Orbitals is a couch co-op adventure for the Nintendo Switch 2 that celebrates vintage anime while delivering a polished cooperative experience. The debut release from developer Shapefarm wears its inspirations openly, blending the aesthetics of Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion and Sailor Moon into a high-concept sci-fi story complete with lovingly crafted animated cutscenes.
While the game never fully breaks away from these visual touchstones to become a stand-alone masterpiece, it draws on so many near-perfect hits that the nostalgia is enough to satisfy players throughout its short runtime.
How Orbitals compares in the co-op genre
The couch co-op space has been defined over the past decade by Hazelight Studios and its award-winning titles such as It Takes Two and Split Fiction. Comparisons are almost inevitable, even for a new studio entering the genre, yet Orbitals holds up against the best. That is due in no small part to a development team led by ex-Hazelight talent, including Game Director Jakob Lundgren, who previously indicated the game would integrate much of the Hazelight DNA.
In practice, the title iterates positively on that formula. Rather than one player standing still and holding a button while the other works, Orbitals keeps both players moving through its challenges together, making meaningful contributions to platforming sections and puzzles without lingering in one place.
Story, characters and anime homage
Players take on the roles of young space colonists Maki and Omura, who have spent their entire lives on a stranded space colony ravaged by a mysterious radiation storm. The inhabitants are kept alive by high-tech respawn machines known as IMs, but danger is closing in. To save their found family and potentially escape the wreckage, Maki and Omura travel into the farthest reaches of space to scavenge what they need to survive.
The animated cutscenes, produced by Studio Massket, give Orbitals more charm than much of the genre. The 1980s anime style carries a by-the-numbers narrative, and the story and characters register clearly as loving homages to popular anime series.
The IM respawn machines that repeatedly revive the main characters evoke some of Evangelion’s existential horror, though the game does not explore those implications in depth. The spaceships are grimy, industrial and reminiscent of Bebop. Maki acts and looks a little like a magical girl, while Omura is intelligent, slightly nerdy and overly prideful, an endearing blend of Ranma and Spike Spiegel.
These elements rarely feel as though they successfully iterate on their beloved archetypes; the game copies the best fragments from other stories and arranges them within this new setting. Orbitals fondly reminisces on the animation titans of yesteryear across its short playtime.
