A team-building exercise of interstellar proportions

Developer/ publisher Moonrise Studios

Format PC

Origin US

Release TBA

As we prepare to board our starship, a quick word from the man we’ll be calling captain for the next 30 minutes. Into The MAW’s technical director, Sarek Lee, makes clear that this is a co-op experience in which everyone has vital duties, so any dead weight leads to a dead crew.

“We’ve seen games where a couple of people who have no idea what they’re doing ruin the game and you can’t accomplish anything,” he says. “But when they’re really competent, people are working together, it goes so smoothly.” Sadly, we’re total rookies at this stage, so we apologise in advance.

In this space shooter, four team members (captain, engineer, pilot and gunner) must combine their skills like a condensed Star Trek bridge ensemble. Given first pick, we opt to play pilot, which sounds like the most intuitive job. We start in a newly purchased ship, pulling from a docking station owned by the vendor, Dead Beat Dick. Captain Lee handles dialogue with him while we try the controls, pointing the ship’s nose with the mouse while keys boost, strafe, roll and adjust elevation. Dick asks us to zap some asteroids converging on his emporium, so Lee scans the area to detect the offending rocks and marks them on our HUD. We manoeuvre into range and the gunner shatters them with laser fire. Our engineer, creative director Joey Rener, is busy rerouting power wherever it’s needed.