A shared galaxy built around dogfighting
Starfighter: Infinity is a space MMORPG where the core of the game is skill-based dogfighting and exploration. You fly one of 84 unlockable ships, each with its own stats and play style, and you earn access to them as you progress. Combat is realtime and works with keyboard or joypad, and there is no fixed winning tactic: a fast ship can evade and strike, while a slower ship can lean on shields and tactical aids. How you combine weapons and tactics is up to you. The design goal is that any ship in the game can be a threat, so nothing carries you except your own cunning and skill.
Playing with your group
You and your friends can form an organisation and compete with others. Organisations have a real effect on the world around them: stations and nearby AI ships get branded and coloured to your organisation, and you choose the weapon loadouts for those AI ships, so the galaxy reflects what the players do with it. Running an organisation with enough members earns special ranks and ships. You can declare war on other organisations, or simply keep to yourself and chase your own goals. Combat zones vary widely — neutral zones, warzones, free-for-all zones, duels, jammers and interfering nebula dust all change what tactics work, and some areas mean no combat at all. Inside space stations you can explore on foot, chat with other players, and rely on turrets to cover you from incoming enemies.
Progression, crafting and exploration
Progression runs through loot and crafting. There are 1447 items so far that you can buy, craft or loot, and weapons genuinely differ in behaviour and effect rather than just numbers. You hunt and mine precious minerals, find blueprints, and craft unique weapons and upgrades from them. Alien races have their own ships and lootable weapons and items, so encounters with them are worth taking. The galaxy holds 21 explorable star systems with between 100 and 289 sectors each, around 100 planets with their own back stories, and ancient relics drifting in space that are not all dormant.
Things to know before starting
The game is in Early Access, and content is still being added — the ship and item counts are current figures, not final ones. The Steam features list online PvP, and the store text also describes PvE alongside it. Older Starfighter games are bundled and reachable from the Extras menu, though that is Windows only for now, and Starfighter: Disputed Galaxy saves locally in singleplayer only.