Rebel Galaxy: Ex-Torchlight Folks' Space Sandbox

A crafty crew of space-outlaws can scrape by on the edge of known space by trading, stealing, scavenging, negotiating, exploring, and fighting as long as they have a reliable spaceship, popular media tells me. Now imagine such an outfit of scamps in control of a destroyer bristling with guns. That's Rebel Galaxy, the first game from Travis Baldree and Erich Schaefer's new outfit Double Damage Games. You might remember those two as founding members of Torchlight devs Runic Games, or from Mythos and Diablo respectively before that. This isn't quite an action-RPG, though.

Double Damage call Rebel Galaxy "a swashbuckling space adventure" -- not a strategy game but more than just a shooter. It's set in a procedurally-generated space-sandbox where you can get by as you please, but violence and skulduggery seem particularly encouraged. Ships have big old broadside guns as well as moveable turrets, making for battles of manoeuvres. They still look jolly nippy though, not lumbering old boats. And, of course, rebels can buy different ships, from corvettes to dreadnoughts, and customise them with weapons and equipment.

It has a social side too. Captains develop relationships with military and civilian factions, or can simply giggle to themselves as they go for insulting dialogue options. Provoking people is an important part of a maverick outlaw captain's duties, after all.

Polygon have a big fancy interview with Double Damage about all sorts of things as well.

Double Damage is only Baldree and Schaefer with a whole load of contractors chipping in. "We wanted to make smaller, quicker games (though I doubt people will find Rebel Galaxy to be small), in a way not accountable to investors or suits, and not responsible for managing big teams," they say. Their pair left Runic, which is mostly owned by free-to-play MMO specialist Perfect World, in March.

Expect Rebel Galaxy in 2015. Here's the announcement trailer: