Last month after reaching out to developer 10tons, I received word that its vertical shooter Xenoraid “should make it to Apple TV.” Well today it did.

Today has been a good news day for space shooters on Apple TV, with 3D space epic Stellar Wanderer being announced for release next week, and side-scrolling shooter Toon Shooters 2 getting a massive 2.0 update on March 2nd.

I’ve just spent a short half hour with Xenoraid and I can say at this early stage that things look very promising. It’s been available since November 2016 on PS4, and certainly carries that PlayStation Plus factor that I talked about last week, being a smaller indie title that brings some innovative gameplay twists to a well known genre.

Players are able to navigate everywhere across the entire screen, and swap out different ships with varying weapon configurations when needed, depending on damage taken or the types of enemies present. This looks like it will add a nice element of strategy and variety as difficulty increases in later levels, coupled with the fact that ships and weapons can be upgraded as well. Tapping your various ships in and out is a great new twist to a very old genre and spices things up nicely.

You can download Xenoraid for free which gives you a trial version with some missions and ships, with a small price to unlock the full game. And that’s exactly what I’m about to go and do so I can sink my teeth into it, and post a longer review in the not too distant future.

Enjoy!