There is a very solid co-op experience at the core of Undercrewed. It starts when you and your friends choose a ship layout and then decided where to place the various components and rooms, it continues when you have to crew that ship and try to survive against hordes of enemy spacecraft, and then it seemingly concludes when the ship's hull finally succumbs to incoming fire and everyone gets sucked out into space. I say "seemingly" as there's a whole progression/skill tree system David is still implementing, but the general idea is that one of your friends could specialize in weapons while another focuses on engines/ship repairs. In other words, you can truly form a dedicated crew.

The blending of those two titles isn't too far off from what appears to be the core gameplay. You (and up to three of your buddies either locally, online, or a mix of the two) design your own space station, choosing the general layout and where certain key ship functions (shields, maneuvering, weapons, etc) are placed. The placement of those things are important as you'll have to "man your stations" when faced with enemy ships. You don't want to have run all the way across the station to get to the shields at a critical moment in a firefight! There also appears to be a skill tree that branches into four different paths (Captain, Engineering, Weapons, and Medical) so players can spec into certain roles/classes.