I'm the first journalist in the world who's laid hands on the new sci-fi strategy game from the studio behind Hardspace: Shipbreaker and Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, and I've just broken it to pieces in front of them. I'm having a great time.
Every time I preview a game that has unfinished art and narrative dead-ends scattered around like landmines, there's the potential for an awkward moment where the game flat-out breaks. The developers have to take control to sidestep a bug or reboot after a crash; they apologize, keep it light with some smalltalk. In Assassin's Creed Valhalla I once got stuck in a barrel for 15 minutes.
