Rogue Flight

[Axelay]

Full disclaimer - I have zero affiliation with this studio, but I have become a fan in a very short amount of time. The devs are apparently big time Macross fans, and so I thought I should try to bring this to the attention of gamers here. This game appears to combine similar elements from things very near and dear to my heart - Axelay, StarFox, Macross, Panzer Dragoon, and merges them with superior voice acting, an exceptional soundtrack, and a unique art style. There's a free demo on Steam now, and the full game is set to launch on the 25th of this month for Steam, Xbox, and Playstation. The MSRP is rumored to be only $19.99, which I don't even see how is possible. I was ready to go in all for $60.

Launch trailer

Into The Void trailer

One of the first things which drew me into this was watching a livestream demo with the devs in which they were showing some of the livery options for the protagonist's fighter. I felt like I saw a clear pattern forming, and it hit me like a ton of bricks when I saw the names of the color schemes. There's one for Roy, Hikaru, Max, Miriya, and several others which haven't been shown yet. One of the weapons tech notes I found in the game's database is called "Itano Turbine," which uses "clusters of high speed and high accuracy missile deployments."

I hope others here will consider checking this out. I am wildly excited about it now. This might be my completely unexpected game of the year.