Flight Of Nova

This is a weird review to make, because I really dig the concept and I've spent a solid few hours with the game. The flight model is mostly solid (but maybe it has a gimbal lock issue in the controls? ). Flying from ground to orbit and back and stuff like that is inherently fun, because it has a nice balance of realism, inertia and fun. However, it feels like a tech demo. Steam saves aren't there/don't work. Startup takes about a minute for one of the most empty games in history. Menu has several "gameplay modes", but neither is fun, crafted experience, to the point where doing tutorials is the most fun thing in the game. Normal gameplay is basically flying from point to point. Whole interface isn't as helpful as it could be. It clearly assumes that the player knows what's what, so, if you want to reach an orbital station, it's best to look up some guide, that will actually explain what is this or that number, as the tutorial is a joke. If you just follow it, you won't get there. Missions can be picked up only on their start tower, there isn't any "global registry". But you need to complete a few particular ones to progress in the whole zone. Rest is basically for fun. You need to switch the vehicle for a few of them. Where you might ask? Well, game won't tell you. Map doesn't really exist. You have some local view, but no planet map, no abillity to set up some waypoints, targets, waypoints "100km before or after" the targets for the orbital runs, nothing. The planet body is EXTREMELY ugly. Think PS2 terrain. Buildings and ship are ok, it has it's charm, but they stick up from an ugly terrain like a sore thumb. It's not just a visual nitpick, it's incredibly hard to actually judge your speed and distance, even when close to buildings and/or terrain. And if there is a steep cliff face (which, it often is), the already ugly terrain is stretched to impossible sizes. tldr: I have 20 hours in it, I clearly enjoy the flight model a lot. I really dig the game on it's potential. But it didn't meaningfully change in any areas where I was hoping that it would in the three years that I know about it.

I think this is a very cool game with A LOT of potential, and I look forward to following its development. However, I do NOT recommend purchasing it at its current stage of development (March 2026) at the current asking price ($30). This game is NOT worth $30 (yet). You should absolutely check out the demo, but don't go and buy the game thinking you're going to get a bunch more content. The space flight and physics are very impressive. I really enjoyed taking off from the planet and making my way into space to dock with a space station that was realistically orbiting the planet at thousands of meters per second. Then leaving that space station to land back on the planet or to dock with a different space station. This was very fun the first few times while I was still learning the game. The problem is, once you've learned how to do this after a few tries, it's always the same. The procedure doesn't change, there's hardly any variation, and it starts to feel repetitive and boring. There are only 3-4 different types of missions, and once you've done them each a few times, repeating them again starts to feel pointless because the game currently does not have any kind of progression system. You don't earn money or unlock new ship types. You just get a "mission accomplished" and then get offered to do the same mission again. The current early access version has around a dozen tutorial missions, and they're all quite fun. But after that, the game doesn't have much to offer. In terms of graphics, the game is ok. It could definitely use some improvement, but that didn't really impact my enjoyment much. Until the devs add a campaign or some other meaningful progression system, this game is NOT worth $30. I recommend just playing the demo and saving your money.

This game is the best because you can: - Decide there are no good missions at the current orbital station - Departing Auken station at 188 km orbit - Project Orion style hyperbolic direct intercept to Gaba station at 15.6 km/s - 10.2 G anti-normal burns and brake - Nearly hitting Gaba (at 757 km height) at 1 km/s - Circularize orbit to 657 km after direct intercept - Gentle approach and docking at Gaba - Deorbit from 758 km with periapsis -1409 km - Come in too steep, atmospheric skip at 1138°C, losing an engine - Fly over the land target due to atmospheric skip - Do a 6 G bank to shed speed - 812 km backtrack to land target with nav half dead - Head-on approach to a sky carrier flying the wrong way - Falling past the carrier on three engines - A parabolic arc onto the deck using cruise engines pointed straight up - One-shot landing at -12 m/s with no go-around option And that is just one casual container delivery in an evening of Flight of Nova

Pretty much everything you can ask for. The best of orbital without making it too brutal (it's brutal enough even with tiny assists), hypersonic shuttle and freighter spacecraft that can easily do vtol, and dynamic, ongoing campaigns and objectives in a realistic physics environment. Best of all, the controller actually seems to be a better fit for this aircraft (other than maybe easily applying trim, but you undo the trim enough, I think, with constant alt and speed changes) and make using them very intuitive. The learning curve isn't that steep, but it will take a while to get competent, and mentally estimating flight paths at hypersonic speeds for orbital or suborbital courses is fun and not as hard as it sounds. Definitely worth the purchase, one of the ones I am glad I purchased. Hypersonic orbital trucking. Best of all -- supports TrackIR! Thank you! If you like helicopters on DCS or Nuclear Option and space games like Kerbal, this is an easy buy. Adding on after seeing some unreasonable negative reviews -- what are you asking for that hasn't been delivered on? What do you expect for your $20-$30? A life solution? A whole new world? Games are changing and becoming easier to make. Don't expect Avatar-level spending and development on a niche game. Not everyone likes doing stuff like this, and there's strong competition in the same genre (e.g. Elite). I'm frankly amazed how much I'm getting for what I paid for in Early Access three years ago. Thank you devs!

Very positive reviews, still underrated. I love this hardcore realistic simulationgame.

Flight of Nova might genuinely have the worst graphics of all the current flight simulators . The planets are barren, the textures are simple, the stations look purely functional, and the overall presentation feels closer to an early-access prototype than a polished AAA release. And yet — it delivers one of the best flight experiences you can imagine. Because the moment you lift off, the visuals stop mattering. What makes this even more impressive is that Flight of Nova is developed by a single developer. This is not a big studio production. It’s essentially the vision of one person who clearly cares far more about physics and flight mechanics than flashy presentation — and that focus shows. At its core, Flight of Nova is a hardcore atmospheric and orbital flight simulator built around cargo delivery. You fly three ships: a Shuttle, a Freighter, and an Experimental Prototype. All three feature fully functional VTOL modes. And the VTOL handling is where the game truly shines. Flying in VTOL feels remarkably similar to piloting a helicopter in DCS World. You are constantly balancing thrust, vertical speed, attitude, and lateral drift. There is no arcade simplification. If you overcorrect, the ship oscillates. If you mismanage descent rate, you hit hard. Smooth landings require finesse, anticipation, and real control discipline with full HOTAS Support. Transitioning from vertical to horizontal flight feels natural and deeply satisfying. You vector thrust, build horizontal speed, generate lift, and carefully manage your climb profile. Cargo weight matters. Fuel matters. Burn timing matters. The ships feel physical and grounded, not scripted. The gameplay loop revolves around delivering cargo between ground bases and orbital stations. You can take structured missions, but there is also a separate Rogue Mode. In Rogue Mode, you complete procedurally generated tasks, earn experience, and unlock progressively more complex mission types. As you level up, you gain access to harder contracts — eventually including high-altitude and orbital deliveries, and even advanced mission types like orbital operations. This is where the Kerbal Space Program comparison becomes unavoidable. Flight of Nova feels like Kerbal Space Program stripped down to pure piloting. You are dealing with: Realistic gravity Aerodynamics and lift Orbital velocity requirements Proper ascent profiles Controlled deorbit burns Reentry angle management Precision VTOL landings If you want to reach orbit, you must build horizontal velocity. If your reentry angle is wrong, you will skip off the atmosphere or burn up. If your descent profile is sloppy, your landing will fail. There are no cinematic shortcuts. The Experimental Prototype pushes this even further, feeling like a hybrid between aircraft and spaceplane. Now, about the price. For what you see on screen, the price can feel too high. The graphics are extremely minimalistic, the world design is sparse, and there is no cinematic presentation. On a purely visual level, it does not look like a premium product. But here’s the thing: there is nothing else quite like it. There are space games. There are flight simulators. There is Kerbal Space Program. There is DCS. But there is nothing that combines helicopter-like VTOL control, realistic atmospheric physics, and orbital mechanics in this focused, skill-based way. It is brutally minimal. It is mechanically demanding. It is visually outdated. But as a pure flight experience, especially considering it is built by a single developer, it is remarkable. Expensive for what it looks like? Maybe. Comparable to anything else on the market? Not really. Recommended!

♥♥♥♥ graphics. AMAZING flight model. This is the correct priority.

You've done it, you've made my dream game. I've waited for surface-to-orbit real-physics space truckin' since before the recommended GPU for Star Citizen was the GTX680. This game stands alone because no company at all in any budget bracket has seemed to want to make it before now. This game is tight and really does just one thing right now, sandbox deliveries, but it does it insanely well in a way no other space game can do, and it all plays like a dream on an xbox controller. The airship deliveries were a surprise too, I didn't see that in any of the promo material and those were quite a fun surprise. Sound design can make or break a space game in particular and it's all ear-candy here. I can see this replacing American Truck Sim as my chillout game of choice for a decently-foreseeable future. I'd recommend this full-price to anyone with an interest in space games, immersive orbital mechanics, or anyone with more than a dozen hours in KSP. I do agree with some of the asks from other comments though, this game could use some polish in the informational/UI areas. After a few hours I wish there were solutions (or possibly UI settings toggles) for some key things: I hate information disappearing! I'd really like a toggle to retain UI items under circumstances where they currently vanish. Cases include: -velocity indicators disappearing when close to landing points in 3rd person, -station relative velocity disappearing within 5km in 3rd person + being a poor directional indicator in general. An x-y directional indicator like in Outer Wilds would be lovely here, or just making the local/anti-local indicators toggleable on outside 50km on a targeted station would work too. -apoapsis not displayed under ~45km makes accurate sub-orbital hops more work -and a general lack of orbital view with velocity information (think KSP orbital view and its trajectory arcs) that would make all of this less guesswork However these are just conveniences, none of this breaks the game or pushes any delivery into the impossible. Anything here or new content is just icing on a great cake. Keep up the great work, and I'm looking forward to future developments. Even if this never got a new update I'd consider it complete for what it is.

Best flight model ever, missing a bit of variety around that though

Spent 20 minutes trying to dock with an orbital station and ended up getting a little motion sick after I landed. 10/10 would become dizzy again.