We had the pleasure of testing out the Alpha build of Shallow Space: Insurgency last Sunday. In a recognizable manner of a project that is in this stage, we agreed that it is a little bit rough around the edges. Not in terms of graphics, as you can see for yourself the graphics are AMAZING, but the navigation controls require a tutorial since the original set up is completely new and yet unseen. Anyway, let’s get into the game.

Shallow Space is anything but shallow, in fact, the 3D environment is deep and profound in its design. The backgrounds are pieces of art on their own. This new, ambitious, action-packed Real Time Strategy game is designed for PC, Linux and Mac, and developed by the good folks from Special Circumstances Games studio. James Martin, who has been programming since he got his hands on a computer at the age of eight, started designing this game two years ago. Along with skilled technical artist Alexander Kazmirchuck, he quickly gathered a team of industry professionals, which includes John Harper, an experienced sci-fi writer, whose debut novel, And Here the Wheel came out in 2014; and Vincent van Diemen, the founder of Gamershook (professional services company for the gaming industry), who has been working in the industry since 1993. Shallow Space started as James’s dream, but the rest of the team quickly shared the vision, and for the next 13 months, they worked tirelessly to bring that dream to life.

Obviously, the game takes cues for such classics as Homeworld and Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, in the controls and the story-driven campaign. The plot is moderately a simple one, nevertheless a very interesting one as well. An intergalactic war rages through the twelve colonies of the galaxy, and the future of the human race hangs in the balance. As the story unfolds, players can learn how the various factions are competing for the resources, discover political conspiracies of the major corporations and apparently there will be a few plot twists as well.

Of course, the game is based on the full fleet customization, players can take control of a massive range of spacecrafts and alter them, build them up and tweak them for a variety of missions. Frigates, Corvettes and Cruisers can be armed with a number of cool weapons to assist in you in building your own custom mean-looking-destruction-machine. In addition, capital ships can be equipped with different ship modules and turret placements. (Personally, I was stunned with the number of options). Battle group of each player comprises of several Flotillas, pre-equipped for their specific style of play. Now, we did have some troubles with the Game’s UI, meaning that we didn’t know what we were actually doing the first 10 minutes when we started the game. But this is the alpha version, so the game is still in development and certain things are still under adjustment. 

Nevertheless, Shallow Space is a thrill to play. The quality of graphics and the overall atmosphere is absolutely stunning. And the gameplay, in terms of a story and its visual frame, definitely makes this game one of the best pre-releases of last year.

Over the past two years of development, Shallow Space has come a long way in the development process. In 2015, the team pushed the Alpha version version live, and launched the game via Steam on October 21. The full 1.0 release is slated for August of this year, and it will be available on Humble Bundle and GoG. For now, you can check for the latest updates on the game’s official website – twice a month, you can see the latest models and game options added to the game, such as the MFC ‘Heretic’ Heavy Cruiser and its sister ship, the MFC ‘Hexen’. Furthermore, you should know that Special Circumstances crew hopes to create more games in the Shallow Space universe in the future, so expect see more exciting titles from this company in the next couple of years.

But for now, if you are a RTS Space Games fan, this is a title that you definitely have to get.