Starlink: Battle For Atlas isn’t a Star Fox game. Nintendo’s furry pilot and his famous Arwing fighter are in the Switch version and – I hope you’re sitting down – not in the Xbox One and PS4 versions. It isn’t even fully a toys game, a la Skylanders or Disney Infinity, because it turns out you don’t even need the toys. It is, I learned at E3, an interesting game.
We have video atop this post that shows the game in action on Switch and on an Xbox One X. We even have some fancy picture-in-picture to show how the pilot and spaceship toys that are being offered with Starlink manifest in the game.
The main gimmick here is that you can assemble and customise ships and see those ships take shape in the game as you do. Pull off a wing, and the wing comes off in the game. Turn the wing around and put it on backwards, and it goes on backwards in the game. Unsnap a cannon and replace it with a flamethrower, and those usable weapons change in the game.
Players can snap on weapons and wings as they customise the game’s ships. All these items can be purchased digitally if players prefer that.
In our video, you’re seeing toys, but toys aren’t essential. It turns out that Ubisoft is going to let people who don’t want the toys buy added ships, pilots and parts digitally. You still can do the assembly in the game, but you won’t have toys to deal with if they aren’t your thing.
The developer who showed me Starlink said he couldn’t get into pricing, but he said he believed the digital versions would be cheaper than the physical versions. (He also said that the game records a digital version of any toys you buy for it, meaning you only ever have to connect the toys to the game once.)
OK, so there are spaceships to assemble, but you don’t have to have the physical ships. Nice, but so what?
The October 16 game seems like Ubisoft Toronto’s riff on No Man’s Sky, with the huge caveat that it’s hand-made, unlike Hello Games’ procedural adventure.
Players fly spaceships through space, then rocket seamlessly to the surface of beautiful planets, where they encounter systemic ecosystems of creatures. You can fly over the surface of these planets or go into a hover mode so that it has more of the feel of a third-person action game, with a focus on blasting enemies with your ship’s weapon.
There’s a light RPG system to all of this, with different pilots having different upgradeable skills.
In the demo I was shown, there’s a big walker alien who is seeding a planet with towers that I needed to destroy to get resources. If I’d left it alone, I was told, the walker would keep building up its towers. This, apparently, is how planets work in the game. I didn’t see it, but allied forces can also be built up and operate on their own after a player leaves the planet.
As I played Starlink for about 40 minutes across Xbox One and Switch earlier this week, I was surprised at how good a time I was having.
On Xbox One, in particular, the planet I was on looked stunning, like concept art come to virtual life. On Switch, I had a blast configuring an Arwing. On both platforms, I was finding a good number of enemies to fight as well as structures that I was told include side content such as puzzles and mysteries.
It’s a game still designed and priced on that toy-game model. Starter packs come with starter pilots and ships. More are sold separately. If your ship goes down, you can resume without restarting if you have a spare ship, which clearly incentivises you to either play better or buy more ships.
The PS4 and Xbox One versions include one starship, one pilot and three weapons. The Switch version has the Arwing, Fox McCloud, a second pilot, four weapons and some exclusive Star Fox mission stuff. Other packs of more ships, weapons and pilots are sold separately.
Before E3, Starlink wasn’t a game I planned to play when it was released. Now? I’m going to try it. I can’t say yet if it will be great or just interesting or what. But I can say it’s more beautiful and more fun than I expected. It demoed well.
And it removes some barriers to entry that other toy games have in terms of requiring you to buy a lot of toys, even if there are some question marks about how the game’s design might push players toward extra purchases.
Comments
8 responses to “Ubisoft’s Starlink Is Surprisingly Cool, With Or Without Star Fox”
I’m on a rollercoaster with this game. First impression was “cool, a GOOD starfox style shooter!”, then my interest rocketed when starfox actually showed up, then plummeted when it turned out to be a toy-based game.
Now that it’s optional-ish i have no idea where i stand!
But i am certainly not above buying an arwing toy if the game turns out to be mario/rabbids kinds of good. It’ll go well with my star wolf amiibo. :p
If I dont have to use the toys ill buy this. Im not getting invested into toy games after what happened to Disney Infinity.
Even at E3 last year they’ve said the toys were optional.
I’m curious if this game is the evolution of the Watchdogs 2 “leaked” space game.
I believe that it is. And I’m super disappointed that this is what it turned out to be 🙁
Me too actually 🙁
I’m curious to playing Ubisoft Toronto’s Starlink Battle for Atlas with or without Fox McCloud. But whether Ubisoft Toronto’s Starlink Battle for Atlas is a good game or not we’re just going have to wait and see and whether it’s meets the standards or not we’ll just have to wait and see as well. Because we all know Disney Infinity and Activision’s Skylanders are dead in the water.
Well I hope Ubisoft Toronto’s Starlink Battle for Atlas doesn’t become the next one to be dead in the water. I hope.
I hope this is great. I feel like toys-to-life could actually be a really great model if it’s done right. I mean, I’m glad it’s optional in this, but if toys-to-life felt like it was an organically integrated part of the game loop instead of a cash grab I would totes be on board.