Stars of Icarus preview: space-faring PvP feels great if you can navigate the stars with a good crew
I never had the chance to play Guns of Icarus. The airship to airship PvP battler flew right past me, and like many PvP games, felt too overwhelming to jump in so long after release. The Steampunk design appealed to many, and the game did well on Steam, so it’s hardly a surprise to see another game in the series, though this time around, the team has switched out gritty Steampunk, for a colourful anime style. Stars of Icarus still retains its PvP roots, and lumps you together with others to traverse space and duke it out with starfighters and spaceships.
Grouped together with several developers and other members of the games media, we jumped into two hours of space combat in Stars of Icarus, first learning the ropes of flying. It’s safe to say this is something I do not excel at, and rather than zipping around the vacuum of space, I lumbered around while the others in my group got used to piloting their vessels. It’s not because I couldn’t handle the swift smaller crafts, I also sucked at piloting the much bigger vessels that slowly crawled through space. The variety does give players plenty of options, not just between nimble and hulking, but also between crews, because if you choose a much larger ship, you’ll have other players jumping aboard to operate guns, repair failing systems, and keep the shields online in frenetic fights.
This is where I excelled, jumping from station to station, running around as my little anime protagonist, part of a crew, listening out for callouts coming from the captain of the ship. Being part of a cohesive team was significantly more fun than piloting my own craft, and it helps the systems within the ship are a tasty balance of arcade action and simulated chaos.
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The average match lasted around 25–30 minutes and saw us trying to survive against other players. Victory comes after totalling up enough points, by taking out the other ships, before the round is over. During each match, I found myself dashing back and forth through the bowels of the ship from gun to gun, taking out enemies. This was usually after the pilot told us how he was moving the ship through debris and around large structures, because the manoeuvres took time for our hulking cruiser.
I can’t imagine playing Stars of Icarus solo, because everything feels so smooth when part of a crew. Sure, if you’re handy with the piloting of smaller craft you can zip in and out of battles, taking cover when you need to recoup your shield power, or navigate the starfields, you’ll get on well, but for me, I enjoyed being part of a crew.
One moment I was hopping into a gun turret to snipe out the shields of an enemy craft, the next I was sprinting over to our shield generator to whack it with a space spanner and repair the damage it sustained by incoming fire. With another player backing me up, we could split our efforts and securing a win in the match felt great, because we were fluid in supporting each other. There is an AI robot that can be picked up and plonked down in a turret, or next to the shields or engine to help out, but it didn’t compare with having a human crewmate.
While this might not be the type of game that I’d usually drift towards, because of the reliance on other players, I couldn’t help but smile when our team worked well together, and I left the short preview session wanting more. That’s quite something, seeing as multiplayer games can be hit-and-miss, but currently, Stars of Icarus is cooking up to be a great experience for long-time fans, or newcomers who want to travel the stars looking for a scrap.