Starlink Battle For Atlas: Our Take On It

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I’ll start this article by saying that Starlink: Battle For Atlas definitely feels like a childish game. However, it’s not in the same way that perhaps Kingdom Hearts does when you’re interacting with Disney characters. Rather it’s more in the feel of the world and the extremely vibrant colors that are present throughout. Also, the gameplay isn’t complex in the least, which leads me to believe that it was meant to cater towards a younger demographic.

That said, I don’t think the game won’t be fun.

Let us start with the positives about the upcoming game. Luckily enough I got a chance to try out the game and get a bit of a feel for how the mechanics work. I believe that while the controls for your ship are hardly anything groundbreaking the selling feature lies in the diversity through which you can customize and change your ship to your own unique whims.

As most already know, the whole game system revolves around the toys to life system which is much like Skylanders – except cooler. That is to say, the company has utilized a unique mount of their own creation, as seen to the right, that can connect to your device and thus upload your character and ship instantaneously.

The cool thing though is that you can take off parts of your ship, or add to it, seamlessly as well. Allowing gamers to create their own unique spaceship ripping through space. With every part offering different specs to your ship and allowing different kind of abilities to be utilized as you play. For instance, if you have the cooling gun on one side, and the flame on the other, firing them together will create a thermal vacuum of some sort that will help you deal with the dogfights you will encounter in space.

This ability to mix and match also plays a part in dealing with enemies. I witnessed first hand a bit of gameplay for the upcoming game, wherein the pilot was dealing with some fire giants that had appeared on the planet. It seemed that while normal weaponry was working it was taking quite some time to chip away at their defense. That said, a quick switch over in terms of weaponry, obviously ice related in nature, and suddenly it was a whole new game.

Now the one glaring con that I feel will deter gamers away from the game.

While it’s true that a wide variety of weapons are at your disposal in the game, a majority of them will need to be purchased to be used. This purchase doesn’t happen with in-game credits that you can earn while battling your enemies, but rather real-world currency is needed to expand your arsenal.

As you can tell by the provided image, you start the game with a modest starter pack. This pack is either a physical copy, or a digital one should you not want to use a mount while playing your game and includes three weapons, one pilot, and one starship. Now it’s important to note that the came can be beaten with the starter pack, so there is no actual reason for you to have to buy additional weaponry. However gamers are a fincky bunch, and seeing all the weapons they can have but won’t have access to unless they use more of their cash, will cause more than a few frowns I’m sure.

After all, each weapon has its’ own unique ability and each pilot locked away from your roster brings their own set of skills to the table when engaging with the world at large.

As the game is still beatable with the starter pack, I wouldn’t say that this game wasn’t worth getting – as it does still look like fun. However, going in with all the facts is always nicer than going in blind. Also, one little extra knock against the game is that only those of us who possess a Nintendo Switch will be able to purchase the StarFox starter pack and fly around with our friend Fox McCloud.

Starlink Battle for Atlas releases October 16th, 2018 on Xbox, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.

Check out below for some in-game footage to help you make up your mind on the upcoming title: