Latest demo includes a boss, new weapons and Steam Deck support

If you’ve been dreaming of a hyper-agileFPSset on the sky islands from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,Echo Point Novacould be your jam. It casts you as a space pilot who crashlands on a floating archipelago planet during a research expedition. I’m not sure what you’re researching, exactly, but going by your character’s loadout, it’s the Science of Sick Moves.

Aside from pistols, shotguns and rifles, you’re equipped with a grappling hook, an aerial dash and a jet-powered hoverboard. These traversal tools allow no end of ramp jumps, aerial combos and in my case, wall-running desperately around the rocky undersides of islands after missing a handhold. They also come in handy when fighting the mercenary opposition - you can ram people off ledges, snipe them while skating backwards and slow-mo kill them in mid-air.

If the Zelda comparisons don’t ring true, a better summary is perhaps “Doom Eternal, but you can fall off”. Here’s an unofficial gameplay trailer, care of EreNyn3, who may have chosen the perfect soundtrack.

In a pleasing flourish, you leave a trail of orange energy while using the hoverboard, reminiscent of the title character’s swirling red scarf in Shinobi on PS2. I wonder if developers Greylock Studios have considered letting players decide how long they want the energy trail to last. There’s the makings of the first “FPS + light painting game” here!

Like the looks of it? Surf your merry way over tothe Steam pagethen, which includes a demo. Live since last autumn, the demo has been updated for this week’s Steam Next Fest. It now includes a boss fight on top of new weapons, islands and an overhauled UI with full gamepad and Steam Deck support. There’s some “experimental” PvP friendly fire options in there too, forco-opplayers who like to turn traitor: the developer advises that you search for a module beneath one of the islands that enables one-hit-kills.

The game is described as “open world”, with hidden treasure rooms and seemingly optional challenge-room-style “kill X of Y” fights, but this doesn’t feel like an Ubitrudgefest. The floating island setup means that exploration always involves some kind of platforming puzzle and there’s a pinch ofMinecraftin the ability to batter through select surfaces with a sledgehammer. I like the bright, breezy aesthetic, too. You can almost feel that stratospheric chill. Bracing.

The only questions I’m left with are 1) the high-mobility shooter space is pretty prosperous right now - will this really do enough to stand apart from yourUltrakillsand yourTribes 3s? And 2) I would quite like to play an Echo Point Nova multiplayer mode inspired by Minecraft’s ancient minigame Spleef - can we have one of those please? If you’re new to Spleef, it’s a player-invented PvP game where you destroy the floor beneath other players so as to drop them into lava. Imagine a variation of that with this moveset. Heck, there’s probably a mod for it in modern-day Minecraft already. Anyway, Echo Point Nova is “coming soon”.