THE MAKING OF... HARDSPACE: SHIPBREAKER

How Blackbird Interactive cracked the formula for a sci-fi tale of dystopian deconstruction

- CHRIS SCHILLING

Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series

Developer Blackbird Interactive

Publisher Focus Entertainment

Origin US

Release 2022

When in E349 we first wrote about Blackbird Interactive’s science-fiction simulation during its time in Early Access, we couldn’t help but think of Tim Curry’s Anatoly Chedenko in Red Alert 3 talking about escaping to the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism. Bad luck, Chedenko – even in space, there is no escaping the unyielding grip of the megacorporation. In Hardspace: Shipbreaker you’re pressed into indentured servitude for the iron-fisted Lynx Corp, tasked with slicing up derelict spacecraft in the hope of paying off an exorbitant debt. It’s fitting, then, that the game originated from an initiative meant to give its makers more independence from their publisher paymasters.

Having shipped Homeworld: Deserts Of Kharak for Gearbox in January 2016, Blackbird Interactive found itself without a big project on its slate. As talks for what that might be continued, the studio sensed an opportunity. After years of working on the Homeworld prequel, here was room for developers to cleanse their creative palates, while starting the process of developing ideas internally. Staff were split into seven teams of six to eight people, game director Elliot Hudson tells us: “Our accounting team was part of the team and our IT people were coming in and doing modelling on some of the projects – like literally almost everybody was involved.”