Dreadnought is about spaceships—emphasis on 'ships,' timid ensign voice on 'space.' Not X-Wings or Vipers: think Galaxy-class vessels, trading missiles and laser fire across vast battlefields—in space, eventually, but I didn't see a space map during Yager's demonstration. Instead, I fought over a rocky red desert, commanding a hovering battleship with enough room for the population of San Francisco and the maneuverability of a Spanish galleon. Maybe a little slower than a galleon.
Rather than giving us the scrappy little fighters we usually pilot in space sims, Dreadnought takes inspiration from the giant ship battles of classic sci-fi stuff: Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, and Star Wars, namely. It'll be free-to-play when it releases, with 5v5 (maybe more) multiplayer and an episodic single-player campaign. Right now, Yager is only showing team deathmatch, but it also has a team elimination mode and more in the works. Because of some network problems (the ISP, not the game), we played 2v2 locally instead of 5v5.
The pace reminds me of MechWarrior Online. Even Dreadnought's smaller, sleeker corvette class ships—which the devs compared to the Millennium Falcon—are a bit cumbersome. Unlike MechWarrior, however, I got a few kills (true, they were going easy). Dreadnought is easier to pick up—much less sim-ey—but I can already see a lot of tactical possibilities.
As a low-profile support ship, for instance, I hid in the shadow of a massive dreadnought class ally, using healing rays to keep my cover alive and popping out to harass bigger ships with my phaser-like beam. This isn't a flight sim, clearly. The ships hover. You can raise and lower altitude, but you're not so much flying as you are steering a boat with an extra dimension.
