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.

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.