HighFleet's atmospheric strategy is finally out

I mean, who would trust Sin, honestly? I choose to half trust her. In our HighFleet review, she wrote that there was a brilliant game buried underneath its frustrations, and as RPS's chunky button hype man, I'm choosing to believe the "brilliant" bit only.

Anyway, HighFleet is out today. Pick a side.

If you don't know it, HighFleet is an action-strategy game. With a bit of roguelike and a bit of RPG thrown in. Oh, let's be specific: it's an aerial dogfighting game in which you pilot hulking airships, direct their movements via radar, land them at city states, and negotiate with the factions you meet there. Oh, and manage their loadouts and repairs. Oh, and it's all presented via a series of diegetic interfaces, covered in buttons and switches and seemingly ancient Soviet-era computers.

To stop being facetious for a moment, I believe all parts of Sin's review. HighFleet is very obviously not a game built to be accommodating. It looks like an experience to be endured, for the moments when its systems coalesce and produce a tense battle or a brilliant anecdote, or for the sheer pleasure of its atmosphere. I am willing to accept this.

You may feel likewise, in which case HighFleet is available from Steam now. It'll cost £21.41/€22.50. And who knows, maybe there will be patches and options and quality-of-life updates that will make it more accessible to those less masochistic players.