Exoborne SGF hands-on preview — Putting my head into helicopter blades for fun

I saw a lot of games at Summer Game Fest 2025, but I was particularly surprised by one game in particular – Exoborne.  While we still, somehow, don’t have a release date on this premium cyberpunk cooperative live-service extraction shooter, I got to go hands-on with the game.  I almost decapitated myself at the very end of my demo, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

If you’re not plugged into Exoborne yet, it’s an open-world-ish multiplayer extraction shooter.  Nature has done a real number on the planet, and vicious environmental changes are common.  Hostile factions continuously vie for control over the ruins of Colton County, and your job is to drop into these hot zones, gather what you can, and then get out.  The only problem, of course, is that this is the same mission as everyone else. 

Our hands-on time with the game had me dropping in with another press member and a developer.  First, we got a rundown of what an Exo suit is and does.  In Exoborne, Exo suits are more than a suit of armor, but an entire toolkit. Originally used as construction equipment, each has been modified to bring different advantages to their operator, such as the ability to carry heavier firepower, deploy shields, call air strikes, deploy scans to identify foes, or even the ability to hover over the battlefield.  Synergizing with your friends will be the key to an effective team, and as such the devs suggested we use either the Kodiak (a close quarters heavy beast capable of ground slamming enemies in a large radius) or the Viper (which brings health regeneration when you kill or down an enemy, as well as a medium-range melee attack).  Naturally that means I chose the Kestrel, an Exo suit capable of utilizing a grappling hook and a dual parachute to hover, quickly catch updrafts and navigate the skies.

The map itself is massive, with various objectives and extraction points.  We picked one point to hit and set out. We took out a few rebels, one of the PvE factions that hold the objectives around the map and learned our suits a bit.  At the beginning of our mission our location isn’t reported to other players.  As we collected resources I noticed a small timer in the upper corner of the screen.  It turns out, we had a limited amount of time before our position would become visible to other PvP players and we’d suddenly have a problem on our hands.  This is also the case when you extract, but we’ll get back to that.

Exoborne is an absolute looker thanks to Unreal Engine 5.  The character models are intricate, well detailed, and with customization can look pretty awesome.  The environmental effects that are part of the central thrust of the game are awesome to behold, throwing debris and dust around and looking incredibly realistic.  When the lightning starts, it’s downright unnerving.  There’s no doubt that developer Sharkmob has lovingly crafted this world to be as realistic and futuristic as possible, and it shows.  

Based on the limited time I had with the game at SGF, I’d say the primary cornerstone of Exoborne is agility.  Gunplay is fast and fluid, and a mixture of ranged and melee based on which suit you take.  Your friends can augment your approach as they call out and mark targets, push them back with shields, or use heavy firepower to flush them out for the rest to mop up.  I don’t recall the McGuffin we recovered, but once we did it was time to get out.  Here’s how that played out. 

Teammate: “Hey, I think I spotted a player on the bridge above the extraction point.”  

Me: “Roger that.”

Using my Kestrel’s parachute, I caught an updraft, swung underneath the bridge, and landed on the keystone portion up top. I proceeded to gun down the other player before he could figure out where I was, leaving him in a downed state.  I retreated behind some wrecked cars and waited.  As predicted, his friend popped out shortly after to try to revive him.  By this time, our Kodiak had caught up and it was all over but the screaming.  The third player showed up but died so quickly against our full team that it’s hardly worth the mention.  

Our extraction was down in a sort of makeshift building ruin next to this bridge, but remarkably out in the open.  I spotted one player on top of the roof providing overwatch for a chopper that just arrived.

Teammate: “Did you call for extraction?”Me: “No, I thought we’d mop up.  I thought you called.”Teammate: “Nope.  That’s not our bird.”

Me: “True, but if we kill the other team, it can become our bird…right?”

The Kodiak snuck up (yep, I’m as surprised as you) on that player guarding the roof and punched him into oblivion.  I used the same aerial move to get myself back on top of the bridge, laughing as I saw his buddy run directly underneath me.  I took him out from behind before he figured out where the shots were coming from once again. The third player either wasn’t coming out or thought better of a three-on-one engagement.  Their attempt to ambush us foiled, the Kodiak and Viper players hopped into the chopper like normal people.  I decided to use my grappling hook from the ground, immediately sucking me into the rotor blades of the chopper.  With a sickeningly sharp metal-on-metal shrieking going on, I heard one of the team say “Well, that’s new! Hahaha”.  The only thing that saved me was that I hadn’t taken any real damage up to this point.  We managed to extract from the environment, our loot intact.  

The part that grabbed me more than the shooting, and more than the Exo suits themselves, was the environment.  Massive towers that were supposed to save us from environmental disaster instead caused it to be so much worse.  Wind storms, tornadoes spewing lighting and fire, and other natural disasters change the landscape, making it hard to navigate (especially in the air) and otherwise force certain conditional gameplay elements.  While a Kodiak might be strong enough to withstand a wind storm, the Kestrel had better take shelter or that player is going to get tossed like a ragdoll.  

I’m not normally a big fan of live service games, but the world, environmental hazards, combat, and a slick sci-fi narrative is shaping up Exoborne to be something different.  I think this one will be worth keeping in mind when it eventually releases at some point in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.  

Stay tuned for more on Exoborne and all the rest of the amazing games we saw at Summer Game Fest 2025 right here at GamingTrend.com.