Pharazen Studios’ Exphelius: Arena is a top-down arena space shooter that recently entered into Early Access on Steam. The game is played like a lot of classic arcade shooters, with the intent of navigating various arenas and taking out every single one of your opponents until you’re the last ship flying.

The game is themed around selecting from one of 12 different ships, each with their own stats and handling. You’ll enter into the arena and attempt to fight off against your opponents using a variety of power-ups that unlock different weapons.

One neat aspect of the game is that you can tether to an opponent using a grappling hook that can be utilized to catapult opponents into asteroids, wreckage, or other ships. You can get an idea of what it’s like with the trailer below.

The current state of the game is alpha as heck. There’s only a series of quick-play modes available for a single player, including free-for-all, team deathmatch, derby, outrun, and marathon.

The good part is that according to the Early Access FAQ the game is scheduled to have a full-on role-playing campaign mode, where players will proceed through the campaign to unravel the story, whatever that may be.

Also, I should add that the soundtrack is pretty cool for the game. It features a futuristic synthwave score. You can snag a listen to one of the tracks below.

If for nothing else, at least the soundtrack rocks.

Now if this is the sort of game that tickles, scratches, and then fondles its way up your leg and begins to molest your fancy, then you can give Exphelius: Arena a try by picking up a digital copy from over on the Steam store page for $9.99.

Keep in mind, though, that the game is still in Early Access, and so it won’t be complete until mid-2022. So that’s a long ways off from now.

(Thanks for the news tip Wamuu divine sandstorm)