80s animation meets Hazelight-inspired co-op for dominance.

There's been a ton of hype around Orbitals since the anime-inspired co-op adventure was revealed at The Game Awards last year and confirmed as a Switch 2 exclusive. Between its unique aesthetic and early comparisons to Hazelight's It Takes Two and Split Fiction, expectations are understandably high. From what I've played, I'm confident that Shapefarm's upcoming sci-fi epic will not only live up to those lofty expectations, but will leap right over them with a hyperjump.

I have to talk about how good this game looks.

The game's aesthetics aren't the first thing I want to talk about, but they're unavoidable here. Orbitals looks like a playable 80s anime OVA. Its unique appearance fascinated me and many others the moment they saw it.

You play as Maki and Omura, new characters who look straight out of the anime you watched every Saturday morning as a kid. Your home base is the space station. Working together, they must figure out how to prevent their home from being destroyed by a space storm.

Orbitals' looks didn't show up to 10 in the trailer, and developer Shapefarm didn't cherry-pick moments that looked better than others for marketing purposes. This beautiful and unique art style is how games have always expressed themselves. It's amazing, but more importantly, it's different and stands out in an age where so many games all seem the same.

There's tons of Hazelight DNA here

While Orbitals' aesthetic edict is very similar to emulating classic '80s animation, Orbitals' other biggest inspiration clearly comes from beloved developer Hazelight, specifically its games Split Fiction and It Takes Two. Like those titles, Orbitals is a co-op-only game, whether you decide to play it online or offline.

There are numerous gameplay similarities between what Orbitals and Hazelight do best. For example, you can work with another player to solve a puzzle in a split-screen scenario where one person pulls a lever and the other jumps over platforms. Something like that.

I've loved everything Hazelight has done so far. So more work from a different studio, on a game that looks and feels very different sounds great to me. Split Fiction was criticized for relying too heavily on the formula that made It Takes Two so successful, so I can see why Orbitals might be worried about falling into the same trap.

Solving a puzzle in orbital split screen.

No need to worry. There are often moments in this game where your brain thinks, “Hey, this reminds me of It Takes Two,” but even in the little games I've played, there's enough to set Orbitals apart from its inspiration.

For example, even if you play a different character, you're not forced into a specific role assigned to that character like you would in a Hazelight game. Instead, the required weapon is given that role. The space station is your hub, and you'll pick up weapons from shelves before heading out to complete other tasks or missions.

Weapons determine the role you play in the puzzles that await you. For example, my favorite puzzle in the preview involved one player activating sprinklers on the other side of a window to temporarily cool the lava, allowing both players to safely cross. Meanwhile, Player 2 is using his weapon to guide his device between charging points. If it takes too long to charge, the device will explode.

Not only are tasks not assigned to specific characters, but missions and puzzles are split between those played on foot and those played in a small ship you pilot. One of you is the pilot and the other is manning the turret. But other missions require more than just flying in the right direction and shooting. There are portals that you have to open at just the right time so you can fly away unscathed, and there are blocked paths that can take you on tangents where you can continue your quest to save the space station by solving other small puzzles to achieve the main goal of unblocking the path.

Walking the line between too easy and too complicated

Orbital characters surrounded by panels and monitors.

Another similarity between Orbitals and Hazelight's co-op is the level of challenge it presents. The puzzles are often challenging and require critical thinking, but I never felt frustrated or out of my depth at any stage. Balancing on paper may sound like a simple balance, but walking it is a meticulously difficult tightrope. That's why I only have It Takes Two and Split Fiction to use as reference points when comparing Orbitals to other games. Because no other studio has pulled off co-op like Hazelight.

I played It Takes Two with my wife and Split Fiction with my six-year-old son, and I was confident they would both love Orbitals and find it appropriately challenging.

Orbitals was and still is up there with some of my most anticipated games of the year. But for the first time, that excitement was mixed with a healthy dose of fear. I was fascinated by what this game was trying to achieve, and there was a part of me that didn't believe that what we were shown in the trailer would be able to live up to everyone's expectations.

Now that fear is almost completely gone. Orbitals is the game shown in the trailer. In reality, it's more than that. Yes. It's a game with a flashy anime aesthetic inspired by Hazelight, but it wasn't satisfied with just being a cool-looking game like Hazel (note that this is where the term was coined). We went one step further than just looking unique to feel truly different. If the overall game is as good as the first few missions and continues to introduce varied gameplay and challenging puzzles, this Switch 2 exclusive could be a Game of the Year contender.