rehashes of things you've seen before: Something you need to exercise caution towards when removing from its location, something that you shouldn't touch with the saw or it'll explode, something

But I'm not here to talk about gameplay, I'm here to talk about writing, and Shipbreaker has a lot of issues.

Shipbreaker's stance towards manual labourers is strange and not because it's bad or unrealistic, but because it's one of the rare positive takes on them in the medium. Manual labourers are, speaking from experience, a proud and sardonic bunch who are fully aware that they're doing dangerous and [LITERALLY] back-breaking labour but also view it as a craft that they have become proficient in.
Shipbreaker agrees with this assessment, being one of the first games to acknowledge that people who do dangerous manual labour might genuinely love what they do and see it as a point of pride. There’s no irony or humour to it, it just is.

The problems stem from how this interacts with Shipbreaker's stance on unions, which is a messy and incoherent jumble of garbage written by what I can only assume is someone who's mostly worked office jobs and knows instinctively that unions are good but hasn’t bothered to understand WHY.

For starters, Shipbreaker's setting is every single stereotype about bad cyberpunk/sci-fi settings thrown into one. It throws the word 'overpopulation' around a lot which is a pretty bad indicator of the writer's politics. A company named LYNX helps people get off shithole-Earth but ropes them into ludicrous contracts that saddle someone with obscene debt and also kill them, because the contract includes a line about consenting to DNA harvesting for cloning purposes.

It's very hamfisted, and the rare moments the parody lands at all are the ones where they just pull something from the headlines, like CEOs getting off scot-free no matter what.

LYNX are absurdly evil, irrevocably evil, an entire capitalistic meat grinder unto themselves.

And your allies, the union, are okay with them.

Shipbreaker is a grand example of what ‘bad writing’ actually is, because in the writer’s negligence the game comes off as being both anti-union and pro-capitalist meatgrinder. I don’t think the writer intended this, it’s the only read I can take away from the game.

LYNX, to repeat myself, are super evil. Amazon’s real life evil multiplied exponentially forever and ever.

The in-game union don’t have any real issues with it. The union and its members know full well that the suffering they endure is deeply systemic, so fundamental to the machine that the entire thing is entirely unfixable. It views human lives as resources to the extent where they just kill new staff and clone them endlessly, claiming them as property

Shipbreaker’s story unfortunately betrays its characters, and they’re only really concerned with how it affects them. The climax of the story is less about the gang being upset about the world they live in and more about how annoyed they are at their middle management. They go on strike once and it works… kind of? Overtime is ended, middle management is gutted, the corporation nukes slavery clauses/statements from the contracts and…

Okay, the cloning thing is something I really need to focus on, because it explains a lot of what I dislike about this game.

This game opens with you signing the LYNX contract and immediately dying, with your clone being thrown out into space to start working. The end of the game has the Space UN intervene in the situation to outlaw cloning. Why wouldn’t they? It’s deeply immoral and exploitative tech that’s worse than the Artificial Intelligence technology the setting has already banned - tech which is (I assume, I may be giving the writer too much credit) deliberately used to highlight how awful cloning is. It’s a no brainer that it’d get nuked, right?
…Yeah okay so the Union actually loves cloning tech, so they go out of their way to ensure it’s kept around for them specifically. They essentially get a monopoly on the torment nexus.

Also everyone who caused this shit gets off scot-free.

…Sigh, god.

The real issue with this game is that a lot of the plot points can be defended with “but it’s realistic”, and that particular defense is mostly irrefutable.

I love unions. I am a devout proponent of worker solidarity, but I’m not naive enough to think everyone who gets involved with unions cares about every worker that’s like them. A lot of people only join up for self-preservation’s sake, giving nary a thought to others because they’ve secured their bag. This is sad, but it’s unfortunately human nature. So I guess on some level, the Shipbreaker’s Union being obsessed with self-preservation to the point of amorality isn’t unbelievable. Shit dude, farmers do it in real life all the time.

Likewise, yeah. In real life, companies get away scot-free all the time. They are the modern feudal monarchs, able to take losses but never truly lose. Really, a lot of what LYNX do in this game has already been done by either Activision, Amazon, Nestle or any Lithium mining company. Of course it’s believable that the Shipbreaker Union strike doesn’t actually hurt them in any meaningful way, and that they arguably benefit because none of the people involved were ever alive to mount a defense on account of clones.

It doesn’t help that both the gameplay and the narrative point out that nothing really changed. You ‘won’ some minor concessions, but you’re still stuck doing work where dying a horrific, undignified death aboard a silent lifeless spaceship results in little more than a new body being cooked up and sent out.

My ultimate problem, I suppose, is that the experience of Shipbreaker’s story simply compounds why “realistic writing” is such a pitfall. It is neither cathartic nor engaging to experience this story. Neither are the frustrations, inconsistent writing, and accidentally-awful protagonists intended. It may mirror reality, sure, but the end result is that the game comes across as waffling.
You ever see someone go to make a political statement at an award show but they freeze for a moment as their lost paychecks flash across their eyes? This game has the same cadence and hesitance. A game that wants to say “WOO! UNIONS!” but stumbles so much that it comes across as a hit piece. Let unions win and they’ll monopolize evil technology and happily shack up with the industrial hellmachine.

…The gameplay itself also runs counter to the story. Characters will repeatedly assert that they are not faceless cogs in the hellmachine and they are humans capable of autonomy and feeling.

You aren’t, though. You, the player, are a faceless personality-less cog in the hellmachine who does what they’re told. You are such an inconsequential cog in the machine that you can refuse to strike and the game still proceeds as if you did. It’s quite the dissonant experience to have the NPCs talk as if you’re actively sabotaging LYNX while you’re standing on the bridge of a ship, knocking out the frame of a window so you can do your job as you’ve been doing the entire game.

I wouldn’t recommend you buy Hardspace: Shipbreaker. If you read my reviews you probably have enough dignity to not want to subject yourself to what’s ostensibly a white midwesterner paraphrasing a union newsletter to you.

If you do have it, just mute the game. Put on a playlist or a good album - I recommend Wasted Mind, a legendary pop punk album - and enjoy the gameplay. It might be mid, but ‘Surgeon Simulator on ships’ is pretty cool, though Space Engineers might tickle your fance more.

I like to look at reviews before I play a game, then contrast what people say to what I experience to develop a better understand of perception towards mechanics and such. Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a game I saw mid reviews relating too, soo I was expect mediocrity, but what I got instead was something that on the surface seemed amazing. The gameplay of course is impeccable and develops quite well; making ever ship more or less their own puzzles. The story I also enjoyed, although lots say is "cringe" or "distracting" I found it to supplement the game play quite well. While also offering an interesting commentary on real world happenings, while staying in line with the world and plot of the game. Near the end it drops off, with the last story beat feeing rushed, and or poorly written compared to the rest of the game. Which is really my only complaint, that being the entire handling of the end of the game. Because while everything is fairly good, I think the developers simply tried to stretch is further then it had any right to be. As in, if the story had ended like a three hours earlier I would have been happy. But it really just feels like filler once you pass a high enough rank to have unlooked all ships, developed a high understand of the mechanics, and seen all the story really wants to tell. Overall though, its a fun game, a game that not all will want to sit with through to the end, but a game that they will enjoy playing up to a point, or of and on as a very well made puzzle game.

Schnipp, Schnapp, Schiff ab

In Hardspace: Shipbreaker spielt man einen Abwracker von Raumschiffen.
Dabei arbeitet man in diesem Spiel in 15 Minuten Schichten, wo es eigentlich das Ziel ist in dieser Zeit so effizient wie möglich zu werden, da man als Spieler von einer riesigen Schuldenlast erdrückt wird und man daher in diesen 15 Minuten versuchen muss, soviel abzuwracken, das nach der Schicht weniger Schulden vorhanden sind als vorher.
Damit könnte das Spiel durchaus ein ziemlich stressiges Puzzle-Spiel werden. Glücklicherweise bietet das Spiel aber auch die Möglichkeit die Karriere ohne das 15-Minuten Limit zu spielen. Man kann also dann so viel Zeit in einer Schicht verbringen, wie man es möchte und kann daher in einer Schicht auch ein komplettes Raumschiff verwerten.
Tatsächlich war das auch der Modus, in dem ich meinen Durchlauf gemacht habe. Dann wandelt sich das Spiel von einer durchaus stressigen Arbeit in ein extrem entspanndes Spiel, wo man einfach in aller Ruhe Schiffe zerlegt und ihre Einzelteile ganz nach deutscher Art der Mülltrennung sortiert.
Natürlich ist das Spiel stupide. Man macht eigentlich immer das gleiche. Aber trotzdem hatte ich schon extrem viel Spaß damit.
Anspruchsvoll ist das ohne Zeitlimit eher wenig. Auch wenn es natürlich trotzdem ein paar Herausforderungen zu Meistern gibt. Die richtigen Schnitte zu setzen, die richtigen Schritte bei Antrieben, Reaktoren und so durchzugehen. Macht man was falsch, kann das auch mal in einer Katastrophe enden.
Die Story ist durchaus ganz nett, ist aber natürlich nicht sonderlich preisverdächtig. Das Highlight am Ende, wo man im Zuge eines Kampfes um Arbeitnehmerrechte ein Schiff zerstören anstatt sauber abwracken soll ist durchaus eine willkommene Auflockerung gewesen.

Ein paar durchaus nervige Schwächen hat das Spiel leider auch. Die Physik ist ziemlich seltsam. Es fehlt einfach die Möglichkeit, dass beispielsweise Streben einfach auseinander reißen können. Das sorgt dafür, dass ein kleines Fitzelchen die komplette restliche Konstruktion festhält und sich daher nichts ziehen lässt.
Ansonsten halte ich es durchaus für ein Ärgernis, dass die zahlreichen Sammelobjekte in Form von Nachrichten oder Briefen, die einen Haufen an Hintergrundinfos zur Spielwelt geben, viel zu selten zu finden sind. Möchte auch ehrlich sein, abseits der Trophäen/Errungenschaften bietet das Spiel dann doch viel zu wenig, um es nach der Story ausführlich weiter zu spielen, um sich auch noch alle Sammelobjekte zu holen und damit alles über die Spielwelt zu wissen.
Habe das Spiel auf der Xbox Series S angefangen und dann später auf der Series X bis zum Ende weitergespielt. Interessanterweise war die Performance auf der Series S tatsächlich besser. Bei der Series X hatte ich extreme Slowdowns, sobald das Gas in die Luftschleuse strömte. Series S lief da wegen der kleineren Auflösung spürbar besser. Abhilfe schafft auf der Series X dann sicherlich, das Spiel nur in 1440p zu spielen.
Ansonsten wird das Spiel auf der Xbox Series in den Errungenschaften als "PC Version" betitelt, allerdings bietet es trotz des Namens leider keinerlei Maus- und Tastatursteuerung auf der Xbox. Gerade eine Maus habe ich teilweise aber echt schmerzlich vermisst. Wenn mal wieder ein Schiffsteil oder eine Tür in der Entfernung davon flog, war das manchmal eine Glückssache, ob ich mit dem Controller noch hinterher kam. Denn das Auto-Aim ist leider auch nicht sonderlich gut.

Das Spiel hätte ich bereits nach 65 Spielstunden auf 100% abschließen können. Habe aber noch ein paar Extra Schichten eingelegt um auch noch den höchsten Rang, 30, zu erreichen, weswegen es dann rund 76 Stunden geworden sind.

Das Spiel wurde vollständig auf Twitch gespielt und steht als VOD auf YouTube zur Verfügung.

I tried this out at the tail end of its Game Pass availability, thinking I’d try it and be able to drop it once it started feeling chore-like, and then I ended up hooked and buying it elsewhere once it left GP. The escalation of abilities to break down ships feels uniquely powerful, and the matching escalation of hazards and new ship types and variants keeps the process from getting stale. Similarly, figuring out time-saving shortcuts during breakdown routines feels incredibly satisfying, as does the iterative process of determining which cheap parts are more valuable to not salvage.

Other side activities bubble up as well, like pocketing assorted parts to fix up your own ship or decorate your HAB, or the ghost ships infested with troublesome AI nodes. There’s also a slapstick sense of comedy throughout when breakdown goes wrong, turning hasty disasters into laughs along with the encouragement to be more careful next time.

The labor rights story comes on a little strong at first, but that initial vibe ends up being fitting for the outgoing personality of the organizer. By its conclusion, it manages to be a relatively sophisticated sci-Fi dramatization of labor organizing with emotionally engaging stakes. The climactic industrial action is memorable for the story choices it offers and its clever gameplay twists.

Class conscious-less scabs in the backloggd reviews 🤢

I liked the story! It was peppered in just enough to string the gameplay along but wasn't as obtrusive as others are saying. Pretty good voice acting all around. In addition, it's the best job simulator around, as it's for one that doesn't exist. Making it less psychologically off that you're doing chores while playing a game. It does get a bit repetitive after a while, had some occasionally inconsistencies(blew up a tank while aiming at a cut point 45 degrees from the tank) and you only encounter so many new mechanics, but it still has a decently long shelf life with plenty of ways to revisit when you want.

Um jogo com uma proposto muito legal, você entra na pele de um "deconstrutor" de naves, em uma companhia que explora o máximo possível de seus empregados.
O jogo aborda tópicos bem interessante com personagens extremamente carismáticos, falando sobre exploração e condições de trabalhos, e também sobre sentimentos como solidão e tristeza.
Se o jogo não tivesse uma gameplay monótona, ele facilmente seria um jogo fantástico, mas se você tiver paciência, certamente vale muito a pena investir seu tempo nesse jogo.