Core Space Evolves With New 2nd Edition Announced!
May 11, 2026 by brennon
Battle Systems has announced that it's now time for Core Space to evolve into a new 2nd Edition, which will be coming to Gamefound soon. A recent article by the team talked about what's changing, why it's changing and what will be familiar to longtime players of the game.
Core Space 2nd Edition // Battle Systems
Core Space: Evolution has been the culmination of years and years of development. It has been around for about seven years at this point and rather than the game simply being reprinted, the idea was that the team would work at adding in new concepts, play around with beloved elements of the game and then come back to it with a fresh 2nd Edition of the Sci-Fi skirmish game.
One of the core elements of the game that seemed to work was the Rogue Purge and so that has also evolved into the new edition of the game. They are now the adversary that you'll be facing as you dive into the game, now with their own agenda and the option to explore sprawling narrative campaigns where you'll have to see how your interactions with them will play out.
Get To The Ship // Core Space
Whilst there will be some changes to the game, they are mainly there to streamline the experience. A lot of the fiddly bits have been tweaked and it will still feel like Core Space. You will still have the immersive gameplay based around 3D terrain, ways to delve into campaigns where you level up your crew but now you'll be able to experience branching narratives that give you more to do with your crew!
You'll also still be playing as a variety of fascinating characters but also be able to meet loads of fun NPCs. Sixty-plus of them are going to be sticking around so that gives you an idea of just what Battle Systems has planned with this!
Alien Exploration // Core Space
Core Space: Evolution will, from the start, focus on solo and cooperative gameplay just like Maladum does at the moment for Fantasy fans. If you do want to bring in the crew versus crew skirmishes, then there will be a separate game mode that allows you to dive into that.
Rest assured, all of this is being tested and fine-tuned by the team at Battle Systems right now and they are going to be delving deeper into the changes to the game in the run-up to the Gamefound campaign launch.
Hurried Search // Core Space
There are probably lots of questions that you have going around in your head about this update and what it means for Core Space and your collection. Well, Battle Systems has tried to answer that in their big announcement post. You can read that HERE and get all of the details.
If that all sounds cool to you, then make sure to also check out the Core Space: Evolution Gamefound campaign. You'll find more information about the game there and be notified of when the campaign goes live.
What do you make of a new edition for Core Space?
"There are probably lots of questions that you have going around in your head about [...] Core Space and your collection. Battle Systems has tried to answer that in their big announcement post..."
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From the posts and announcements thus far, all the changes really look exciting. Crews of 6. A better experience system. Experience/skills for NPCs and adversaries. Refining the dice results. The real challenge will be waiting for the campaign and subsequent release!
Core space has always been on my list of want to try out games, perhaps a new edition will get me hooked. I also love the sci-fi terrain sets from battle systems, super quick and fun, and great for this type of game!
I love Core Space and I have been a huge fan of Battle Systems ever since their first Kickstarter, however the move to a fully co-op game leaves me a little hesitant to get excited about this. I know they have said there will be a separate game mode so you can continue to play crew-vs-crew skirmishes, but part of the beauty of the original game was that semi cooperative element of the campaign. If the new game has a crew-vs-crew mode that is separate to the main campaign mode then I am sorry to say, 2nd edition will absolutely have lost one of the most fundamental aspects of the original game, despite any claims to the contrary. I look forward to hearing more, and I am obviously excited for new terrain sets, but I shall reserve judgement on the game updates for now.
Confirmed by battle systems – the campaign/story mode is now just a co-op dungeon crawler like Maladum. The skirmish mode is for one off games but isn’t compatible with the main campaign; so not so much Core Space as Maladum in Space. I suspect I may forego the game and just look at getting some new terrain. Bit disappointed really, big Core Space fan and would have loved a new Core Space campaign and some streamlined rules but removing that crew vs crew aspect of the game, it just becomes another dungeon crawler that I neither need nor want
Yup, the original Core Space was the one where two Crews “might” square off (particularly if someone finds a bit of uber loot). Battle Systems them made First Born as the “solo” or co-operative version of Core Space. But Gamers being Gamers that who wanted to play the game as a solo/Co-operative experience them demanded that they wanted to use Core Space (rather than play the game that had been crafted towards that style of play). So you got stories of Gamers playing Core Space “solo” with both Crews acting as one big mega crew and no PvP fighting happening at all (then we got moans about how the game was “easy”, and they found that their Crews were hitting max about halfway through the campaign).
So it looks like they are remaking the game to play in this “style”, and losing the PvP (with AI factions in the mix to add yet more chaos to the game). Although they are making a free upgrade package to allow you to use your original Core Space crews (no word on things like the Galactic Patrol, or Zebs gang being playable as an AI faction). It would be even better if they did a “retro” upgrade pack to allow you to use the new mini and crews with the original Core Space (now THAT I would be interested in). But at the end of the day Core Space V1.0 still exists and plays exactly the same as it did before the announcement of Core Space V2.0. But ay the end of the day V2.0 is to cater to those players who demanded to play as PvP game as co-op, and then wondered why things broke in the original campaign 🙁
They’ve mentioned that the Upgrade Pack will have all the characters and civilians they’ve done thus far, so pretty comprehensive.
Also, while the game seems to be designed for cooperative/collaborative play, there’s nothing stopping you from playing it Crew Vs. Crew. Seems like it would be a very easy thing to house rule.
I think it’s likely much easier to house role from vs to co-op than it is to go the other way. There was always the option to play co-operatively if you wanted; as @phaidknott says the game doesn’t force you to fight each other although it’s somewhat imbalanced if you don’t. There is a lot more work involved in translating fully co-op, party based dungeon crawler into a pvp game than there is to go from something that was already partly co-operative to fully co-operative. This is a real step away from what made Core Space such a fun and unique experience. I have many dungeon crawlers which, while mechanically diverse, ultimately offer the same experience. Core Space offered something very different and moving to co-op places v2.0 into the dungeon crawler category with all the others.
Just had a look at the intelligible mess I posted (me and smart phone touch screens do not mix well), but back to the issue at hand. No matter if the game is PvP or Co-Op the issue arises in the “rewards” for each mission (loot or exp). Now the game is easier Co-Op and when PvP your crew members are more like to die (or run away). So the rewards for a PvP campaign need to be balanced at a higher rate. The issue we’ve seem with players trying to shoehorn a Co-Op playstyle into the existing PvP campaign is that the rewards are then too easy to get, your crew members are more likely to be successful and overall risk is significantly lower. My kids absolutely LOVE backstabbing their Dad in this game (leaves them in fits of giggles), while Co-Op would probably feel a bit bland (after all who wants to co-operate with your Dad). It’s a shame that Battle Systems are moving towards offering two different styles of games to just one, as players seemingly refuse to co-operate with the game designers and play the games as intended. First Born is great for solo/Co-Op gameplay (after all that was what it was designed for), yet we even get players wanting to play the game as a PvP game instead. I don’t know why Wargamers are such contrarians these days, they always want to mess around with the game’s rules and then moan when things go wrong after their changes (like it’s the original game designers fault 🙁 ).
It just feels like they haven’t considered the player interactions that were part of core space to be part of the game, only the written mechanics
Yup, but at the end of the day lets not kid ourselves. We’re all going to be pledging for it anyway (the minis and terrain is just too nice not to have). No doubt I’ll be pledging “all in” from Battle Systems (again) 😀