Armed with your space fighter you are tasked with various missions by talking to NPCs at hub stations. Missions range from kill’em all style you-against-the-hoard, Escort and Protect and the more dull scan the object. In fact I found most of the content reminiscent of 1990s era space sims. The fights come thick and fast in Black Prophecy and you can easily find yourself overwhelmed by the enemy fighters on some harder missions. So the game definitely keeps you on your toes, that’s not to say there isn’t enough milk runs to go around either though. But overall I find the game finds a good difficulty balance on the missions.

So what do you get for completing missions? Well like in common RPG Fantasy MMOs you earn experience that levels you up, which in turn lets you invest skills point into various skills. In Black Prophecy Gold skill points only unlock the ability to use better ship equipment rather than boost the stats of your character. For example putting more points in the energy weapons skill allows you to buy and equip better energy weapons. Only skill that doesn’t involve unlocking equipment is Tactics which instead gives you the ability to pull special manoeuvres in your space fighter.
The equipment is used in the MMOs modular ship system. The cockpit, engines, weapons, shields and wings are represented as modules you can switch out and replace with better ones, allowing you to customize your ship to suit your play style. This is helped by having 3 distinct weapon systems, Energy, Explosives and Mechanical, each having their own strengths and weaknesses. As a tip I would recommend to pick one and specialize in it if you are a new player. I liked the module system it gives the game some good depth and allows for experimentation. Although there is no doubting the optimum module combinations will have been discovered now by the best Black Prophecy players.

The PvE contents main aim though is basically helping you build up a better ship to prepare you for Black Prophecy Gold ’s Endgame. This is based around PvP team missions done with PUGs or Clans. Clans also have the ability to build their own space stations which also come with their own modular system. I didn’t get far enough through my time playing to experience this side of the game, although its an aspect that really appeals to me.