Shallow Space is going open world, adding a third person perspective

Big changes are coming to Shallow Space, a space RTS with big potential. Originally it was suppose to be a full-on, completely customizable RTS allowing for massive battles in a rich galaxy. But they're expanding the original vision and adding a much more engaging way to play. Making it an open-world adventure with even more direct control of your ships.

While playing their alpha version, it was noticed that the customization was a fantastic idea, but with the combat mechanics, it was almost impossible to actually fully utilize those upgraded parts of your ships. There was something missing. The solution to the problem is letting you take direct control of your ships in the fleet and fly them around yourself, engaging the enemy in some very fun scenarios. To that end they're adding in support for controllers to play with your ships.

That's not all, though. The maps were far too linear, following a strict story-line that just isn't up the standards that we seem to have set for modern games. The developers are working towards making it more open-world, letting you fly around the Shallow Space (the are of the galaxy you'll be in in the game of the same name) to build up resources, level-up your ships and showing off your fighting prowess. The different map areas will be instance based, meaning enemies, allies and resources will spawn around you.

Other changes include new directional shields, letting you charge the shields facing the enemy, and a new better designed and more simple movement and waypoint system. We're assured that this shouldn't delay development by too terribly long, either. These ideas have been floating around for some time.

Shallow Space is a spiritual successor to Jupiter: The Nexus Incident, a real-time strategy game that allowed 3D movement through space and one hell of a great story. This genre, however, isn't for everyone so they've made changes to make it more appealing and so it's a bit more engaging for the player. You're now more part of the action, and your highly customized ships and their special weapons will finally make a difference in combat.