Do I recommend this game? Absolutely. I recommend it to friends; I’ve even brought it up at work and school. And I will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Nebulous has had a literal and genuine impact on my life, and ill get into how in this.

Nebulous, for all its complexity, somehow manages to be an incredibly approachable game for someone even with minimal to no genre exposure. The combination of naval and space, resulting in something not quite either, lends itself to not being too grounded in either, and thus hard to approach. There are no prenotions of what you could know, no need to worry about orbital dynamics or complex ship armor schemes. If you take the time to do the tutorials and familiarize yourself with the controls, you will have all the knowledge you need to play the game, and nothing is assumed. You can explain playing the game in a single sentence at its most basic level. “M to move, right click on red things to give fire orders” and that is perfectly adequate for playing the game. As a joke, I once attempted to win a 1v1 with less than five orders. I only needed 3, and I won. Those being move (1x), orbit (1x), and fire (1x). This gives the game a shockingly low-skill floor and barrier for entry.

That is not to say that is all the game offers; if you want to improve, optimize, or learn the background calculations that give this game its simulator aspects, there is a lot to learn. Especially in regards to radar and electronic warfare, both of which are incredibly simulation-heavy and involve a nausea-inducing amount of math to understand fully -- but you do not have to do any of that in-game; its just there if you know and wish to capitalize on aspects like angling your armor to give off a lower RCS, or other elements. More experienced players can run higher ship count fleets more confidently as well, be it the insanity of playing a 1v4, or just running a capping fleet in-game and managing three fights across a board. The skill ceiling is relatively high and not something I’ve even come close to reaching. I still learn new things all the time.

Outside of the more theoretical side of things, the gameplay of Nebulous is, at least as far as I’ve come across, extremely unique.

The fleet editor, while not totally free hand, provides far and away enough variation to tune your tools and hulls to your near-exacting specifications. There is not a single other game I can name where you ask someone how to build something as decently specific as a “gun light cruiser”, and then immediately incite a debate as everyone in the room attempts to give you contrasting advice on the specifics -- none of which is incorrect. There are things that can be agreed upon, for sure, but nearly everyone has their own little spin on how to do that specific archetype, and all of them keep that style because…well, it works! I still remember when a community member I respect quite a deal told me after spectating one of my games “I've been watching a lot of games lately, seeing how people work this was by far the most novel” because I have a rather particular style of cap fleet I run with an unconventionally built cruiser to support it. The next day they sent me a screenshot of an after-action, with their spin on my style of fleet having won a match with it. Nebulous allows you this fantastic customization and then manages to avoid homogenization on a specific optimal build. Nearly anything you can create in the editor, provided tweaks, playstyle adaptations, and a little experience, can be viable.

That leads nicely into my next point of what makes neb so interesting: Metas, or rather, the incredibly short duration and near non-existence of them. There are stronger builds, to be sure; some builds are considered out of favor, but there's no hard rules here. I’ve seen people take and build ships that everyone would hands down agree is a throw build, and then watch that build demolish a server. When someone designs or starts playing a build that is notably stronger, sometimes it's a balance reason, but many times its just because it counters whatever the current in-favor builds do. This creates this fascinating cycle of builds and counter-builds in the multiplayer scene that shakes things up. CMD missiles are incredibly common? People start incorporating communications jammers and radar jammers to blind the scouts giving the track. This pushes CMD seekers out due to the inability to hit, which causes people to cut the points on the jammers to afford counters to other threats, leading to CMD returning. This is one of but certainly not the only cyclical meta in the game, but it's a fairly straightforward one.

The multiplayer cycles lets me segue into the next bit here: the community. I won't lie, some folks give it a bit of a bad rep, but I think that's true for pretty much every gaming community and I won't dwell on them because the rest of the community is pretty fantastic. We have a pingable buddy role -- basically a sherpa or guide role, if that clarifies things. If you ping it, you will not only have someone there in probably 30s or less but there may, in fact, be multiple people who are now going to (politely) bicker over who gets to help you because they want to help too. Need help designing a fleet? How much advice do you want, just general suggestions or full design blueprints? Struggling with an archetype? Heres a fleet we use for you to study. Its not rare in the game for higher-ranked players to join teams with the lowest-ranked players, and if they dont, there's a setting that can be used to give the disadvantaged team a leg-up on the score to help even out the game that sees fairly frequent use.

As a last note, this game is pretty. Maybe not in a conventional, RTX-on kind of way, but it has its charm and style. Watching the fights occur, missiles curve around rocks to strike hulls, distant reactor blooms, and specific maps are just a visual treat. The sound design is excellent as well, and there are lots of audio tricks that keep you both engaged and aware. The soundtrack (though one must turn it off at some point, as there's only a handful of tracks that get somewhat repetitive), also has fantastic vibes for the game, especially your first time booting up that fleet editor; it really contributes to the wonder and exploration of what you can do with the hulls

Rounding out this rather lengthy review, I want to elaborate on my claim of the game having “a literal and genuine impact on my life”: Modding. Modding in nebulous is, honestly somewhat spoiled by the developer. Mazer supports it to a ridiculous extent; you dont need to code to make something like 80% of mod content. Its all there for you. But there are still bits you need to learn, which once I got involved in modding, I had to do. From Nebulous, I have learned how to make visual effects, learned bits of sound design, gotten into voice acting (my first non-neb project released just a week ago), learned to 3d model and texture (though am rather horrible at that element), and gotten into creative writing and worldbuilding. I have a complex faction, with its own equipment, lore, visual effects, sound effects, all of which I have created and begun putting into nebulous, to see the ships fly and the weapons come to life. I have learned, so much from this process, genuine applicable life skills and experience with the creative process I have just, never gotten from anywhere else. So for that alone, this game holds a place in my heart, yet it is a fantastic game with a tremendous and enjoyable community on top of it all.

See you on the battlespace, commander.