Hutlihut Games have finally released their third ship to the wildly ambitious star ship crewing roguelite that is Void Crew. The game released on PS5 with only two ships available to players, the Frigate and the Destroyer. Both of those have very different play styles and can sustain a crew of vastly different sizes.

One thing mentioned in the developer’s log was that they recognized the jump in size from the Frigate to the Destroyer, which as an avid player I have to agree with. It’s like driving a sedan then hopping into an 18 wheeler. The amount of management it takes for the smaller Frigate is miniscule compared with the juggling act you have to perform to keep the Destroyer in working, combat order. Recognizing this, the developers decided to create a new ship, one that fits the size between a Frigate and the Destroyer. Thus, the Striker was born.

The Striker has a very unique design. While the Frigate and the Destroyer are long, almost cylindrical in design, the Striker is wildly different. The developers describe it as a croissant shaped ship that has a completely open concept on the interior, allowing for easy maintenance and traversal to quickly repair system malfunctions. This interior design choice has to be the best in the game. For me as a solo player, it’s very easy to throw the ship into auto pilot while I quickly fix my engine trim or load something into the payload launcher. Yes, I usually run with the auto mechanic off to route power to something more important.

With the other two ships, you are forced to essentially designate one side of your ship to be the combat side while the other to be your utility side. Trust me, if you haven’t played this or any kind of naval combat game, there is nothing more satisfying than turning full broadside to an enemy and unloading every bit of firepower you have on them. I got so used to this style of gameplay that I was a bit unsure of how to even approach the Striker in terms of weapon placements and utility modules.

Imagine the Striker as having wings. In the front wings, you have four slots to install your modules and two in the back. In my experience, I placed my power generators in the back to free up as much room as possible, but this now leaves you in a tricky situation. Your weapons, defensive, and utility modules all have to share the forward slots on the ship, making it a balancing act of what you decide is most important. For me, I would install two utility modules on either side of the bridge, then pack three weapons on one side, two on the other, then on the last slot at the end I would install my shield generator to cover the front and sides. Since all your weapons are forward-facing in this ship, there should be no reason to give your aft (back) to the enemy.

This style of play took some getting used to since we’re all so used to broadside tactics. It’s a welcomed change of pace! Instead of craning your character’s neck in first person mode to see the enemy, you now have them in your forward viewports at all times. You also have to master using your strafing boosters as a pilot instead of just flying straight and back. This was also a fun change since prior to using the Striker, I never really used strafing at all, which led to some awesome combat encounters.

All in all I would say that the Striker is a worthy addition to Void Crew and allows players to come up with unique solutions in the never ending fight against the Hollow. Instead of giving the relentless hordes a taste of a full broadside, we can now move with the grace of a heavy fighter/corvette and square up nose to nose with even the mightiest that the Hollow can throw at us.

Until the next update in Void Crew, keep it right here with your pals at The Pixel Parlor.

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