G-Rebels (Games Forged In Germany 2025 Demo)
- Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza
- Jul 30
- 7 min read
Updated: Oct 20
Thoughts on the limited time demo
I can finally say that after flying and sliding through the sprawling city of Daevos, from its tightest roads to its open skies, I feel optimistic about G-Rebels by Reakktor Studios.
Timeline
Reakktor announced the start of development of G-Rebels on October 8th, 2024, on social media with an announcement teaser posted on YouTube. On June 24th, 2025, access keys for closed playtests of the work in progress game were distributed. While the demo is set to appear at in Indie Area, Hall 10.2 at Gamescom 2025 in August, the demo appeared briefly on Steam from July 24th to July 31st, 2025. This limited time demo using the still in development alpha build of the game came as a part of the Games Forged in Germany Steam sale and showcase event. Since 2022, this event organized by Games Germany promotes developers, publishers and studios headquartered in Germany.
The development team has stated that the main point of the demo besides an introduction to the world is presenting what they have for art style, controls, gunplay, UI/UX and flight physics. They are ready and waiting for direct feedback in their Discord server.
The World
G-Rebels takes place on Earth in the year 2684 after it was almost completely flooded by catastrophic events. Floating megacities were created by survivors with these city-states competing for remaining natural resources. In this dystopian world the player flies a prototype X-Type Skyblade as a part of an elite unit in Daevos, the capital city of the Okktane Empire. The player's job is to ensure law and order while the events of the story unfold.
G-Rebels is being advertised as an open world game with a 12,000 square kilometer map. With this in mind players could fly from city to city in real time. There are a few far off buildings in places outside of the sector players can explore in the demo. Not all of them look like the amazing mega cities, so it does make you wonder what else is out there. According to the ending video of the July 2025 demo besides Daevos there are at least three other cities that will be seen.
Preview video at the end of demo.
I have longed for more open world flight games since I first played one back in 2011, so this is a feature of the game I am especially excited for.
When trying a demo, it is always good to approach it levelheaded with a bit of a critical eye to see what exactly the product is providing thus far. The gameplay mechanics and the finer details of the player's experience are the most important part of any demo, but, man, it was hard not to be dazzled by the visuals. The city sprawling out in front of you after taxiing out of a hangar was impactful. The sped-up day and night cycle with occasional thunderstorm looks amazing in the visual feast of the city. Even the emptier parts of the city still buzz with enough land traffic, air traffic and ambient lights and noise to drive home the packed mega-city atmosphere.
Acknowledging Kindred
Before I bring this up, I want to state that G-Rebels is presented as a standalone title not directly tied to any other games. It should stand on its own identity and its own merits. That being said, for those that do remember it, there was a was a pair of games on the Sony PlayStation 1 back in the late 1990s with a similar name. Known as G-Police, that two-part series also had themes of futuristic corporations and nations wielding great political and military power as they competed for resources and influences across different planets. In those games, players were members of a type of colonial police force while events of that story unfolded. The comparison to the PlayStation 1 games has been made time and time again in comments, so I wanted to state that for the record. However, as someone that played the aforementioned games and G-Rebels, I feel like there is not a heavy reliance on the identity of the old IP to help this new game define itself.
Demo Overview
There are two mandatory multi-part missions where they meet characters and get a better understanding of how this world works. The basics of flying their Skyblade is taught as a test flight before players get taken on patrol with an Okktane agent. They search for and destroy deviant synthetic individuals who are hostile towards humanity for reasons yet unknown. More capabilities of the Skyblade are unlocked as the story proceeds as a way to not overwhelm players with an extensive tutorial from the moment the demo starts. After those planned missions, players can wander Daevos taking on a few optional tasks. Like getting equipment upgrades, air racing and visiting organizations across the city. Some locations are unavailable in the demo but will be important in the full game.
Flight Model
My main goal of interacting with the G-Rebels demo is to get answers about its flight model. It is definitely not a game where you should expect common flight physics similar to your favorite combat aircraft games. The Skyblade players use have a reaction control system (RCS) similar to that on a spacecraft and an anti-gravity system that lets them hover effortlessly. These two factors made me consider the flight model more akin to six degrees of freedom model found in space flight game or sim. However, the Skyblade is operating in an atmosphere so you would think momentum and energy that would come with a large craft moving at high speed through the air is still a factor somehow. I was intrigued in the mix of flight mechanics that could be at play in G-Rebels.
After a decent amount of time flying in combat and zooming recklessly through the buildings and streets of Daevos, I was satisfied with the decision of the developer. Most notable was how the RCS is best used. The Skyblade can be flown without relying on the RCS at all if desired, but using it in a way more akin to a rudder on a traditional aircraft yielded some interesting results.
While a traditional aircraft would use rudder inputs to coordinate their turns for more efficient horizontal maneuvers, the Skyblades seem to fly most efficiently in every flight regime by coordinating RCS controls. Flying without consciously coordinating can cause situations where the nose of the craft is pointed in the desired direction of flight while a majority of its momentum is continuing forward, gradually changing direction as the main thruster follows the nose of the craft. Instead, using RCS to counter the momentum can greatly lessen the somewhat uncontrolled drift. At low speeds or near hover, the RCS is helpful for maneuvering in a small space while engaged in combat or to make minute adjustment while in forward flight. A small amount of speed can be lost by having the craft move a bit vertically or horizontally to evade an obstruction while continuing at full thrust in one direction, rather than losing a large amount of speed maneuvering the entire Skyblade off of its axis of travel.
Initially I tried to engage in combat relying mostly on hovering with rapid movements, but I quickly learned this would lead to the energy shields and armor of the craft to be diminished. The enemies players fight against are decently mobile and the areas that combat happened in are much larger than players probably expect. Engaging in brief close-range combat, then powering away to engage from a distance or evade to recover shield power is a valid tactic. Also, moving at higher speeds does effectively reduce the accuracy of enemy attacks and reduce the chance of being swarmed while taking full advantage of the battle space.
I think I was expecting a flight model where the craft in G-Rebels seemingly weighed nothing and would effortlessly change direction with just the flick of a single stick. I expected that type of deeply arcade style combat to be something more akin to a fast paced first person shooter. Where fast, twitchy movements in a relatively small area would define combat. Instead, there were a few more layers to it. I appreciate that.
Suggestions
As far as hardware support goes, the demo includes a somewhat rough ability to support head trackers via TrackIR. The current head position with the in-game pilot model causes a few more problems than its worth, so maybe just disabling the pilot model for easy headtracker use would be advisable.
Ironically, while G-Rebels has been shown as a virtual reality capable game via some non-developer supported modifications, the demo is not VR compatible. Though it seems like the developers are now taking this steady interest in VR to heart.
The demo can support HOTAS and HOSAS flight gear, though this was added on what could be considered an experimental basis. For the demo we did not try and flight sticks or throttle quadrants since it was not completely prepared for those controllers.
While the game is a cockpit focused experience, the external design of the Skyblade X-Type seen in the video cutscenes does seem like it would be a shame to not be seen more often. There is also a set of players that prefer to play flight games like this only in third person view, so the addition of this point of view could be beneficial.
I have seen a few suggestions in the official Discord and other places about tweaking the flight model to be more subdued in a few ways, but I hesitate to suggest any major changes to the default version of the flight model. While it feels fine for now, there is an upgrade system in place to encourage players to progress save credits and invest in certain aspects of them. I question if increasing the overall sensitivity of the flight model would be detrimental in the early game in terms of making engine related upgrades unimportant. For now, the flight model seems serviceable.
I'd say my overall experience with the demo in this past week was positive. The few complaints I did have were related to the default colors of the heads up display during certain times of day and size of text within the cockpit and in the user interface being slightly too small to read depending on where the text is in the UI, but there were no real low moments in the experience.
I'm eager for more! I wonder if Reakktor Studios will have an updated demo for Gamescom 2025...
Connect with 'G-Rebels'
About the Writer
Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. [Read Staff Profile]
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