If you and your crew are looking for a new co-op game to play, you’re in luck. Jump Space, the squad space shooter that blends Helldivers 2 style on-the-ground action with the ability to fly between missions like you’re in No Man’s Sky, is holding a lengthy free weekend. That makes now the perfect time to round up your friends and all give it a try without worrying about the commitment of slapping down your hard-earned cash. In even better news, developer Keepsake Games has just dropped an anniversary update that adds some great quality-of-life features and a wider range of difficulty levels.
You might remember Jump Space for its hugely successful Steam Next Fest campaign in June 2025, where it racked up over half a million players. Back then, it was still going by the name ‘Jump Ship,’ which was changed a few weeks prior to its eventual release date in September. We’re now one year on from the start of early access, and Keepsake is celebrating the milestone with the launch of its anniversary update and the aforementioned free weekend.
If you haven’t seen Jump Space before, the gist is that you, whether solo or in a team of up to four, dive down onto planets and stations to battle your way through hostile forces in search of valuable gear, ship components, and other loot. The missions are hand-crafted but with randomization to ensure every run feels different. Then you return to your spacecraft for upgrades and repairs, before flying across the stars to your next destination. Along the way, you might get into ship battles or engage in spacewalks to explore promising wreckages.
The Jump Space anniversary update makes quite a few improvements, starting with a difficulty overhaul. The old ‘challenge ratings,’ now redubbed ‘threat levels,’ have been expanded from five to eight, not just to make it harder but to smooth out the progression and avoid “frustrating difficulty spikes.” It’ll feel easier early on, but by rank eight, Keepsake warns missions will “feel borderline impossible unless you’re locked in, play smart, have endgame-level gear, and show great teamwork with your crew (if you’re in co-op).”
Alongside this comes new enemy tiers, with varying colors to indicate their danger and titles indicating modifiers like “overclocked” or “bruiser.” As a counter-cheese measure, “unfairly” shooting ground enemies from your ship can now cause them to chase you on board, and hostiles that make their way onto your craft will also target ship weak points along with players. They’ll ignore people in the pilot seat, combat seat, or scanner station in favor of this, so you won’t get swarmed by surprise, but your systems might be in trouble.
Keepsake has also introduced an auto-save system that triggers with each jump to a new sector, avoiding any annoying progression wipes if you run into mid-run crashes or surprise disconnects. You’ll be able to continue your current mission from the main menu. Player inventories have been upgraded as well: they’re now separated into three separate tiers for weapons, consumables, and general storage, totaling to “more slots than before.”
The old Multi-Tool has been transformed into the Materia Gun, and is now just a regular weapon that can appear as loot and isn’t required for opening doors or performing repairs (this is handled by a separate gadget). Materia Guns can appear with a variety of modules if you’re after a smaller backup weapon that has infinite ammo. Last but not least, “large stability fixes” should help ensure the game runs as smoothly as possible. All that, and you can jump in without spending a thing to see how it feels one year on.
Jump Space is playable for free on Steam from Thursday, September 17 through Monday, September 21. Head here if you want to give it a try.
Keepsake says you can expect to hear more news on the next major update in early October, with the release loosely planned to arrive sometime around December. “We hope to make that one as big and exciting as the Weapons Update,” it remarks, and even teases, “Depending on how well this free weekend goes and if we get a little boost in sales and attention, we might have some more great news to share.”