PLATFORM: PC, PS4, SWITCH (REVIEWED), XBOX ONE | RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 15TH

“It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life”. Never has this Captain Picard quote felt more relevant, as that’s how it can often feel in the strategic space survival game from the folks that brought you the well-received 2017 game, Bomber Crew. This time they’ve ditched the World War II backdrop in favour of the final frontier.

Space Crew plays out a bit like FTL; you manage a spaceship through various missions, assigning crew members to different stations. You’ve also got the additional task of assigning power to different areas such as shields, thrusters and the ship’s gravity. With only a finite amount of power, you need to micromanage this and assign the power where it’s going to be of most use for any given situation. Turning off the anti-gravity is fine if everyone’s where they should be, but if anyone needs to move around on the ship it’s going to take them longer to get there. Don’t get too attached to your red shirts (or anyone else, for that matter), as once a crew member dies in this game they’re gone forever. The main downside of the game is the controls, as they’re a bit fiddly on the Switch and definitely seem better designed to work on PC. You’re constantly having to pair up holding various buttons when doing anything with the left stick, which feels unnatural and makes things more complicated than they need to be. It certainly takes some getting used to, and prevents this being a good “pick up and play” game.

If you liked the idea of micromanaging a spaceship, found FTL a bit too difficult and don’t have VR to be able to play Star Trek: Bridge Crew, then Space Crew is absolutely something you should check out – but probably go for the PC version if you can.