E3 2018: Starlink: Battle for Atlas hands-on impressions

An open world space saga awaits in Starlink

Did you ever dream of building your own spaceship and use it into a video game? Now’s your chance. Developed by Ubisoft Toronto, Starlink: Battle for Atlas is Ubisoft’s toys-to-life game coming on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The action-adventure space shooter lets us build our own ship and play with it inside the game. Here’s how it works. First, you attach a base on the game controller. This will support the pilot, then the ship. What’s cool is seeing all the manipulations into the game in real time.

Adding a new set of wings and changing weapons modify our skill set. Attacked by robots freezing me on site, I decided to add fire to my arsenal. All I had to do was adding the right weapon to my ship, or switch over one I had with the fire weapon.

All is completed in real time. Any modification puts the game on pause, then we continue with updated ammunition. When I came across a group of enemies, I switched to Shadow. The pilot’s invisibility skill prevented a fight. The same in-and-out feature lets another player come and help us almost seamlessly. A friend can come in and play with us on a split-screen local co-op setting. If we’re up to the challenge, there’s even an option to turn off friendly fire.

While I was fighting monsters, I died a couple times. Now there’s two options available. Changing ship lets us continue where we left off, or there’s the option to go back into the galaxy to start over the mission with the same vehicle.

A game of exploration, action and dogfighting

The object of the game is to recruit allies on planets of the Atlas system. The team work together to battle against The Forgotten Legion lead by Grax. They seek technology left by The Wardens, an extinct race. We need to stop the Legion at all cost.

Every planet brings unique terrain and atmosphere. Exploration gives the opportunity to scan animals into our database and solve puzzles. Some will help us, others not so much.

All I did was side missions, so I don’t really know how useful exploration is in the final game. By going back into space, beware. Mercenaries can attack randomly. You then engage into a dogfight.

This part of the game bring action, and that might be a reason why Nintendo let Ubisoft use Fox McCloud for the Nintendo Switch version of Starlink: Battle for Atlas. The decision to bring the Star Fox character was decided last year after several meetings between Nintendo and Ubisoft. The good news is, fans will get to buy the Wolfen II and use its specific weapons and power abilities.

Ships are bought separately, and the more you have, better weapon variety you’ll get. You can buy them physical or online, and Ubisoft assured me this is the only thing we’ll buy outside the game.

Follow the blog as I’m sharing my E3 2018 adventures over the week.
Pre-order Starlink Battle for Atlas for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One

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