Orbitals Doesn't Just Capture The Retro Anime Look, But Its Childlike Wonder As Well
Overview & Key Takeaways
With its anime art style and high-energy soundtrack, Orbitals immediately made a splash when it was announced during last year's Game Awards. Developed by Shapefarm and published by Kepler Interactive--the publisher behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33--the co-op platformer adventure game aims to authentically capture the anime feeling via a collaboration with Studio Massket. The Japanese animation studio, known for its work on shows like Attack on Titan, has partnered with developers to craft all of Orbitals' cutscenes, and, after spending about an hour with the title, I can confirm it very much feels like an anime you can play.
After the team's work on Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker and Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, Orbitals was born out of a desire to continue crafting games with anime characters in amazing worlds, but with an original intellectual property. The co-op-only gameplay style has become an increasingly prominent genre following the success of games like Hazelight Studios' It Takes Two and Split Fiction--a fact that Orbitals game director Jakob Lungdren, a former level designer for Hazelight Studios, is keenly aware of. With this combined history as a development team, the path to Orbitals was inevitable.
Orbitals is driven by two pillars: retro anime and co-op play. Ahead of our hands-on session, creative director Marcos Ramos joked, "Other games have three pillars, we have two--more efficient." There are many facets that make up both pillars, however. Orbitals aims to encapsulate not just the look and storytelling of retro anime, but also the feeling of sitting at home watching it as a child. And its co-op gameplay is designed to test communication and coordination while creating fun, emergent moments with asymmetrical game design.
With its anime art style and high-energy soundtrack, Orbitals immediately made a splash when it was announced during last year's Game Awards. Developed by Shapefarm and published by Kepler Interactive--the publisher behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33--the co-op platformer adventure game aims to authentically capture the anime feeling via a collaboration with Studio Massket. The Japanese animation studio, known for its work on shows like Attack on Titan, has partnered with developers to craft all of Orbitals' cutscenes, and, after spending about an hour with the title, I can confirm it very much feels like an anime you can play.
After the team's work on Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker and Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, Orbitals was born out of a desire to continue crafting games with anime characters in amazing worlds, but with an original intellectual property. The co-op-only gameplay style has become an increasingly prominent genre following the success of games like Hazelight Studios' It Takes Two and Split Fiction--a fact that Orbitals game director Jakob Lungdren, a former level designer for Hazelight Studios, is keenly aware of. With this combined history as a development team, the path to Orbitals was inevitable.
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Now Playing: Orbitals Hands-On Preview
Orbitals is driven by two pillars: retro anime and co-op play. Ahead of our hands-on session, creative director Marcos Ramos joked, "Other games have three pillars, we have two--more efficient." There are many facets that make up both pillars, however. Orbitals aims to encapsulate not just the look and storytelling of retro anime, but also the feeling of sitting at home watching it as a child. And its co-op gameplay is designed to test communication and coordination while creating fun, emergent moments with asymmetrical game design.
The narrative woven by Orbitals is a classic shonen story, filled with twists and turns that are both funny and sweet. Set 15 years after a storm sealed off their settlement, best friends Maki and Omura venture into space on a mission to save their people. In an opening sequence, we see the duo as young children being hastily thrown into a sort of consciousness-uploading machine as disaster unfolds around them.
These contraptions are the narrative reason why Maki and Omura immediately reform after taking what would otherwise be deadly damage. Whether using these consciousness uploaders will have darker consequences down the line is uncertain, but I wouldn't call the framing around them positive.
The hands-on consisted of two parts: one near the beginning of the game, as the duo was preparing to venture out on their own, and another set later on, where we were tasked with exploring the Dark Matter Caves in search of a reactor cassette. Though the "why" of these cassettes wasn't delved into much during the demo, we know they contain some kind of valuable information that will help Maki and Omura deal with the mysterious cosmic storm surrounding their settlement.
The personalities of Maki and Omura are immediately distinct and charming. Even small things, like the style in which each of them picks up the ship's resident cat, wordlessly communicate their contrasting temperaments: Maki is far too eager, scooping them up with a child-like fervor the creature doesn't particularly enjoy, while Omura's approach is much calmer and more well-received.
My partner and I got an even better sense of the characters as we explored the settlement, finding a myriad of different little worldbuilding details and interactions each character could have. Some of my personal favorite finds were a repairman working outside in space, letting his body be rotated by the lack of gravity as a way to slowly turn a screwdriver, and a poor napping scientist on whom Maki opted to draw a marker moustache. Some bits were more illuminating of lore, too, like finding the space that housed all the glowing tubes of consciousness that keep the settlement dwellers alive.
After getting our fill of playfully torturing our fellow residents, my partner and I armed ourselves with a scrap hook and liquid launcher and turned our attention to the necessary ship repairs that had to be done before we could set off. Something Orbitals does differently from its co-op-only cohorts is not locking abilities behind what character players have chosen. Unlike in games like It Takes Two, where more than once I found myself jealous of the item my partner got to work with, Maki and Omura can easily swap their tools.
Things started simply, putting out a few fires, followed by easy synergistic problem solving, like my partner using the hook to open latches and then me activating the circuitry inside. These were fun minigames that quickly got more complex, like one I can best describe as a sort of two-player version of the Stardew Valley fishing minigame, where we had to work together to bring a water level up and down in line with a target.
Once we'd finished this pre-takeoff checklist and blasted off, we shifted over to the second portion of the demo, which took us to the Deep Matter Caves in search of a reactor cassette. As we journeyed inside the reactor core, we manned a floating vehicle that you steered by stepping on either side. Navigating the twisty, hazard-filled core was a feat of teamwork in and of itself, and we also each had to stay vigilant as to when we might need to use our tools.
My partner maintained their scrap hook from before, while I'd switched over to a ray gun. I used mine to clear poisonous gas and light up crystals that showed us the way, while he utilized the hook to wrap us around tight corners and activate a gate. It was all brilliantly fun, requiring a fair amount of trial and error, but with more than enough laughter over our failures to ease the pain.
It's hard to pinpoint why--maybe it's the randomness of some of the tasks, or the lighthearted way the game treats mistakes, never making you lose meaningful progress or go back too far in a level--but there really is something about Orbitals that captures the childlike magic the team was aiming for.
After we exited the vehicle, both of us had audible reactions of excitement as things shifted over from our 3rd person driving to side-scrolling action in the next section, as we took turns helping one another across gaps. A co-op tale as old as time, sure, but clever-yet-silly mechanics meant it never felt stale. Much of my duties involved activating what essentially were mini-black holes to spin my partner over gaps with, and it was always hilarious to see them hurled off in a completely different direction than I'd intended.
This all culminated in what's one of my proudest gaming moments to date, in which we had to navigate a particularly tricky final spurt. Standing on the ground, it was my job to keep an anti-gravity beam activated for Omura as I moved him across the gap, while also jumping over a log-like obstacle that was rolling back and forth. Meanwhile, in the sky, my partner had to move up and down within the beam to dodge floating mines as we crossed. Somehow, perhaps through some kind of next-level nakama power moment, we cleared the area in just one attempt.
It seems like the various quests Maki and Omura go on to search for reactor cassettes will take them to themed--or, if not themed, at least distinct--areas, in terms of the puzzles and hazards that await them there. While the journey we ventured on dealt with dark matter (and was coincidentally quite dark), during the initial presentation for the game, developers showed us another area that was music-themed. In one area, the duo had to complete what was essentially a Dance Dance Revolution-esque puzzle, keeping rhythm as button prompts flowed across the screen; in another, they needed to rhythmically beat a drum in tandem to unlock something.
What stood out more than anything else from this preview was just what you'd hope for from a co-op game: its high potential for silly fun and shared moments. From purposefully hurling my partner to their doom via black hole, to when we took a break from puzzling to having a cowboy-style back-to-back stand off with our tools (for anyone else who wishes to attempt this, the scrap hook definitely has a clear advantage), there was never any shortage of player-induced chaos and the laughter that comes with it. Upon release, Orbitals will offer co-op both locally and online as well as GameShare compatibility, making it easy to team up as Maki and Omura.
Orbitals expertly cultivates genuine communication (even when that communication is, "I'm going to hurl you into the abyss now") and cooperation in a world that feels welcoming and alive. It's visually stunning, with gorgeous cel-shading mixed with hand-painted effects that do really make it feel like you're exploring an anime world. It's certainly a game anyone looking to go on an anime adventure together should keep an eye on, with a high likelihood of being one of the most captivating co-op games the genre has seen yet.
