When I’m piloting a big robot in a video game, I want it to have a big personality and an even bigger punch. After playing an hour of Gundam: Rogue Orbit, it seems the game will have both. But there’s still a lot to discover about Bandai Namco’s next entry in the giant robot franchise, due out March 5, 2027.
My virtual preview offered two missions and three premade mobile suits (the franchise’s name for the piloted robots) to choose from. The hour was enough to run through both stages with all three mobile suits, each equipped with a different melee weapon. One stage was an enemy gauntlet ending in a miniboss, while the other was a full-fledged boss battle. In the final game, you’ll be able to customize your robot kits, but we didn’t see that functionality because Bandai Namco wanted us focused entirely on the gameplay.
One thing was clear: This isn’t another Armored Core copy. While I loved 2023’s Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, its dizzying array of parts and weapons could be a chore to optimize for the game’s blindingly fast, three-dimensional combat. From what I saw in the preview, Rogue Orbit takes a different, simpler approach. Forget about the Z-axis; just worry about jumping and dashing around, as in most modern melee action games.
True, I had to suspend my disbelief that my mobile suit was hopping around with normal-feeling gravity on the outside of a space station, but I’m betting this trims away a lot of zero-g bother to avoid the awkwardness of floaty jumps.
Unlike other mech games filled with long-range beam cannons and missiles, Rogue Orbit’s fights seem constrained to melee range only. Whether that was the result of our preview being limited to a trio of mobile suits with swords, lances and whips, or reflects the whole game, I didn’t mind. Ranged combat was limited to support equipment, like a set of orbiting drones that fired when I dashed.
Throughout the preview, I ran across space stations cutting and stabbing through an assortment of enemies, using different skills tuned to my weapons. The sword got a rad slash with trailing explosions, while the whip could be uncoiled for slightly longer-ranged swipes and the lance got a drill-dash to reposition my mobile suit. The combat felt polished, even with half a year to go before the game’s launch, with every attack triggering a momentary pause on contact — a satisfying touch that let me relish the damage I was dishing out and savor my assortment of rad skills.
Ultimately, Rogue Orbit’s combat gameplay felt like Dynasty Warriors or Virtual On (without the twin stick controls), using special skills until my ability gauge ran out and peppering in normal attacks until it charged back up. I had an ultimate attack as well, which, in the preview, gave me unlimited dashes for a limited time until I pulled the ability’s trigger, sending a volley of beams lancing down at my target. In the full game, players will be able to switch between different ultimate attacks.
The short preview was more a tease than a dive into the complexities of the game, and it sure was fun to pummel foes with something that looked like a mobile suit. But the big question I left with was: Does this feel like a Gundam game yet?
The current HUD for the game — from left to right: health, support items, ultimate ability (in the middle), special attack skills and weapon skills.Bandai Namco/Screenshot by David Lumb/CNET
How much Gundam is there yet to discover in Rogue Orbit?
Given the brevity of the preview, I didn’t expect to get much context about the characters or plot. Like most latter-day Gundam media, Rogue Orbit is set in a new universe, so don’t expect to see anything from the Federation or Zeon of the original Universal Century setting. Haro, the friendly green, ball-shaped droid from the first Gundam show, does appear in the marketing. (I’m also praying that a masked, Char Aznable-like character will show up, a recurring feature of the franchise.)
From details dropped in the recent trailer and the preview, players will control RE-X, a seemingly human male who was “created” to control a Gundam, the franchise’s special category of humanoid robot mobile suits (his is called Gundam Helix). There are a few other characters in your ship’s crew, including the commander April and the heroine Sophia, who will accompany you.
The Giant is one of many foes awaiting players in Rogue Orbit.Bandai Namco/Screenshot by David Lumb/CNET
Where many Gundam shows and media lean into a political clash between factions of humanity and their armadas of mobile suits, Rogue Orbit seems to be setting up a xenomorphic threat. The enemies I attacked in my preview all seemed organic and monstrous rather than mechanical. While the skulduggery and power clashes result in some of the best conflicts and themes in Gundam, centering Rogue Orbit on a humans-versus-aliens threat (or enemies looking like aliens) opens the door to some intriguing opportunities — by which I mean, huge fantasy-esque bosses that aren’t mechanical Mobile Armors.
At the end of the first mission on the space station exterior, I was clashing with an ogre-like humanoid mini-boss labeled The Giant, who had his own health bar and stagger meter. Similar to other games with those features, once I whittled the latter down enough, the mini-boss went down for a few moments to let me get a few hits in. When I whacked a limb enough, it became disabled, limiting the boss’s attack capabilities.
Players must face the Drake, a large boss with flying attacks, in one mission.Bandai Namco/Screenshot by David Lumb/CNET
The second mission was entirely set around confronting a massive alien dragon called the Drake, which took awhile to wear down. In addition to dodging swiping claws and avoiding strings of beams, the Drake has a tail and wings I could hit hard enough to break to temporarily disable some of the meaner blows of the scaly boss. Neither mission was too difficult and I finished both multiple times, but during the preview I only had the three premade kits and no additional difficulty levels to try out.
From what little I saw, there’s a lot waiting for action-combat fans, though there’s plenty of mechanics, kit customization, story details and encounter complexity left to be revealed about the game. I’m still on the fence for how “Gundam” it may end up feeling in the long run, but the combat’s polish is promising — and enough to have me looking forward to when I can climb into the cockpit again.
Gundam: Rogue Orbit will release on March 5, 2027 for PC, Xbox X/S and PS5.
David Lumb
See full bio