Dreadnought Preview

Space is big, really big, so it makes sense to fill it with ships that are also big! That’s the basic concept of Dreadnought, a team-based capital ship ‘em up from YAGER Development.

Currently in closed beta, Dreadnought is a more thoughtful, slower-paced take on a space shooter. The ships in the game are large, and as such they take time to pick up speed and manoeuvre, even the nimbler ships have a lot of heft to them. This gives the game a very naval feel with the ships acting more like battleships and carriers than nimble fighters.

This makes positioning and tactics far more important than “running and gunning”, being out in the open is not something you want to happen, inevitable on occasion but carefully weighing up the situation is the order of the day here.

That’s not to say there is no action, once an attack kicks off it gets very chaotic, not panicking and using all your ship's abilities wisely can make or break an encounter. There are a variety of ship types, from the titular hulking dreadnoughts to destroyers and faster nimble corvettes with multiple designs for each.

Every ship fills a different role, from harassment through to sniping and even healing and support. There are a bevy of upgrades you unlock as you rank up as well helping you customise and specialise your favourite ship even further.

As well as your primary and secondary weapons, which can be a variety of laser and missile types, there are also abilities along with active and passive bonuses that you gain from modules. These abilities allow you to perform a variety of actions, from warping out of harm's way and self-repair to firing energy mines and performing a shockwave.

All of these things look to give a wide variety of customisation so you should be able to find a combination that suits your playstyle. Tweaking a ship like the Aion (which is predominantly support in its default loadout) to be more aggressive is a good way to keep opponents on their toes.

In its current form Dreadnought has two game modes, Team Deathmatch and Team Elimination, both five versus five. These both play how you’d expect with Elimination giving you a single life and when the whole team are destroyed it’s game over.

However the developers have also recently talked about another game mode, Onslaught, which is an eight versus eight format that also has AI controlled ships on the battlefield. This mode currently has no ETA but shows promise that more will be coming to the game.

It is also a very pretty game, using Unreal Engine 4 to power the visuals. The environments and weapon effects look great. The game is planned to release at some point in 2016 and based on what is currently available it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on if you are looking for some more methodical and thoughtful engagements to keep you occupied.

Dreadnought is due for release sometime in 2016 and is currently in closed beta, you can find out more about the game as well as how to gain access to the closed beta on the official site here.