While Blizzard summoned "Diablo," Crate Entertainment announced "Grim Dawn," and Grinding Gear Games followed with "Path of Exile," Soldak Entertainment has been relatively quiet, working on "Din's Legacy" and "Zombasite," and has been working on more ambitious but less appealing action-RPGs. But it is Drox Operative - an action RPG with spaceships - that concerns us today.

If you take a look at Soldak's past games, say, by downloading a demo from the developer's site, you will notice that the words "dynamic and evolving" appear frequently. Soldak's forte is action RPGs set in "dynamically evolving" worlds, be they fantasy or outer space. In "Zombasite," for example, the fantasy version of the zombie apocalypse features a higher than usual degree of randomization and city-building elements.

On the other hand, as Soldak explains in the Drox Operative 2 announcement article, one of the series' unique features is that "you can basically play an action RPG in the universe of an alien race playing a 4X game."

"Your job as a Drox Operative is not to manage an empire. Your job is to pick the winning side and help them conquer the galaxy if they play nice. But more importantly, it's to rake in as many credits as possible, and so build the deadliest ship in the known universe.

So you're saying it's a space trading game meets action RPG meets 4X? According to the same post, the enhancements over the original game are "better graphics," additional treaties and types of components, and, somewhat worryingly, the ability to "protect or exploit primitive races." Picard would have some things to say about that.

There is a Steam page for Drox Operative 2, with a release date of May 27, which is when the game launches in Early Access. The full version is scheduled for release early next year.

Thanks, Blue.