I don’t recall the last time I played a space shooter. However, I was presented the opportunity to give the latest game from indie studio MistFly Games, a test flight. Published by Blowfish Studios and Crescent Moon Games, Subdivision Infinity DX is a next-gen 3D sci-fi shooter that I put through its paces on the PlayStation 5.
As soon as you boot into the game you find yourself sitting in the cockpit of a space craft. We’re given an Intelligence Briefing that advises you of a distress signal that was received from an off-world Mining Facility. We have tried to re-establish communication but have been unable to receive a response. As an independent contract pilot, you are tasked with the assessment of the facility and have been given the callsign, ‘Rebel-1’. The ships engine starts, and you leave the hangar bay, jumping right into hyperspace.
As soon as you arrive at the destination, you are greeted with a visually stunning scene that is accompanied by some incredibly bass synth beats. Visually stunning, asteroids and debris are everywhere, and the sun of the solar system can be seen in the horizon. The game provides the player with some basic flight training and the controls needed to fly around. The sunlight creates beautiful glare and lens flares, as you maneuverer the ship around the area.
As soon as you hit the first waypoint, some unidentified ships enter the area, and the game pauses with dialogue appearing onto the screen. As we attempt to establish communication with these unknown crafts, all we receive in return is static. Although, you don’t hear it, it is all communicated to the gamer through the on-screen chat dialogue.
After this short dialogue cut scene, the bass beats kick into overdrive and whilst we are not given any indication visually that you are in combat, it is clear as day by the change in music. You’re off and chasing down the ships to blow them up. For my playthrough, I decided to leave the aim assist on and I’m glad I did. It isn’t exactly easy to move around and shoot your targets, having to aim ahead so the enemy fly into the trail of bullets. With aim assist, if you are within range of the enemy, it locks onto their position and you can just fire away. There are also missiles available that can be shot at the enemy when a weapon lock is achieved.
Eventually you get to a point where you start to understand what is happening with the story. At the crux of it, all LightWave Tech stations have ceased responding and an enemy has taken control of the stations and craft. Our mission is relatively simple, clear out the enemy and bring the stations back under control. Throughout the missions, we have some rather funny conversations with a droid known as AV-2. AV-2 is providing us with all the intel and directs us to our next mission. Thankfully, the writing is fun, and you can really feel the frustrations in the responses from ‘Rebel-1’. Being as there is no audible dialogue, it was important that the writers executed this part of the game well, and I am pleased to say they most definitely have.
The space craft manoeuvres as you would expect, a ship in space with no gravity to move, and I was incredibly impressed with how well this was executed. You can speed up instantly, stop just as quickly, strafe left, right, up, and down. However, what I found most impressive was the ability to turn around very quickly. This enables some fantastic dog fighting with the enemy. The strafing also allows you to hide behind asteroids and parts of the stations to avoid the line of sight from enemy turrets. Trust me, you’ll want to get your sneak on when you engage in some missions, or you’ll find yourself dying very quickly.
There is also plenty in Subdivision Infinity DX for the ‘upgrade-a-holic’. There are blueprints to collect and new ships to unlock, as well as plenty of weaponry and ship upgrades to save your coin up for. I did however find the upgrading of weapons and levelling up of your craft to be a long process that required quite a bit of grinding to search for the materials required. I made it through to the boss fight in the first set of missions and quickly realised that I was extremely under equipped. Thankfully, there is an exploratory mission available as well as the ability to replay previous missions. Personally, I do not like this aspect of the game as it creates a bit of a repetitive loop to progress further.
Speaking of repetitive loops, as fantastic as the music is in this game, it does get repetitive very quickly and can almost be hypnotic with the recurring beats. I will say though, that the music has been expertly looped. There is no defining moment where the music stops and then starts again as you are flying around. This is no easy task and the musical producers do need to be commended.
Overall, Subdivision Infinity DX is a visually stunning, fun game to play. Aside from the repetitive nature of the music and grinding to upgrade, I cannot really fault it. The missions are fun and relatively short, making the gameplay fantastic for those that just want to dive in for a quick fly around or for those that want to put in the time to play for an extended period. I was surprised that I didn’t get any motion sickness from flying around either. This might be attributed to your ship being in a third person view rather than in first person, and for that I am thankful.
So, if you are into the space shooter genre and don’t mind a bit of grinding, then Subdivision Infinity DX is the game for you. It is currently available on PC (Steam), PlayStation 4 & PlayStation 5, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. There is even a mobile version under the title Subdivision Infinity available from the Apple & Google Play Stores. There really is a version for everyone and I hope that you give it a shot.
A copy of this game was provided on PlayStation 5 for the purpose of this review.