My first industrial accident was a terrible one. I cut my teeth on a mackerel class vessel and knew the ship like the back of my hand. But confidence breeds overconfidence, and forgetting to depressurize the engine room before removing the thrusters, I took a 360-kilo thruster cap to the forehead at 50 mph. My skull flattened like a pancake. [But keep in mind that in space, no one can hear a workplace safety violation.

Two years ago, Blackbird Interactive (developer of the "Homeworld Remastered Collection" and "Deserts of Kharak") stepped away from warring empires and operatic battles to focus on a more mundane vision of the distant future.

"Shipbreaker" has come a long way since launching in Early Access, but the core shipbreaking has been consistently satisfying from day one. Each morning we would start our shift and either select a new ship to break or continue from the previous day. Each ship has layers upon layers of airlocks, engines, reactors, and crew compartments in a structural frame, with layers upon layers of hull panels to protect them from the elements.

The first vessel is simple. It can be sorted into three piles: processors for anything your employer, Lynx, wants to recycle (usually hull panels), barges for anything they want to reuse (computers, engines, furniture), and furnaces for scrap they want to get rid of. Properly scrapped hulls are credited with progress toward the work order, and the more efficiently they are disposed of, the higher the reward. Penalties can be imposed for destroying large quantities of salvage or misallocating it, and negligence can lock you out of more lucrative rewards.

However, as you salvage scrapped shuttles, you will earn commendations from the company and will be able to obtain larger, more complex vessels that can be scrapped. You will also soon have to deal with pressurized compartments that will "depressurize" explosively if not properly vented. Fuel lines can catch fire if accidentally ruptured, and power boxes can electrify the entire ship if mishandled.

The biggest troublemaker is the reactor core, which must be removed and placed in barge stasis with skill and careful planning to prevent it from going supernova and turning your precious salvage into worthless scrap and your body into an expensive insurance payout.

Fortunately, with promotion comes more tools for breaking barges. These include improved grapples and cutters, scanners that can check pressurization levels before playing with lasers, remote detonators that can cut an entire ship at once, and tethers that can pull objects that are too heavy for hand-held grapples.

Shipbreaking is a trade, and as you learn the intricacies of each ship class, you begin to build little efficiencies and shortcuts. You realize that you can properly place the cutter to target multiple cutting points at once, that you can make good use of atmospheric decompression, that you can optimally drag heavy Atlas engine plates into the processor, and that you can cut the floor of a mackerel and yaw the reactor straight into the barge. Sure it feels like work, but it's the most satisfying and rewarding way possible. [Shipbreaker's decommissioned barges are simply fun to dismantle. It is a real pleasure to slowly peel away what appears at first glance to be one solid object until there is nothing left but dust and debris. But shipbreaking is a grueling and dangerous job that involves danger and low pay: Hardspace:Shipbreaker is a game that makes you think deeply about what it means to do painstaking work for a company that considers you (literally) disposable labor.

Cutter begins his work with two unpleasant benefits. It's a deadly pile of debt and the reality that Lynx literally owns your body. Every time you scrap or salvage a ship, that debt pile is dented just a little, but the company has a vested interest in keeping the workers in debt. All equipment is rented, and critical supplies such as oxygen, thruster fuel, tethers, and repair kits are purchased (or, if you're lucky, cheekily scavenged from the ship) at the company store.

While this framework has always existed, Shipbreaker offers a more explicit storyline that clarifies the developer's stance on worker exploitation. After a few shifts, you will have a group call with your fellow breakers. He starts with Weaver, the site foreman, who is not only here to teach you the ropes, but also to act as an intermediary between the cutters and the company. There's also Kai, the clumsy guy who always breaks down, and DeeDee, the stubborn mother who sometimes calls you drunk after work. And then there's Lou, a stubborn optimist who confides his plans to get Lynx sailors to join the union.

There is a lot of jovial banter at work, but each person is suffering under the same weight of debt, and it's hard not to feel like we're all basically bound to this job.

Some of this chatter unfolds during the shift, but much of it happens in the 3D dorm "hub" where you can upgrade your equipment, check your email, and plan your next shift. It's a cluttered, utilitarian space, but it can be made a little more cozy if you take away the posters and stuffed animals from the broken ship. Weaver can give you a broken old shuttle as a gift, or you can sneak in parts during your shift and repair them after work.

Emails tell you how the game is going, with occasional corporate propaganda, while private newsgroups let you know how the union plans to handle, for example, if management comes down from corporate to crack down on activists. Lynx is like Amazon and Tesla, and Blackbird is good at writing the kind of slimy, family-friendly language that these companies use to discourage unionization efforts.

The men at headquarters are not suits, they are workers just like you, touting the value of following proper procedures and the importance of "pulling the rope in the same direction."

CEOs are not afraid to send you an uplifting video about how the company is your family even if you are paying the premium for your own death. send you.

Shipbreaking is good, honest work, and Hardspace does not believe that some physical labor is a bad thing. Even if it is a ridiculously roundabout business, like cracking open a spaceship. When you strip a javelin to the bone in two straight shifts, you feel immense satisfaction in your abilities.

But at the same time, it also reveals how multinational (multi-planet) corporations and the pursuit of growth have robbed workers of dignity and agency, turning work into a de facto indentured servitude. It is this voice that elevates "Hardspace" to something more than just a wonderfully tactile zero-G demolition sim.

This is a game about taking pride in a job well done and fighting to make the workplace something to be proud of. It is intentionally repetitive and may be boring to those who do not find enjoyment in systematically tearing apart a ship in two, three, or four shifts in a row. It takes real dedication to tear apart a javelin or a gecko where a small ship can be torn apart in a few minutes.

It's not a job for everyone, but it's well worth a try. If you don't shoot too many fuel tanks with a laser cutter, you might be able to live debt free someday.

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