Stellar Wing

Stellar Wing is a space-combat game where you fly a squadron of four fighters in battles against enemy carriers and machine leviathans. In Carrier Assault, you have fifteen minutes to destroy the opposing carrier while defending your own. Each carrier has three layers of armour: destroy its perimeter turrets to expose the shield generators, then destroy those to open the core. The sequence has no shortcut, and you decide where to position your four fighters as both carriers take damage.

Carrier combat

You can play online 4v4 Carrier Assault, with both teams attacking and defending their carriers. Team Deathmatch is also online 4v4, but has no carriers: the first team to reach 20 kills wins, or the team ahead when the eight-minute match ends. Surface Assault takes combat to low altitude over a planet.

Online co-op raids let up to eight players fight on the same side against a machine leviathan. Bots fill empty seats offline, so all modes can be played alone. The game also includes a 12-mission Campaign unlocked in order, 30 leviathan Missions, a 24-chapter Story called The Carina War, Flight Training that teaches the controls one at a time, and Practice with targets and a sparring partner.

Your squadron

Each sortie has four fighters, with wingmen assigned to six aptitudes: Recon, Support, Engineer, Assault, Jamming and Supply. Your choice of wingmen changes how the fight unfolds. A comms panel relays their voices, including who is under fire, who needs help and what has been intercepted from the enemy channel; you can fight without reading it, but it can help you make decisions faster.

Cockpit view gives each nation its own glass instrument panel. Its screens show radar, hull and weapon readouts, and change colour to warn of a lock-on, carrier bombardment or heavy damage.

Machine leviathans

The 30 hunts pit you against 10 species of machine, each with three increasingly difficult variants. Their weak points are sealed behind one another and open in sequence. The leviathans writhe even at rest, flinch when hit and wind up before major attacks; each species also has its own growl.

From the second hunt onward, the boss charges a bombardment at your home carrier when the mission clock reaches 20, 40, 60 and 80 percent. Each hit is worth a quarter of the carrier's core. During the ten-second charge, hitting the boss's weak points breaks the shot and staggers it. If you fail, the carrier—and the hunt—can be lost.

Fighters and equipment

Each nation flies its own airframe, with four equipment slots to fill. The hangar lets you compare the before-and-after effects of your choices on speed, turn rate, armour and firepower. There are 200 parts in total: 50 engines, 50 armour sets, 50 primary weapons and 50 secondary weapons.

The game has nine paint schemes. Two are available from the start; the others can be bought with gold earned in play.

Arenas and nations

There are 10 space arenas, with different rock density and size, sun angles and cover positions. Tactics that work in one arena may not carry over to another. A low-altitude stage takes place over a planet's surface, and every arena has a bonus objective for players with room to pursue it.

You can choose to fight for Astra, Helion or Vestra on the fleet screen. The nations differ in carrier hull colours, fighter markings and their 24 pilots.