A new co-op roguelite bullet hell is looking to swipe the hearts of gamers looking for a social multiplayer indie experience in 2025.Solar Raidersbrings highly-customizable characters with a wide array of skills and weapons to the often-wacky partyindie gamespace.
The game focuses on a team of 1-4 Raiders, who have been kidnapped by a space pirate to hunt down the powerful energy source known as a Solar Core. Approaching this task with lighthearted humor and a massive arsenal of guns and skills allows for a frenetic action experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously, aiming for the tone taken byother successful indie party experiencesin the past. Game Rant spoke to Robi Studios’ CEO Gabriel Rosa ahead ofSolar Raidersannouncement about this tone and setting up this social experience.
Keeping it Light and Silly in Solar Raiders
Rosa initially explained how the tone was critical to the game’s ambitions as a relaxed experience for friends to engage with together.
We were really thinking about what we wanted to have, what sort of feel that games that you just lay back and enjoy with friends for a really long period of time have…With the soundtrack and our art style, we wanted to verify it fits an experience that you can have a lot of fun with friends, a lot of fun situations.
Aiming to capture that feeling led to crafting acolorful, high-saturation art stylewith slightly cartoonish character designs and fluid movement, coupled with a very synth-heavy up-tempo soundtrack. Though neither the art nor music are finalized–the game includes royalty-free placeholder tracks along with work from the studio’s composer at the moment–they set a course for the feeling the game is going for. Of course, it isn’t just art and music that sets a game’s tone.
Comedy is centraltoSolar Raiders’ tone. From the inherent silliness of the space pirate crew that abducts the player character to funny easter eggs and amusing interactions, setting a light tone through humor is one of the key approaches Robi Studios has used to communicate that Raiders shouldn’t take the game, or themselves, too seriously. Rosa gave an example of the kind of weird and silly things players can expect to randomly run into while seeking the Solar Core.
We have a weapon that is a guitar. When you attack, each node plays a musical note that is in sync with the soundtrack. We also have a skin that is sort of like a mariachi hat with a skull, and if you wear the mariachi hat and you use the guitar weapon, the notes will be the notes ofLa Cucarachawhen you attack. We want to have all these crazy funny experiences that people might find dozens of runs into the game.
Exploring the silliness in a game can do wonders for its success as shown by recent smash hitHelldivers 2. Following a similar structure asSolar Raiders,Helldivers 2takes four players on mid-sized, fast-paced missions that progress both the player’s kit and the state of the overall campaign, but has useditsStarship Troopers-inspired toneto strike a comic over-the-top parody of patriotism that has fueled its meme status. Though aesthetically and mechanically quite different,Solar Raidersleans on the same mission structure and comedy that helped propelHelldivers’ popularity.
Raiding isn’t Just a Silly Social Experience
A more direct inspiration forSolar Raiders, though, might be 2008’s social sensation Castle Crashers. A lot of that inspiration takes the form of creating a feeling Rosa finds critical to the Solar Raiders experience, that of being on a couch with friends, blasting away together. Laughter and camaraderie are popular tools in the belt of indie party games, and Solar Raiders tries to wield them with diligence and deftness.
When you develop games, you focus a lot on your game, but at the same time, you look at other games. I think atitle that feels similar isCastle Crashers, for example. Yes, it’s a game that you’re able to just go in with friends. It’s about having fun, it’s not about reaching the highest rank, and it’s just about having a really fun time. It’s the sweet spot for us between a party game and a serious, challenging experience. That’s what we’re aiming for.
All of this isn’t to saythe game is multiplayer only, though. Rosa said the team at Robi put forth effort to ensure that solo raiders could still seize the Solar Core. Though playing with friends is a goal forSolar Raiders, Rosa didn’t want to leave the single-player experience behind.
We wanted to make sure that the game is playable in multiplayer and can be a very light single-player experience at the same time, and I would say that both work. The multiplayer experience probably leans a bit more into fun, and when you’re playing single player experience, it leans more into a more regular, challenging roguelite experience.
Solar Raiderswill release in 2025, with ademo available now on Steam.
