Jump Space, the co-op spaceship crew-'em-up we warned you was fun, just launched in early access and it's already turning heads
I see you, weary Silksonger. You are tired of brutal bossfights and backtracking. You have a fierce need to chill with your buds, and if it happens to be in space, you'd be down with that. I assume, anyway, that's the general demographic propelling Jump Space to the top sellers list on Steam, where it's rapidly amassing players on its first day in early access.
While I'm writing this, SteamDB records a 24-hour peak of 15,558 players for the co-op space adventuring game, and that's just a few hours after it went live. It's not the hundreds of thousands of players recorded by Silksong or Borderlands 4, but early user reviews are positive.
"Initial impression is great," says one of the top reviews on Steam so far, written by user Iblysi. "The performance is top notch … You jump with a ship in space. 10/10 would jump again."
When PC Gamer Senior Editor Christopher Livingston tried Jump Space (formerly known as Jump Ship) earlier this year, he praised it for capturing some of that Sea of Thieves magic in a very different package. You crew a ship with up to three friends, playing whack-a-mole with spontaneous fires and manning the guns as necessary, but there's no PvP aspect and you're going on astronautical missions rather than treasure hunts.
You can also upgrade and customize your ship a bit, nabbing spare parts to kit it out with the best add-ons, and get into on-foot gunfights as you explore alien planets. Its inspirations are no secret, but developer Keepsake Games is up-front about that on the Steam page: "We love co-op games, and we love space. Jump Space is our attempt to make both work together."
It's good to see cooperative hangout games going from strength to strength. Between new whoppers like Peak, Borderlands 4, and REPO, as well as smaller-scale hits like Mage Arena and Abyssus, it's hard to imagine a better time for players with a friend group comprised of exactly four people.
The new Dying Light game is pretty good too and also supports four-player co-op. (Plus it runs a bit better than Borderlands 4.) But if the final frontier is what's calling to you, Jump Space is in early access on Steam and seems to be worth a try.
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