Enemy Starfighter - 2015's Sleeper HIt

Enemy Starfighter is a space combat, RTS, roguelike with a procedural generated campaign which has you flying an advanced fighter as well as controlling a fleet as you conquer those who oppose your rule. The game is developed by Marauder Interactive which was founded by Mike Tipul, a long time Bungie employee who worked on many of the Halo games.

So far it's exclusive on the PC and built around the Oculus Rift but is completely enjoyable on a normal monitor. It's not a deep space-sim like Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen but has Homeworld inspired RTS gameplay along side the more arcady flight.

You grow your fleet by accomplishing objectives within an allotted time, disrupt mining/trade of the system you are attacking, destroy the fleets of the enemy, and make way for your colonization/assimilation fleet to either assimilate the newly conquered into your empire or purge the unpure.

Noteable things about the game are the brilliant art direction and amazing sound design as well as the scope of the project. Extremely well polished for a small studio even in it's pre-release state. People who have had the privilege of playing a press prototype of the game said it's unbelievably fun and well made.

This is a big sleeper hit that nobody is talking about because nobody knows about it. Early access may happen yet this year but it's looking like this is a 2015 title. Will probably launch along side of the retail release of the Oculus Rift.

Here's some more videos. The oldest dates back to 2012!

You can clearly see the progress made over the last two years.

"space combat, RTS, roguelike with a procedural generated campaign"

damn, throw in "survival, fps, open world, multiplayer, zombies" and you'll have all the biggest buzzwords in the industry in your one game.

you had me at space combat and RTS.

Good thing it's not Rift only.

You fly a ship while giving pretty broad orders to your fleet in a 3D map as well as build up your fleet through completing objectives. Each mission is procedurally generated and increases in difficulty. A "mission" is an entire sector loaded with enemies that you must systematically destroy. Once you do that you move onto the next. It's a roguelike because the main game mode has you going until you are dead. When you die you restart.

You call them buzzwords, I call them gameplay descriptions. A space combat, RTS, roguelike with a procedrually generated campaign is exactly what the game is. All of those elements are part of the core of the game.

Yeah, but apparently it's already amazing on even the early builds of the Rift.

Same.

Looks like fun should be worth keeping an eye on

Makes me excited for an X-Wing style game... We need a new one of those so bad that this'll do just fine. :D

I was joking dude. This actually looks cool.

@mems_1224: Hard to tell around here.

I bet with Rift, this will be a completely different game. It'll be a tenth the fun without Rift. Like most games, probably.

Looks enjoyable.

I really cant wait to play some of these games in VR.

the more space games the merrier though i was hoping for a solely RTS based game ala sins of a solar empire or homeworld

Might pick up rift if it's a decent price. With all the space shit and flight sims it's getting better support than Nvidia 3D vision did at launch.

Getting a lot of homeworld vibes here. Will be on my radar no doubt.

holy shit. this looks absolutely incredible. i would like to buy it immediately but of course it's not out yet.

Space games coming back from the grave!

So many space games lately. This one looks kinda neat I guess

sooner or later EA will develop one

I can see why it would be a sleeper hit.

Looks....ok.

Apparently its a good time to be a space sim fan

Looks interesting

I'm only planning to play the ones made by a studio with people that have actual known experience in making these type of games. Since its not deep like SC or Elite I'll probably pass.

That has to be the dumbest reason not to play a game I've ever heard.

Then you want either Flagship...

or Shallow Space

It is a damn good time to be a fan of space games.

@Wasdie:

I been highly disappointing in some these game made by small time new developers.

Like which games? There are usually warning signs if a game is going to be terrible or not well before it's released.

@Wasdie:

Day One: Gary Incidents

Infinity Runner

@godspellwh: This guy isn't really a no namer. He's a veteran dev from Bungie. He designed the few space combat missions of Halo Reach. All of the previews and all of the press the game have given the game nothing but praise.

@Wasdie:

He's the lead game developer of the game? Never played Halo Reach so I can't really judge. Sometimes these games end up less than what they aim for due to limited resources and other issues that we never know of.

Except for the low polygon asteroids everything else looked decent.

Kind of worrying though, there's so many of these types of games coming up like Dangerous Elite, Star Citizen, No Man's Sky, now Enemy Starfighter (and I don't knows what else), I'm kind of wondering if they're all gonna start to over-saturate the market with their games to the point where each one looks great but one franchise will dominate the others.

Anyhow, hope Sony gets a clue and decides to bring back the Colony War series.

Propably not, as long as they are different enough from eachother. All of those are quite different. Enemy Starfighter not only has the tactical elements, but also is the only one out of the bunch that focuses solely on combat, so it should be attractive to people wanting just big space battles, not a living world.

That shallow space game does looks quite similar to sins ( interface wise ) and also reminds me a bit of homeworld and looks quite promising

hhhmmm quite interesting !!!

I dig the vibe and love the muffled sound fx. Thanks for sharing.