S-Bend Games has confirmed that Freefall ’95 will launch on Steam on June 1, with the studio’s debut game throwing players out of a doomed flight and asking them to make the most of the situation on the way down. The Steam page describes it as a fast-paced, arcade-style falling simulator where you play as the sole survivor of a mid-air disaster, chaining tricks, collecting items, dodging debris and trying to make sense of a time-bending story set in 1995.
That alone is enough to make it stand out a bit. There are plenty of games about surviving impossible situations. There are far fewer that look at free-falling through the sky and decide the answer is “yes, but what if it had combo systems and leaderboard energy?” The game is also clearly wearing its influences proudly, with the Steam description pointing to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, SSX Tricky and other classic extreme sports games as key inspiration for its style and feel.
Freefall ’95 – Release date trailer
Freefall ’95 sounds like Tony Hawk by way of an aviation nightmare
The basic setup of Freefall ’95 is gloriously daft in the right way. You are plummeting toward Earth, but rather than simply trying not to die, you are also pulling tricks, chasing points and working around hazards while the whole thing spirals into a more chaotic arcade spectacle. Steam says players can interact with fellow passengers while still on the plane, take on quests, buy items with coins, and slowly uncover what is actually behind the looping disaster.
Feature-wise, there seems to be a fair bit going on beneath the central gimmick. The store page lists five sprawling levels spread across three difficulty tiers for a total of 15 stages, alongside arcade-style challenge levels, roguelike gauntlets that chain multiple stages together on a single health bar, worldwide and friends-only leaderboards, ability items, traits, and what it calls a rich, time-bending narrative.
There is already a Freefall ’95 demo, and people seem to be into it
Anyone curious does not have to wait until launch to get a feel for it either. The full Steam page currently links to a downloadable demo, and that demo has been live since January 29. Steam currently shows it sitting at 100% positive from 62 user reviews, which is a pretty tidy result even if demo reception and full-release success are not always the same thing.
It also helps that the pitch feels refreshingly specific. This is not trying to be a giant everything-game. It is a score-driven, single-player arcade release with Steam achievements, cloud saves and leaderboards, wrapped in a chunky ’90s aesthetic and a knowingly silly premise. Sometimes that is far more appealing than a game trying to convince you it will change your life.
Our take on Freefall ’95
Freefall ’95 looks like the sort of game that knows exactly what kind of nonsense it wants to be, and there is something very respectable about that. A mid-air disaster turned into a trick-combo score attack game should be ridiculous, and from the look of it, S-Bend Games has leaned into that rather than trying to sand the weirdness off.
Whether it sticks the landing is another matter, especially when the whole thing is technically about not landing well at all, but the setup is strong, the demo response is encouraging, and the Steam page makes it sound like more than a one-joke premise. If you like your arcade games loud, strange and just a little bit unhinged, this one may be worth keeping an eye on before it splats down on June 1.
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