Airframe Ultra Is Out: Rain World's Makers Launch a Brutal Hoverbike Racer

Videocult, the small studio that made Rain World, has released its second game, and it is about as far from a slow, solemn survival platformer as you can get. Airframe Ultra is a combat racer where you ride hoverbikes through the slums and edgelands of a city called Megacity West, hit rivals with pipes, chains and plasma torches, and, when you get knocked off, keep fighting on foot. The game launched on PC on November 5. Akupara Games is the publisher, and its launch post put it simply: "Our vehicular combat racing game, Airframe Ultra, is out now."

This is a launch worth watching. Combat racing has barely been touched since the late 1990s heyday of Road Rash, Twisted Metal and Jet Moto, and a studio with Videocult's reputation for strange, uncompromising design is exactly who you would want to bring it back. The first days have been messier than fans might have hoped, though. As of this writing, the Steam page shows a Mixed rating, with 59 percent of 260 user reviews positive, and the complaints mostly come back to one design decision.

What Airframe Ultra actually is

Steam describes it as "an online, multiplayer combat racing game", and the store copy calls it "a fast-paced battle-racer" with split-screen and online multiplayer. Coverage from Gamer Matters also mentions LAN party support. Races run through districts with names like Slabtown, Vantac, the Ysidro edgelands and the Texicali ZEGO zone. Tech Times, writing when the release date was confirmed in September, lists Ellay among the locations too, and players describe matches that alternate between races and dedicated fight arenas.

The best idea in the design is that losing your bike does not mean losing the race. According to Tech Times, a rider who gets knocked off can brawl on foot and steal a rival's airframe to get back in. MonsterVine reports that you start with a heavy baseball bat before pipes, chains and plasma torches join the arsenal. Between events you build your own racer and modify your vehicle, and the Steam page promises new helmets, new clothes and parts for a new "frame".

The look is pure Videocult: grimy, retro-futuristic and loud. Even some of the harshest Steam reviews make a point of praising the art and the atmosphere.

The long road to 1.0

Airframe Ultra was first announced in 2023, and it has been shaped in public. Tech Times counts five public betas, the last of which, Beta 5 "Desperada", started on September 3, 2026 and introduced bike building and progression systems. The November 5 date was confirmed with a release date trailer at the Akupara Direct on September 6. A free demo is on Steam, though Tech Times describes it as a tutorial rather than a slice of the full game.

Price and platform details are straightforward. The game is a PC release, on Steam and on GOG according to MonsterVine and Gamer Matters, with a 25 percent introductory discount on Steam that runs until November 19. A Deluxe Edition bundles the soundtrack, and Steam lists six interface languages. The system requirements are modest: Windows 10, a Core i3 class processor and 6 GB of memory are enough for the minimum spec.

Why the Steam reviews are Mixed

Read through the most helpful launch-week reviews and the same complaint keeps returning: there is no proper single-player mode. Gamer Matters says it plainly in its launch report, noting there is "no true single-player mode" and linking that to the Mixed score. Several players write that they expected at least bot matches to learn the game. Instead, matchmaking drops you into an online lobby where players vote on tracks, and matches alternate between races and fight arenas until someone reaches the point target.

Other complaints are more familiar for a launch week. Some players report crashes and say the release feels closer to an Early Access build than a 1.0. Others describe progression as a grind, with unlocks tied to winning and to an online connection, and one reviewer notes that the tutorial skips controls such as grenades and weapon alt-fires. On the positive side, players who enjoyed the betas say the chaos of a full lobby is exactly what they wanted, and nobody seems to argue with the art direction.

There is a real risk here. An online-only game lives or dies on its population, and an indie racer with Mixed reviews in its first week has to fight hard to keep lobbies full. Akupara has been running community activity around the launch, including a Twitch stream on November 6 and, according to Gamer Matters, a live event with real prizes, which suggests the team knows the first weeks matter.

Our take

Airframe Ultra is the kind of game the industry should want more of: a studio with a strong voice taking an abandoned genre and doing something physical, odd and memorable with it. Fighting on foot to steal a bike back is a great idea, and the presentation looks like nothing else on Steam this month. But shipping without bots or a real offline mode is a costly choice for a small online game, and the Mixed reviews are a fair warning. If you have a regular group of friends, a couch for split-screen or fond memories of Road Rash, the launch discount makes it an easy experiment. If you mostly play alone, wait. Watch whether Videocult answers the bot and single-player complaints in the coming patches, and whether lobbies stay busy past the discount window that ends on November 19.

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