Rebel Galaxy was an underrated gem. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is taking the best of its predecessor, and adding more. Today, Double Damage announced an August 13 release date. But, it’s coming to Epic’s Game Store. I know that’s a non-starter for some folks, but I’ve been pumped to try out Rebel Galaxy Outlaw since I saw the first trailer.
Here’s the trailer announcing the release date.
The snarky alien presenter goes through a list of what you’ll do in Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. A handful of gameplay videos released in the past month paint a much better picture. Speaking of paint, you might have heard there’s a “super-ridiculous 3-D spaceship painting tool.” Double Damage isn’t kidding around with this painting tool either.
Want to make your spaceship look ‘breathtaking?’ Go for it.
How about something a little more custom? If you’ve got the drawing skills, anything is possible.
I’m sure we’ll see Double Damage sharing the best looking ships soon after launch. It’s a damn shame we don’t see tools like this in more games. Then again, most developers (especially multiplayer games) don’t want to spend every waking moment getting rid of all the bad stuff.
Besides one hell of a customization tool, Double Damage is also overhauling the combat. Ship-to-ship battles took place on a 2-D plane in the first game. Imagine naval combat but in space. With Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, Double Damage is putting us in space fighters that can move every which way.
But the devs also don’t want us spinning in circles constantly looking for the next target. I’ll let them explain their solution:
We think we’ve got a pretty good solution to that. Every ship comes with an autopursuit mechanism which can be engaged at will to get your target onscreen. Spend your time fine tuning your weapons lead and dodging wreckage, not spinning in circles like an idiot. The focus here is on getting where you want, shooting what you want, and not having to screw around.
I like it. It sounds similar to the Assistance mechanic used in Tom Clancy’s HAWX.
But I know some of you don’t want hand-holding of any kind. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw includes a mode with no assists for those using HOTAS joysticks.
Here’s a couple of gameplay videos showing about 20 minutes worth of gameplay. It’ll give a good idea if Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is for you or not.
As far as the Epic Store exclusive goes, it lasts 12 months. Then the game will hit Steam. Console releases are not tied to the Epic Store exclusive, but we also haven’t heard a concrete release date on that front. Also, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is coming to PS4 and Switch. Why are they skipping Xbox One? A developer explained why a few months ago on Reddit:
Xbox was the hardest platform to ship on last time – and I’ve got to be responsible for completion, deployment and support for each platform. Since the game is bigger and more ambitious than the last, I didn’t want to try to do 3 console launches, and Switch was something new/portable that seemed like it was definitely worth taking a crack at, so mostly it was a priority juggle. If we were using Unreal or Unity it might not be as big of a deal, but since the engine is custom, it’s more of a struggle- Not a fun answer but the real one!