Heliborne gamescom Preview

Full disclosure here, I have absolutely no spatial awareness. As a result, anything that involves flying in 3D confuses the balls out of me. So clearly, I was the perfect person to preview Heliborne! We can expect to see a full release in 2017, but for the time being the game is in Early Access on Steam and it was the latest build of that which I played.

The game is a multiplayer-only helicopter based combat affair, with you being asked to drop troops off at various combat points to fight amongst themselves. Your opponent will be doing the same, and at the end of the game it's the team that controls the most of these combat points that wins.

It's a really fun concept, and my lack of flying skill actually only hampered me a small amount, mainly because there wasn't any need for aerial combat, which is where I tend to fall down. As long as you can get from one place to another and land, that's all that matters.

That's not to say that there isn't the option of aerial combat of course, I just took the coward's route of avoiding other helicopters a lot. When I did come across other choppers, I was invariably blown out of the sky, but I managed to survive long enough to take in a lot of impressive detail. There's 35 realistically modelled copters in the game, each with their own advantages and drawbacks, just like in real life.

I couldn't personally feel a huge amount of difference between the different machines, but if you're an aficionado of bladed flying machines, it may be more apparent. There were certainly speed differences, but the inertia felt the same. The game is also quite forgiving with more of an arcade feel to the flight, meaning that a lot of subtle nuances may be lost in translation.

I have to say, I expected to dislike this game, but I really enjoyed it and that was a pleasant surprise. I feel if a game can surpass your expectations, it's doing something right. I can't think of another game quite like this one, and that made it quite memorable.

Unfortunately, a game that's only multiplayer is only going to be fun if you can actually find someone to play against, and there's just not enough people playing at the moment. The average players according to Steam Charts has been in single figures for the last six months. Hopefully this little title can have a bigger impact on release, I feel it's a shame that more people aren't playing it.