Is it worth it
Buy it at $9.74 if you have someone in the room for split-screen or you want the PS1 cyberpunk look. Do not buy it if you want a campaign, offline play or a guaranteed full lobby — there is no single-player mode and Steam showed 230 players online on 7 November.
Airframe Ultra costs $9.74 for its first 14 days and $12.99 after that. Whether that is worth it depends on which of four players you are, and the answer is different for each.
This page does not tell you it is good. It tells you what you are buying and who should skip it.
What $9.74 buys
| Included | Not included |
|---|---|
| Online PvP, online co-op | Single-player campaign |
| Local split-screen PvP and co-op | Offline play |
| Character creator and frame building | Bot matches (per player reports) |
| A shop and progression system | Cross-platform play |
| 21 achievements | Published season or ranked system |
| A quarterly content cadence (announced, undated) | A large launch content volume |
The scope is small and the developers say so directly: 1.0 is "establishing the fundamentals". If you buy this expecting a full-price game's worth of content, you will be disappointed at any price. If you buy it expecting a tight multiplayer racer with a singular look, $9.74 is a fair ask.
Four players, four answers
You have people in the room
Buy it. This is the game's strongest case. Couch Co-op Chaos is the first pillar for a reason: "We'll always prioritize the couch co-op experience over the competitive one. Who wins is secondary to crazy, chaotic plays." Split-screen PvP and co-op are both in the Steam category list, and local play sidesteps the population problem entirely.
The caveat: you need controllers, plural. The store's own note is that a gamepad is "highly recommended for optimal steering control", and two people on one keyboard is not the design.
You want a competitive online racer
Buy it if you accept a small population. Steam reported 230 players online on 7 November. That is enough for lobbies at peak hours in the right region and not enough otherwise. The "Asian servers?" thread exists because that is exactly the failure mode.
| Signal | Reading |
|---|---|
| 230 players online (7 Nov) | Small; peak-hour play only |
| 100,000+ wishlists before launch | Huge interest, small conversion |
| 59.5% finished a first match | Most buyers did not stay past hour one |
| 18.1% finished five circuits | A small core is playing properly |
You want a single-player game
Do not buy it. There is no campaign, no offline mode, and Steam's category list has no Single-player row. The developers have not announced one, and their stated policy is not to announce un-greenlit features. Buying this hoping for a later campaign is a bet against a public policy.
You want the PS1 cyberpunk look
Buy it, and treat it as an art object. Rock Paper Shotgun's 6 November review is essentially this position: "one of the prettiest PS1 cyberpunk burgs I've laid eyes on", with G-Police and Wipeout 2097 as the reference points and a passage about wanting to stop and look at the shipping containers rather than race.
At $9.74, a game that is worth walking around in for two hours is a reasonable purchase even if you never get good at it. The lore page covers what there is to look at.
The honest downsides
| Downside | Severity |
|---|---|
| No single-player, offline, or bots | Blocks a whole category of buyer |
| Small online population | Real; affects matchmaking quality |
| Camera and legibility complaints | Reported on the Steam hub in week one |
| On-foot movement described as "like a tank" | A review's phrasing; walking is not the design |
| Boost often ends in an explosion | By design, but frustrating |
| Balance concerns in survival races | A launch review flags money-plus-big-gun dominance |
None of these are hidden. All of them are visible in the store page, the Steam hub, or the two published reviews.
The price question, plainly
| If you play… | $9.74 is |
|---|---|
| Ten hours of split-screen with a friend | Excellent value |
| Twenty hours of online racing | Good value |
| Two hours and then stop | Fine, but not a bargain |
| Zero hours because you wanted a campaign | A waste, and avoidable |
The 25% discount lasts until 19 November. After that it is $12.99, which is still a low price for a game with this much art direction, but the difference between "cheap experiment" and "considered purchase" is real.
What would change this verdict
Three things would move the answer, and all of them are observable:
- Population growth. If the online count climbs after the launch week event, the competitive case strengthens.
- A content drop. The quarterly cadence is announced, not delivered. The first real update is the test of whether the roadmap is real.
- A single-player or bot announcement. The developers have not ruled it out; they have a policy of not announcing un-greenlit work, which is not the same as a no.
The roadmap page tracks the cadence commitment, and the reviews page collects what critics said if you want a second opinion before spending $9.74.