Your favorite (only?) flight game with an AI cat assisting humanity's stellar aviation endeavors is back with one-hell of an update. As I mentioned in a previous article, Exosky by Elevons LLC is a flight experience I had a bit of a hard time trying to describe to others. I am still fascinated by the concept of this game and its non-combat, aerobatic focused gameplay. As Exosky moves towards a March 2025 release date, I jumped back into the demo to see the deep changes made to the experience.
Story Revamp
It is best to speak about the considerable story update first as the opening cinematic of the game is unexpectedly complex and detailed. The story of Exosky comes after The Great Migration, a long planned and prepared for movement of humanity from the ruined Earth into the stars across the galaxy. With human settlements on different planets in The Solar System and atmospheres of each planet varying greatly, drone ships that fly through the skies and operate underwater are a significant tool to support humanity's interstellar operations.
The beloved AI cat I keep bringing up, named Norton, was created before humanity left to the stars. Eventually Norton founded The Bedrock Project, a cooperation of bot pilots and human pilots to create a next generation flight simulation program for pilots operating drones in complex environments found on other planets before they are forced to learn in real time with a higher degree of danger.
That is the skinny explanation of the story. I highly recommend watching the entire opening video.
Extra Content
A surprisingly large part of this demo update is the extra content section. When you think about full game releases it is things like concept art, development info and videos you expect to see. Finding them in the demo is welcome, but unexpected. There are four categories, "The Goodies and Mod Tools", "Concept Art", "Meta Game" and "Video". There is a quite a bit of content in each of these. For example, the Concept Art category has 50 images with explanations about projects the developer started with back in 2010 all the way through a much larger concept for a massive multiplayer experience that was well into development just up until plans changed for the current version of Exosky we know now.
Even with information communicated in pictures, a few sentences and prototype video, there is enough for players to understand that the original scope of this game's concept was rather ambitious for a time. It is interesting context to understand the Exosky of today and its new backstory.
I am a huge fan of things like this in any game, so I am especially pleased to see it included in the free demo.
Level Revamp
The three levels available in the demo have undergone significant updates. Despite me being rather familiar with this demo, its new updates made it feel like a mostly new experience. It goes deeper than changing how the already eclectic terrain looks.
Previously players would need to fly through a series of waypoints while deviating from the set path a bit to perform aerobatic maneuvers and high risk nap of the earth (I am using "Earth" lightly here) flying to increase score in in various scoring categories during flight. Flight regimes like flying low over or between solid objects, flying through thick cloud layers, high-G maneuvering, inverted flight, etc. Reaching a set score of points in one flight before reaching the final waypoint then unlocked the next level.
As of the recent demo update this has changed quite a bit. Now players are required to meet specific point requirements per category per level. For example, the second level has extensive high winds in certain sections. Players are required to spend an extensive amount of time in those conditions to gain enough points while flying under high wind conditions to meet that requirement. But with limited energy (fuel) to power the drone engines, players would be smart to multi-task while gaining points in other categories. Let me tell you, flying inverted at close proximity through the chip set of a Voodoo 2 graphics card while applying near maximum counter-rudder for crosswind is one of the craziest ways I've ever progressed in a flight game.
Players gain extra score by exploring each level, by finding points of interest like CPU cooling lakes, sci-fi battlecruiser sized aquatic life and other genuinely wild objects.
Trails of coins that grant extra points act as non-invasive guides to encourage players to fly throughout all areas of a level, unlike the more forefront and mandatory waypoints players must fly through to complete the level and progress through the game.
Flight Model Improvements
Exosky already had a rather solid, well documented flight model for a game that visually looks nothing like a traditional flight simulator. The modest Steam post about "improved aircraft handling" does not do the improvements to the flight model justice. It took me some time to adjust to the new changes. I failed my initial attempts of the first level solely because I was not taking stall speeds, throttle response, low energy states and engine power consumption at high throttle settings seriously. While using a gamepad, even rapid inputs of full rudder seemed detrimental to the level of precision flying I needed to be successful.
After having a brief mental reset (i.e. locking in) I was able to progress nicely using a gamepad, but fortunately Exosky is compatible with USB flight controllers. I had a night and day experience using even an entry level hands on throttle and stick from the Thrustmaster T-Flight series.
The fact that more finite controls offered by a dedicated flight controller made such a considerable impact on my experience speaks volumes about the current state of the flight model. In the past year I feel like I've played plenty of titles that work perfectly fine with a gamepad or keyboard and mouse, so even using a T.Flight felt unnecessary.
In Exosky right now, the flight stick coupled with the flight model gave me enough control to start identifying ideal turn rate speeds, efficient throttle settings for gaining altitude or maintaining airspeed without wasting engine energy, coordinated turns and smooth, controlled movements to fly though the tightest spaces in the weirdest atmospheres all while remaining in complete control of the drone. It was rather gratifying to have precision tangibly rewarded in this way.
I am looking forward to seeing Exosky release into early access in March 2025, as it seems positioned to be one of the more unique indie flight game with a detailed flight model to come out in quite some time. You will be hearing more from me about this game soon!
Connect with Exosky
Discord: https://discord.gg/nnM2cUPUW4
About the Writer
Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. Read Staff Profile.
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