Orbitals co-op game channels 80s anime style and impressed at Summer Game Fest

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I’ve loved anime since the Toonami and early Adult Swim days, so certain aesthetics will always elicit a melancholy nostalgia that reminds me of late nights and VCRs. This feeling overcame me when I played the ‘80s and ‘90s anime-inspired Orbitals for the first time, which perfectly emulated old animation styles reminiscent of Dragon Ball and Ranma ½. I may have been at a disadvantage, though, since I played the 15 minutes I had at Summer Game Fest in a nook set up to resemble a 90s kid’s bedroom, complete with bunk beds and beanbags (but missing the CRTV, thankfully.)

And while I’m a sucker for a good beanbag chair, I’m sure I would have had a blast with Orbitals even on a cold hard stool. Orbitals is two-player co-op mandatory, and I had the luck to play with independent journalist Shannon Liao. We chose our characters–best friends Maki or Omura–based on which side of the TV we sat on, truly the only civilized way to do it.

After watching a very well-animated, heartfelt intro cutscene that alluded to a genuinely interesting story, we were thrown right into the fray in split-screen co-op goodness to explore the ship in third-person view. The cel-shaded graphics looked great , not jarring at all even when compared to the retro-inspired animated cutscene I just watched. Anime generally runs at 24 frames per second, and according to Ivern Global , the character animations are set to 24 seconds as well, and with that in mind, Orbitals is capped to 30 FPS. This didn’t bother me at all, but I also admit I’m someone who probably won’t notice unless it affected my gameplay, and obviously, it didn’t. Instead, it simply evoked the visuals of classic animation, which I consider a good thing from an art-direction perspective.

We, two teenagers on a space station in…space, had jobs to do and preparations to make before flying off to investigate a supernatural cosmic storm threatening our home. Off to work! But not before petting the cat (I am so glad I could pet the cat.)

Our tasks were varied and unique, all of them, and to my surprise, we could choose our roles for each rather than being stuck with an assignment like in It Takes Two. For many tasks, we needed to utilize both the Scraphook (a grappling hook of sorts) and the Liquid Launcher (a giant water gun), and for some, we needed to play a minigame of sorts not involving either. They were all puzzles in one sense or another, and they were all fun.

Our tasks were varied and unique, all of them, and to my surprise, we could choose our roles for each rather than being stuck with an assignment like in It Takes Two.

My favorite, maybe because it was the most engaging twitch-skills-wise, was a mini-game where we both controlled a different color. We needed to enter a specific, color-coded sequence shown on screen, and by pressing a button, we’d activate our color. It sounds simple enough, but some icons would swap our colors or send the cursor back, requiring us to use quick thinking to not input the wrong thing. We ended up saying out loud when the changes occurred to process them in time to avoid a mistake.

We actually communicated quite a bit, especially when we didn’t quite understand what the goal or mechanism was. At times, one of us would have an epiphany and share it with the other, allowing us to overcome the challenge more easily.

Eventually, we made it to a spaceship to pilot, and, classically, one of us could choose to pilot while the other could choose the gunner’s chair. I mentioned it before, but the flexibility is refreshing after playing so many co-op games that force roles and gadgets on you based on the character you chose at the beginning.

The experience was fleeting and rushed since we were under such a strict time limit, and I wish I could have played more, because it really felt like the demo only scratched the very surface. I’ve seen other videos with sequences in a 2D perspective, for example, so I’m sure there are plenty more unique surprises in store for us.

Orbitals is developer Shapefarm’s first original IP game, with the goal of making a “retro anime experience for two,” as said by creative director Marcos Ramos, Orbitals’ pedigree is exceptionally promising. Jacob Lungden, Orbitals’ game director, worked as level designer and senior level designer on Hazelight’s A Way Out, It Takes Two, and Split Fiction–all well-liked two-player co-op games.

Orbitals’ animation is produced by Studio Massket, an animation studio straight out of Tokyo with credits on dozens of anime. Studio Massket most recently worked on the third season of anime To Your Eternity in collaboration with Drive; and in 2022, the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners ending theme music video (which is not the ending credits sequence, but instead a contained story. I highly recommend giving it a watch.)

From what I’ve played and what I know about the people behind it, I’m sold, and can’t wait to play Orbitals with my equally anime-loving partner when Orbitals is released exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2 on September 3, 2026. Orbitals can be played in split-screen couch co-op, as I experienced, and also with Gameshare, so you’ll only need one copy of Orbitals to play online with a friend.