PS5

Published on February 15th, 2026 | by Nay Clark

Aerial_Knight’s DropShot Review (PS5)

This game throws you out of a plane with finger guns, dragon beef, and enough style to make falling look cool! Aerial_Knight’s DropShot is an arcade style first person shooter developed and published by Aerial_Knight and released on February 17, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. Created by Detroit based indie developer Niel Young, also known as Aerial_Knight, this marks another bold entry following Never Yield and We Never Yield, along with his contributions to projects like JETT: The Far Shore and Dot’s Home. DropShot immediately stands out as a continuation of his signature style, combining striking color work, confident attitude, and a sharp sense of rhythm with an action focused concept built entirely around freefall. It is fast, loud, strange, and unapologetically stylish, leaning hard into spectacle while keeping the mechanics tight and approachable.

Even with its crazy setup, DropShot still gives you a loose story to hang all the action on. You play as Smoke Wallace, an effortlessly cool protagonist who was bitten by a radioactive dragon as a child. That encounter turned his skin purple and gave him the ability to fire bullets from his fingertips. The same dragon then devoured his family and disappeared into the sky, setting Smoke on a lifelong path of revenge. Now working loosely alongside mercenaries, Smoke is dropped from aircraft to hunt dragons and destroy their eggs, even as it becomes clear that the people funding these missions may have their own questionable motives. The narrative is exaggerated and ridiculous in the best way, delivering just enough context to make the action feel purposeful without ever slowing the game down.

Gameplay revolves around constant motion. Each level begins with Smoke diving out of a plane and immediately entering freefall. You cannot stop, slow down, or turn the dive into anything resembling traditional movement. Instead, the game becomes a forward facing shooting gallery where positioning, timing, and awareness matter just as much as precision aiming. Enemies fall alongside you, obstacles drift into your path, and floating islands, lasers, and environmental hazards force you to stay alert at all times. Slipstreams act as temporary speed boosts, pushing you forward faster before easing you back to your normal falling pace. The goal is always to survive the descent, clear threats, and reach the island below while maintaining efficiency.

Scoring plays a big role in how DropShot measures success. At the end of each run, you are graded based on completion time, enemies defeated, and remaining ammo, resulting in a letter rank with S+++ sitting at the top. The system encourages replaying levels to chase better results, especially since taking damage twice forces a restart. It creates a clean risk reward loop that fits the game’s arcade roots, even if it does not always provide meaningful incentives beyond personal satisfaction and small unlocks.

Combat is simple but effective. Most enemies can be taken out with a single shot, though shielded foes require multiple hits. Ammo is limited, which keeps you from spraying endlessly, and balloons scattered throughout levels refill your supply if you manage to hit them. Health is displayed clearly at the bottom of the screen, while enemy counts and confirmed kills sit to the side as small visual markers. Smoke can also punch at close range, giving you a last line of defense if you mismanage ammo or drift too close to an enemy or interactive object. It is a small addition, but it helps the game feel forgiving without undermining the challenge.

Powerups add a layer of personality to the combat. Shooting dragon eggs throughout levels grants special abilities, which are tied to the pair of glasses Smoke has equipped. These can be selected from the main menu and dramatically change how you approach encounters. Some abilities unleash massive lasers, others rain down explosive ducks, and some mutate Smoke with extra limbs for wide multishot attacks. These powerups are creative, visually fun, and fit perfectly with the game’s over the top tone, even if their impact is often brief.

There are fifty levels total, structured in groups of four standard stages followed by a boss encounter. While the overall structure remains consistent, individual levels introduce different hazards such as rotating lasers, narrow openings through floating islets, and increasingly dense enemy formations. Visually, many levels feature similar sky backdrops with clouds, floating debris, and massive coiled rock snakes, which keeps the world cohesive but can start to feel repetitive, though later levels and the endgame bring some welcome changes of scenery. The boss fights are where DropShot really flexes its creativity. You might be firing at a fireball spewing dragon, dodging missiles from a parachute held tank, or racing a jetpack equipped rival toward a falling dragon egg. These encounters feel cinematic, stylish, and surprisingly varied, and they do a great job of breaking up the standard flow.

That said, DropShot sometimes feels like a nearly complete idea rather than a fully expanded one. The inability to turn fully around can occasionally be frustrating when enemies slip past you too quickly. It fits the shooting gallery philosophy, but it is hard not to imagine Smoke effortlessly flipping midair to finish a target. Level variety also feels like an area that could be expanded further. More enemy types, greater color variation in the skies and islands, different balloon behaviors, or cosmetic customization for Smoke’s arms could have added extra depth without disrupting the core design. The scoring system similarly feels underutilized. Unlocking new glasses is fun after finishing a certain level, but there is little sense of long term progression or stakes. Ideas like challenge focused glasses that alter visibility or increase difficulty in exchange for stronger abilities feel like natural evolutions that are not quite here yet.

Visually, the game looks excellent. The washed out purples and blues give the world a surreal, almost painterly quality that feels distinctly Aerial_Knight. The color palette leans into an otherworldly gouache style that complements the constant sense of motion and height. Animations are smooth, effects are flashy without being overwhelming, and the sense of speed is conveyed clearly. The audio design matches that energy. The soundtrack is funky, punchy, and rhythm driven, reinforcing the rock and roll attitude and pace of each descent while helping the action feel fluid and stylish.

Final Thoughts?

Aerial_Knight’s DropShot is a game I genuinely enjoyed. It feels like nothing else out there, is mechanically solid, and is refreshingly weird. There are moments where the pace slows near the end of a level as you drift toward the finish with little left to interact with, but those moments are brief compared to how consistently engaging the rest of the experience is. It carries the same kind of cool, experimental energy found in games like Neon White, while carving out its own lane through presentation and premise. With more variety and a slightly deeper progression system, a follow up could be something truly special. As it stands, DropShot is a stylish, easy to pick up, hard to ignore arcade shooter that embraces its strangeness and runs with it. If you enjoy fast paced action, strong aesthetics, and games that are not afraid to be a little unhinged, this is absolutely worth checking out.

About the Author

Nay Clark Gaming holds a special place in my heart and I never stop talking about video games. I really love all types of games and have an interest in games that have complicated stories and lore because I enjoy untangling the mystery of it all. When I'm not gaming, I unsuccessfully try to control three amazing and incredibly bright kids.

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