Redout: Space Assault channels Rogue Squadron in its debut video
Not the last starfighter, nor the first
There was once a time when space combat games were rare - now there's so many out or upcoming that I feel Redout: Space Assault looks merely nice in its first preview footage today, rather than something to get trembilngly excited over. First teased back in June, it's a spinoff from 34BigThings's Redout, a hovercar racer that played like a blend of F-Zero and Wipeout. Today's footage gives us our first peek at the game in action, and it reminds me a lot of Factor 5's Rogue Squadron games on the Gamecube. Take a space-age peek for yourself at some dogfighting below
With so many other studios going the 'space sim' route, it's interesting to see a studio shooting for a more arcadey style. Enemy fighters appear numerous and pop after a just a couple direct hits from aim-assisted main guns, or any missile hit. The explosions are pleasantly fiery, although I'm not too convinced by the sound of the weapons - I guess Star Wars has conditioned me to expect lasers to go PEW PEW. While probably truncated up for the purpose of a short trailer, the enemy capital ship popping after just two attack runs felt a bit anticlimactic, too. Nice explosion though.
Probably the most surprising part of this footage is their choice to use the Redout name for this new game. Aside from the little bit of tunnel-flying as the player makes their way into the mission area, there's not much here that resembles its anti-gravity racing predecessor. 34BigThings do mention that the game is geared towards multiplayer, despite including a single-player story mode. To this day, I can't think of many multiplayer space combat games that have kept players coming back for any real length of time. I'm hoping that 34BigThings manage to change that.
Redout: Space Assault is due out in the first quarter of 2019. You can find it here on Steam, and an official fact-sheet here, along with a few more screenshots.