Orbitals review: Please bring a responsible adult. Two irresponsible ones will do.

The big picture

Space exploration usually involves humanity's finest minds, rigorous training, and someone checking whether the rocket has enough rocket in it. Orbitals sends Maki and Omura, two friends whose determination comfortably exceeds their qualifications. Their station is trapped in a supernatural cosmic storm, so they head out to find help. It’s a lovely expression of friendship, provided you overlook the part where friendship has apparently become the station’s entire emergency response plan.

Shapefarm’s two-player adventure, published by Kepler Interactive, had its full release on September 3, 2026, exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2. Its retro-anime presentation sets up an appealing kind of space trip: bright characters, enormous problems, and the reassuring sense that somebody will explain the dangerous equipment after you’ve already touched it. The real hook, though, is the partnership. Orbitals builds its puzzles around two people contributing different things, rather than one person doing the work while another enthusiastically rearranges the camera.

Your most important equipment is another person

The central practical point is wonderfully unambiguous: there is no single-player mode. You need a partner. Anyone hoping to quietly work through the adventure alone should settle that question before buying, not after recruiting a second controller and discovering it has no independent initiative.

Local split-screen keeps the cooperation in the same room. Online options include GameShare through GameChat, which requires a stable connection and Nintendo Switch Online. There’s also a Global Friend’s Pass, letting someone invited by a full-game owner join the adventure without purchasing another copy. Its separate demo supports local co-op. Those options make the invitation easier, though none solves the oldest multiplayer problem: two adults possessing free time on the same evening.

The requirement also defines the audience. Orbitals makes sense when both players want to participate. A more experienced partner should resist treating the other person as a remote-controlled extension of their own hands. The point of an asymmetric puzzle is discovering how your contributions fit together, not auditioning to become the galaxy’s most exhausting supervisor.

Space has terrible directions

Beyond the station, the adventure involves piloting through asteroid fields and exploring abandoned facilities. That gives the partnership different contexts: sometimes you’re navigating danger, sometimes you’re figuring out what an unfamiliar place wants from you. It’s a promising rhythm for co-op because conversation can shift from planning to improvisation without abandoning the same shared objective.

A cosmic rescue also gives ordinary puzzle-solving a pleasingly inflated sense of importance. Turning the right mechanism can be the difference between saving a settlement and having to explain why everyone’s future was entrusted to two people who disagreed about a door. The stakes are huge; the immediate problem can still be delightfully small. That contrast is part of the genre’s charm.

The anime styling reinforces the feeling of heading somewhere with a friend rather than merely clearing a sequence of rooms. There’s room for earnest adventure here. Games don’t need to smirk at every expression of affection, especially when the players can provide their own commentary about whose plan just failed.

A tune-up before takeoff

The October 5 version 1.0.5 notes list fixes for camera and collision issues, extended loading in certain areas, and online score synchronization in Slap-stick. They also address a stuck gunner seat and a character line repeating too often. Apparently even a cosmic emergency has room for someone to tell the same joke until the universe requests a patch.

Those fixes are useful context, not a guarantee of flawless performance. Updating before a shared session is sensible. Co-op already comes with enough opportunities to blame each other; the software doesn’t need to contribute an avoidable third opinion.

The final word

Orbitals has a focused appeal: a colorful, story-shaped excuse to solve problems with somebody you like. Its mandatory partnership will rule it out for solitary players, but it also gives the adventure its identity. Come for the anime space escapade, stay for the process of becoming a slightly more competent team. Saving the station would be nice, too. Presumably someone back home is checking on that.