Hardspace: Shipbreaker takes flight: Here's what its devs learned in Early Access

gamedeveloper.com:

You might recall that Blackbird Interactive's Hardspace: Shipbreaker dropped right as the COVID-19 pandemic started. As developers and players found themselves trapped indoors, the Vancouver-based team found themselves tooling away on a new kind of fantasy: a space simulator about grinding, physical, dangerous work.

Two tumultuous years later, the vibes of Hardspace: Shipbreaker have never felt more relevant. Workers in different industries are demanding better working conditions. Bosses sent workers into unsafe conditions to grind out an extra buck. And Blackbird itself faced challenges in its own workplace, eventually revealing that it was switching to a four-day workweek to manage the stress of working on an Early Access title. 

What has Blackbird Interactive learned in two years of making Hardspace: Shipbreaker? Lead producer Jessica Klyne and game director Elliot Hudson shared some key takeaways—and explained how their player community guided them through such a challenging time period.

First things first. If you're a developer jumping into Early Access, Klyne has this advice for you: "Whatever you think your velocity is going to be—or the percentage of buffer you need to be in Early Access, double it," she explained. "Because the overhead of an Early Access game is quite high."

Hudson and Klyne referred to the process as being a series of "many releases," where instead of having a typical break and wind-down after hitting a shipping goal, the team at Blackbird Interactive would immediately burn hard to reach the next update. And with such a systems-heavy game where every new feature deeply interacts with features built months ago, it created an interconnectivity that did not let the pressure off on any individual part