About a month ago I had the pleasure of attending Nintendo’s space at Summer Game Fest to try a handful of games from their publishing partners. Each one had a themed area in their venue designed to compliment the games. On entry I bee-lined to a backcorner bedroom complete with bunkbed couch and some retro-esque electronics — the ideal space to experience Orbitals.
Nintendo’s support for developer Shapefarm’s multiplayer Switch 2 exclusive has been evident since it was revealed at The Game Awards 2025, including the reveal of its release date at our most recent Nintendo Direct. It clearly had an impact, as a small crowd gathered in Orbitals’ demo space immediately before dispersing to other games as I took a seat and settled in for the game’s opening.
The most immediate appeal from Orbitals comes from its visuals. The opening cutscene was like unearthing an old bootleg anime VHS, showing lead characters Maki and Omura as children in the game’s spacepunk setting. Animation was fluid, with effort and dedication to replicate the aesthetic clear from the get go. A rep for the game explained that their biggest inspirations were the likes of Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion. I got that most clearly in the character expressions, which were very Akira Toriyama-esque, as was the fact Omura looked like a demon “just because.”
Maki, on the other hand, was prone to emotes and line deliveries that would make Usagi Tsukino proud. That level of personality is the only real difference in the characters when it comes to gameplay. Both characters had emote wheels and environmental animations, with Maki’s veering a bit more exaggerated and her interactions with NPCs more personable. It adds a lot of flavor to the space colony greys that made up the demo’s environment.
My gameplay partner and I had to guide the duo to a part of the station where they could access a spaceship by utilizing a few tools to solve brief puzzles and challenges. This is where the It Takes Two inspiration came through, providing tools to interact with the environment to run systems checks and ready for departure.
I appreciated that there were ways to unequip these tools and shuffle them around. It’s a smart choice to provide more player choice, particularly if you or your player two runs into trouble with a given portion — just swap in-game without having to pass controllers or exit the game. That’ll be extra convenient when it comes to online and gameshare play, which Orbitals fully supports.
The game’s emphasis seems to be more on puzzle solving than platforming challenges, though we did encounter a little bit of that in the timed demo. Movement felt quick and any potential resets were snappy, keeping things moving even when puzzles needed to be retried.
It was hard to get a gauge on how deep that gameplay could get from the brief demo, but once our spaceship was moving we encountered another asymmetrical element, with one player the pilot the other the gunner. This would’ve been a completely different experience than anything I expected and experienced in the demo, but alas our time was up right as we took to the infinite unknown.
It’s easy to look at Orbitals and say it looks great visually, but having played it, every Nintendo Switch 2 owner should have it on their radar. While it occupies the same two player adventure space as Hazelight Studios’ output — Orbitals’ game director worked as a designer at the studio – Orbitals has me more excited than It Takes Two or Split Fiction ever did.
Maybe it’s the aesthetic, maybe it’s the setting and characters, maybe it’s the fact I got to play it with my feet propped up on a beanbag chair. All I know is I’ll be recruiting someone to play Orbitals with me when it launches on September 3rd.
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Orbitals is a charming, retro anime styled co-op game for Switch 2
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Written by Ricky Berg
When he isn’t writing for Nintendo Wire, Ricky’s anticipating the next Kirby, Fire Emblem, or if the stars ever align, Mother 3 to be released. Till then he’ll have the warm comfort of Super Smash Bros. to keep him going.
