Vesper DriftVesper Drift

Five stars collapsed. Each one left a Singularity behind. These black stones protect whoever carries them and make it possible to travel from one system to the next. The problem is, they're guarded by giants, and the swarm has long since taken over. There's still one port, a handful of pilots, and a plan that sounds a lot like a suicide mission: head back out there and recover all five Singularities.

Vesper Drift mixes the spirit of Asteroids with a roguelite. You start with a ship equipped with little more than the basics. Smash asteroids, collect crystals, and at the end of each wave, pick one upgrade from four cards. Twenty minutes later, that tiny fighter might have turned into a completely ridiculous machine throwing lasers, mines and lightning in every direction. Next run? You'll probably build something entirely different.

Vesper Drift was also built to be played with friends. Up to four pilots can play together online through Steam, or over a local network if you're all in the same room. Send an invite, pick your ships, and you're good to go.

Everyone keeps their own crystals and builds their arsenal however they want. One player might go all in on heavy weapons while another focuses on defence, homing shots, or something completely different. When a pilot in distress appears in the arena, whoever reaches them first earns an extra life. And when the run ends, the whole crew heads straight back to the lobby, ready to go again.

Every five waves, a boss shows up to put your build to the test. And each one has a few surprises waiting for you: tear the Fortress apart module by module, stop the Hydra's heads from growing back, dodge the Reaper's charges, or try to survive the Queen's barrage of fire. And those are only a few of the things waiting for you in the Drift…

As a boss loses health, its behaviour changes. New phases bring new attacks and an increasingly difficult rhythm to keep up with. But one rule always stays the same: everything that can hurt you comes from the boss, and every attack gives you a warning before it hits. In other words, if it gets you, there was always a way to avoid it.

At the end of each system, a guardian protects a Singularity. Defeat it and the stone is yours, shielding you from the dangers ahead and opening the way to the next part of the galaxy. Take down the guardian without getting hit once and you'll earn Untouchable. Not exactly the kind of achievement you get by accident.

In Vesper Drift, picking up a new weapon doesn't replace your old one. It gets added to your arsenal. You can carry up to ten weapons at once, and they all fire together. A continuous laser that grows with your power, lightning that jumps from target to target, shells, mines, a boomerang… It's up to you to see how ridiculous things can get.

Some weapons work so well together that they can actually fuse. Combine a railgun with chain lightning and you get a thunder rail. Mix a mortar with cluster bombs and you've got a full-blown storm of explosives. There are twenty fusions to discover, each with its own effects and its own way of changing your build.

Passive weapons join the chaos too: blades orbit your ship, an aura burns anything that gets too close, lightning strikes from above, and a vortex pulls nearby rocks toward it. And when the screen gets completely out of control, a White Hole wipes out enemy fire and pushes back everything heading your way. If that's still not dangerous enough, cursed cards increase your Entropy: more danger, but better rewards to go with it.

The campaign takes you across five systems and thirty planets. Each system has its own sun, sky and atmosphere: the burning embers of the Ash Road, the freezing Dead Waters, the violet glow of the Nest where the swarm has settled, all the way to Zenith and its pulsar sweeping across the darkness.

The further you go, the rougher things get. Asteroids become tougher, enemies more numerous, and every planet brings its own hazards: meteor showers, drifting mines, gravitational anomalies, elite enemies… From the galaxy map, you choose where to begin. Between runs, the crystals you've collected can be used to develop your fleet through a talent tree and prepare for the next expedition.

There are nine ships to fly, and each one handles differently. The MicroRecon has a dash, the DualStriker carries an emergency shield, while the Star Marine Trooper can unleash an ice nova. Every ship comes with its own special ability, strengths and, of course, weaknesses.

But the ships aren't just different to fly. Each one has its own story. Some have only just left the shipyards, while others are wrecks rebuilt from the remains of a lost convoy. And each has its own ending. Finish the campaign with all nine ships to discover all nine conclusions and, piece by piece, uncover what really happened in the Drift.

The free demo lets you explore two planets and face two bosses in solo or co-op play.