Space games have made a bit of a dent in the industry lately. Between Star Citizen, Elite: Dangerous, Rebel Galaxy, Dreadnought, and others, we’ve seen the industry trend shift toward a revisit to one of the oldest genres. Dreadnought takes a different approach from its space sim counterparts, focusing instead on more FPS-styled obliteration of opposing teams.

We’ve previewed Dreadnought twice now. The first time – PAX South – the game had little competition in the way of other on-site booths, easily ranking it among the best games at the show. We then saw Dreadnought at PAX East about six months ago, where we reported on team elimination gameplay (see: Counter-Strike in space) and remarked that the game had gotten steadily better. That trend hasn’t stopped. Our PAX 2015 hands-on with Dreadnought reveals more gameplay, customization mechanics, and monetization avenues.

Our first hands-on with Dreadnought explained the game's positioning in what feels like a saturated space game market. Dreadnought, unlike many of its counterparts, is not a space sim and is paced more like an FPS. The game pits players against one another in 5v5 space combat using massive ships, each manned with hundreds of crew. To this end, the game moves away from the commonality of small-scale dog-fighting combat and plays more like a naval battle.