Ships That Fight Underground

Descent: Underground, STFU

Release Date: October 22, 2015 Early Access

Action, FPP, science fiction, FPS, crowdfunding, indie games, co-op, space ships, shooters, multiplayer, singleplayer, internet

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A spiritual successor of the Descent series. In Ships That Fight Underground we play as a pilot for one of the megacorporations in the future. We can participate in combat missions, as well as focus on collecting resources or transporting goods. There many ships available.

From STFU to Descent and back
Plot
Mechanics
Game modes
Technical aspects

Ships That Fight Underground is a futuristic 6DoF-type shooter. This abbreviation comes from English and means "six degrees of freedom", which refers to the freedom we have when moving around the game's environment during play.

From STFU to Descent and back

Work on this project began at the initiative of Descendent Studios, a development team established in 2014, led by Eric Peterson - co-creator of such titles as Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom, Starlancer and Star Citizen. Its creation was made possible, among other things, thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.

The game was born as a spiritual successor to the cult series Descent. It was titled Ships That Fight Underground (STFU). Over time, thanks to the license the authors received from Interplay, it transformed into Descent: Underground, which was supposed to be a prequel to the series, and at the same time its fourth installment (or fifth, if we count the unreleased Descent 4).

In 2017, Descendent Studios started their cooperation with Little Orbit, which was to finance and publish Descent: Underground. Unfortunately, over the next few months, the cooperation ceased to go according to the developers' plan, who accused the publisher of breach of contract and lack of funding for the project. The result of that was a court battle that lasted for years and finally ended with a settlement.

As a result of the latter, Little Orbit acquired all rights to the project from Descendent Studios. As the license from Interplay expired in the meantime, the new-old owner of the game decided to return to its original name, i.e. Ships That Fight Underground.

Plot

Ships That Fight Underground features us a bleak vision of the future. After Earth's resources were depleted, national governments went bankrupt, and humanity stood on the brink of collapse. The last hope for its survival became mega-corporations, reaping unimaginable profits from trading resources obtained from asteroids.

During the game we take on the role of a spaceship pilot whose task is to both collect resources and eliminate enemy units, and thus thwart the plans of other corporations.

Mechanics

In Ships That Fight Underground we watch the action from a first-person perspective (FPP). We play as a pilot working for one of the megacorporations.

The game provides us with flying machines representing various classes. They include assault and defensive ships, as well as mining and transport ships. While sitting at the controls of one of them, we eliminate enemies using a futuristic arsenal, as well as obtain and transport resources (or steal them from our opponents).

As befits a game that draws heavily on the achievements of the Descent series, we often operate in tight tunnels hollowed out under the surface of asteroids, through which we move in full three dimensions. Thanks to this, even though the underground corridors are not very spacious, we can effectively maneuver during skirmishes.

As we progress, we improve our ship by installing various modifications that affect its firepower or the hull resistance. Thanks to this, over time we can face increasingly greater challenges. Additionally, we collect various cosmetic accessories during the game.

Game modes

In Ships That Fight Underground we can find a single-player campaign and a multiplayer mode in which we can focus either on competition or on cooperation.