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digitec plays "Starlink: Battle for Atlas": "No Man's Sky" with toys and Star Fox?

17.10.2018

Translation: machine translated

Wild spaceship action, resource collection and an unusual toy concept await brave space pirates in "Starlink: Battle for Atlas" awaits brave space pirates. As born child heads, surely the perfect game for Simon and me, right? We'll find out in our livestream at 1pm.

As soon as I saw the first trailer for "Starlink: Battle for Atlas", I was excited. A space game with spaceships that you can assemble in real life and put on the controller? Are you kidding me? I need that. Ubisoft's action adventure has been available for PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch since Tuesday. We received the latter version to try out and it harbours a not-so-small surprise.

You can only play with Star Fox on the Switch version. The famous space fox is not just a cosmetic addition, but comes with his own quest series. He and his animal companions are also present in the cutscenes. As you also get an additional ship and pilots with Fox, the Switch version is definitely the one with the most scope. There is a slight deduction for the graphics. The performance limits of Nintendo's console are clearly noticeable. Although the game still looks pretty, it doesn't stand up to direct comparison with the PS4.

"No Man's Sky" for the masses

But let's get to the actual gameplay. With a colourful crew of humans and aliens, you fight against a mysterious cult in the Atlas system. Under the leadership of Grax, they are searching for a mysterious and vanished race called the Guardians and are subjugating entire planets in the process. As in
"No Man's Sky", you can travel to different planets relatively freely and scavenge for resources, scan animals, set up outposts, take on small side quests and solve a short puzzle here and there. This is not the only time that "Starlink" regularly reminded me of the infamous space epic. "Starlink" feels like the mainstream version of "No Man's Sky". Everything works a little more simply and is better interwoven with a story. The design also screams déjà vu.

The planets are beautifully designed with magnificent lighting effects, but offer little in the way of exploration. All activities revolve around resources in one way or another. Be it to upgrade external pots, unlock new skills or expand your mothership.

Toys to Win

The toy element, also known as Toys to Life, adds an extra layer to the game. The supplied controller has an attachment into which you can insert a pilot. This is recognised directly by the game and you are given a short intro to your character. You then choose a spaceship, wings, weapons etc. which you can attach as you wish. Whether left, right or upside down, the choice is yours. You can see the changes directly in the game with a stylish animation.

The problem is that you would have to buy all these additives - and for expensive money. To me, that smells a lot like pay to win. Especially as every additional ship you have in the hangar gives you an extra life. You can continue to play as long as you have ships when you shoot them down. The Nintendo version offers two pilots and two ships. But maybe you fancy one of the various other flight models or you don't always want to shoot around with the same three weapons. Especially because some treasures in the game require certain types of weapons to open them. If you want more variation, the digital deluxe version is the best deal. It costs CHF 20 more than the standard version, but contains just about everything. The game blog Kotaku has taken a detailed look at the different versions.

The "Starlink" toy concept is not really satisfying. For one thing, the controller is unwieldy, and for another, the constant swapping of weapons and ships gets boring after a while, which is why you will quickly switch to digital play. What's more, the game feels incomplete if you only play with the starter kit. Which is a real shame, because the game is amazing fun despite its lack of depth.

You can see more impressions in our Let's Play.