Star Drifter

Very slow and poorly optimized arcade shoot em up. Far better ones of steam to enjoy.

[h1] Safely skip this one. [/h1]

Ship drifts like dad after sauna, asteroids judge my life choices. Ugly space soup but I keep slurping the pain.

Star Drifter, developed by Nostalgia Hound and PiGravity and published by Back To Basics Gaming, is a throwback to the unforgiving days of classic arcade shoot-’em-ups. It’s a game that seeks to capture the chaos, difficulty, and tight control schemes of an era defined by precision and reflexes, while adding a modern twist through procedural generation and upgrade systems. Rather than relying on story or spectacle, Star Drifter focuses purely on challenge and repetition. It’s about surviving as long as you can, learning from each death, and slowly improving through persistence. For players who grew up in smoky arcades or have a fondness for the brutal simplicity of retro shooters, this game aims to rekindle that thrill—but it does so with an edge that may alienate those expecting accessibility or polish. At its core, Star Drifter is an intense vertical shooter that drops you into space with nothing but your reflexes and a fragile ship to keep you alive. You face relentless waves of enemies, environmental hazards like asteroids, and a barrage of projectiles that can fill the screen within seconds. The structure is simple: survive, shoot everything in sight, collect points, and use …

So bad

No controller support and the default controls not being rebindable from the arrow keys + ZXC already makes this a no go for me. The excessive VFX that make it hard to see what's going on is just the cherry on top.