Orbitals Hands-On Preview: Dragon Ball Meets It Takes Two
Hands-on with Orbitals, described by developers ShapeFarm as "An Anime You Can Play"
“Orbitals, is an anime you can play” is what I was told enthusiastically (and in unison) by the developers of Orbitals, the upcoming co-op space adventure game, when I visited their Tokyo studio earlier this month. And you know what, they are 100% right.
Inspired by the 90’s kids anime shows millennials all watched growing up, not only does the game look authentic in its cutscenes, but in its gameplay visuals and narrative too. During my visit to Shapefarm, I played the game for an hour with my girlfriend, who is also a games journalist, and spoke to the main men behind it: Game Director Jakob Lundgren and Creative Director Marcos Ramos. I also got to speak with the former head of PlayStation Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, in a “turns out meeting your heroes is lovely actually” moment.
When launching into Orbitals, two things strike you instantly. Firstly, the game is clearly inspired by 90’s anime with an entirely authentic visual style and soundtrack (the theme song slaps). Secondly, it would be easy to mistake this as a Hazelight production, the highly-acclaimed developers of A Way Out, It Takes Two and Split Fiction, and there’s a very good reason for that:Jakob Lundgren, Orbitals’ game director used to work at Hazelight!
During our interview, I asked Lundgren about how his time at Hazelight working on A Way Out and It Takes Two inspired his new project.
“There's a lot of learnings of what works when it comes to co-op gameplay and what doesn't work. Back then, when we started making A Way Out, we didn't have a lot of references for other co-op games. It was kind of unique in the way that we were doing co-op. So at that point we were kind of learning as we were going, but we found more of our footing with it. A lot of the same sort of learnings of what makes people communicate, what makes them laugh, what makes them like, engage with each other. I think a lot of those learning are going to translate into Orbitals as well”
And that shows, during part of our playthrough, my partner and I ended up, through our own volition, in a western duel. Standing back to back, taking paces forward before turning and blasting each other with our equipment. The interaction between our characters, seeing my Omura’s scrap hook pull Maki to the ground (and securing my victory) highlights the true charm in making your own fun in a Hazelight-esque co-op games.
The magic doesn’t just come from co-op experience, either. Shapefarm are also experts in working with anime IP, having previously worked on Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time and Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker. They may not have known it at the time, but it truly feels like the studio was building to this moment.
The game follows two protagonists, Maki and Omura, on a space adventure inspired by the narrative and emotional beats of anime series like the original Dragon Ball and Evangelion. Likeable young heroes who get caught up in a long journey full of weird and wonderful characters - and, apparently, very much like in those 90’s anime series, hard hitting narrative beats and emotional losses.
The first level we experienced took place on a hub ship, surrounded by weird and wonderful ship workers, all either slacking off or working on fixing little bits and bobs. This level introduced us to Maki and Omura’s own ship and using tools to fix the falling apart vessel, in typical Hazelight co-op style puzzles. Things changed when we ended up flying the ship, with something about it feeling so Star Wars as my partner ran to pilot the ship and I moved to the gunner position. Sadly our demo didn’t allow for any space combat, but the b-roll footage sent to us did feature this.
Something that stood out instantly, and was highlighted in a presentation by Lungdren and Ramos, is how the game authentically recreates the artistic style of fast-turnaround weekly anime, with anything that either moves or can be interacted with popping out more than the scenery, as if it was painted on real celluloid. As much as this was seen as a negative back in the 90’s, it’s now a nostalgic feature that lends itself incredibly well to game design and player readability in the world.
Things really kicked off in the second level that took place in a dark matter cave on the search for a reactor cassette (something pivotal to the plot), where we took control of a floating platform that was controlled by us running left and right across a central panel, making the platform itself then tilt in those directions as it progressed through a winding tunnel full of obstacles to dodge.
“It's very easy to fall into this trap where a lot of the co-op is you're relying on the other player, but most of what you're doing is you're just holding a door open for them where you're just like you're not interacting with the game while you enable them to play,” stated Lundgren “But we always want both players to be active simultaneously, both active at the same time, and making sure that it's not that sort of start stop co-op”
This mentality was very clear during this segment, as my partner and myself had to switch places several times through the tunnel. Sometimes she would have to use her beam cannon to hit crystals to help light up the cave, other times I would have to step forward to use my scrap hook to grab onto objects to manually spin the entire platform around corners - all while the other directs left and right.
This section offered a good level of challenge without ever feeling frustrating, with extremely generous checkpointing, something the developers highlighted as purposeful design. Shapefarm wants Orbitals to be friendly to newcomers, in a way It Takes Two was. There is, of course, a challenge, but the game builds up to it and the checkpoint system means there’s never too much repetition of difficult segments once they have been progressed through, even if you fail on the next hurdle. The developers see it as the perfect game to play with a non-gaming partner or friend.
Something that stands out from Hazelight’s co-op games is the option to swap tools. In games like It Takes Two and Split Fiction, each level’s gimmick would see each player take on their own unique abilities, with players locked into these and no way to swap without just trading controllers - something not possible during online play. In Orbitals, you pick your tools from the ship before you head out and can drop them on the fly, allowing the other player to pick it up and swap. This is perfect for those times when one player has a clear skill advantage in specific situations, and could ease up on any big arguments that some couples experienced in Hazelight games, when someone wasn’t as good as the other in certain aspects.
Herein lies This comes my only major worry with Orbitals: the potential lack of variation in player tools. Part of the charm with It Takes Two and Split Fiction were the wild fantasy abilities that kept the gameplay fresh, with no level or area playing the same as the previous. Can Orbitals’ tools stay fresh and interesting throughout a full adventure? It does appear there are more than we experienced in game - but in our section the ship only had three stands for tools, meaning one was always left behind. I’m interested to see if Shapefarm has any other tricks up their sleeves to change things up as the game progresses.
The final section of our hands-on moved into a side-scrolling section, with both players on the same screen, each navigating a series of platforming puzzles. On top, I needed to activate platforms to help her move across, while she controlled gravity spirals on the bottom to fling the me across gaps. I would jump into these to stay in the air while being spun around until the she let go, sending me flying in the direction I was pointing towards at the time. It's a fun little gimmick that forced communication and timing.
Following this was another similar section with the bottom player controlling a vertical beam of gravity that the top player floated in, only in this situation the bottom player is moving the beam from the left to the right while having to jump over a deadly obstacle rolling back and forth, and the top player must move up and down the beam to dodge moving mines floating in the path. Let’s just say, we nailed this first time, although the PR told us it took her and another player almost 30 minutes to complete, failing multiple times.
Our one hour hands-on showed a strong range of creativity and layers of difficulty to expect.
The game is full of fun little bits, from drawing doodles on a sleeping crew member’s face, or picking up a cat that reacts differently to either Maki or Omura, due to the personality of each character (for example Maki is over-excitable and grabbed the cat too aggressively!). There’s also minigames that can be discovered during levels that can be played on the ship (I kicked ass at the punch bag mini game). The ship is sort of a hub for the player between levels to kick back and play these mini games. It offers a chill place to calm down after anything intense that happened, either in game or narratively, giving you a place to be silly and experiment.
Oh, and of course there are emotes — be ready to see your friend laugh any time they find a way to bring upon your demise.
During my interview, I raised a potential concern in matching the anime style so faithfully, and that the “on twos” style of animations the player characters play in, much like the Spider-Verse skin in Insomniac’s Miles Morales Spider-Man spin-off that was animated on twos similar to the movie. This caused some players to feel nauseous, and I felt it was a bold decision to create an entire game in this style.
It's been a lot of back and forth and kind of finding what works for us” said Lundgren “But I think one thing that we have going for us is that it marries itself with the rest of the style. But for example, in the Spider-Man game, it's kind of a stark contrast to everything else that's going around you. But I think players that like it feel more natural here. Also because pretty much everything that moves in the environment either moves at 12fps or 24fps, so it's not this thing that sticks out from the rest of the game.”
Shuhei Yoshida, the former head of PlayStation Worldwide Studios, has been working with publisher Kepler Interactive (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33) as an advisor on the game, and during our short chat shows great love for the project.
“I've been playing Orbitals for the last two years. I call myself a tester for Orbitals,” said Yoshida.
“I've seen that game make progress. It’s really fun to play, and it's great to play with your family, with your friend, even if your partner is not good at gameplay. In my case, oftentimes it was my daughter who found out the solution of some of the puzzles. She was very proud to help me to overcome challenges, so look forward to playing Orbitals with someone you like.”
Orbitals is a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, releasing in Summer 2026.