Steam Pilots Producer Wants Exa-Arcadia Release

According to a recent post from our friends at Arcade Belgium, producer/composer Motoaki Furukawa wants to bring his upcoming shoot-em-up, Steam Pilots, to arcades through Exa-Arcadia.

Steam Pilots saw a crowdfunding campaign from December 6, 2019 to March 6, 2020 for a PC release. After the wildly successful campaign ended—blowing past its 2,500,000円with 8,133,000円raised—the title was given a targeted September 2020 release date.

A former musician at Konami, Furukawa devised Steam Pilots the original concept and reached out to additional talent to bring his idea to light, including indie developer Hidekuni Sasaki, game designer Shuzilow.HA, and singer/voice actor Mariko Kouda.

Furukawa will compose the game’s soundtrack; Sasaki will oversea the game’s production; Shuzilow.HA will produce the game’s art; and Kouda will provide accompanying vocals for Furukawa’s compositions.

Steam Pilots will feature easy, medium, and hard modes to accommodate for varying player skill levels.

To learn more, check out this two-minute trailer in which the gameplay, art, and—of course—music are on full display. My opinion so far is that Steam Pilots looks and sounds awesome, and I’d certainly like to try it for myself upon release.

With all this being said, it’s crucial to note that, from what I understand, an Exa-Arcadia release has not been guaranteed. Furukawa has merely expressed strong interest in an arcade release of some sort, preferably through that platform.

Personally, I really, really, really hope Steam Pilot makes the leap to coin-op. While it would be—to the chagrin of some—yet another Exa shoot-em-up among a plethora, it certainly wouldn’t be a bad shoot-em-up to have.

Let’s cross our fingers that Steam Pilots is officially announced for Exa-Arcadia some time in the coming months. In the meantime, you might as well join my Discord server. I’ve heard it’s just as good.