Gundam Rogue Orbit Brings Whip Sword But Holds Back

By Indie Kings | October 7, 2026

Updated October 7, 2026: Gundam Rogue Orbit's hands-on demo gave PC Gamer senior editor Wes Fenlon a Bloodborne-style whip sword and roughly 30 minutes of combo-heavy mech action, but kept the customization screen locked away. Per the columnist's preview, the game skews more action RPG than Devil May Cry, mirrors Armored Core 6's rhythm, and targets a March launch.

Image: Gundam Rogue Orbit mech action. Credit: PC Gamer.

Hands-on takeaway

Per columnist Wes Fenlon at PC Gamer, Gundam Rogue Orbit is the preview that created an entitled opinion about giant anime robots. The demo handed over a Gundam wielding a whip sword, straight out of Bloodborne territory, and roughly 30 minutes of pure action. The surprise: months after the reveal, the Gundam team is still holding back hands-on with the part the columnist wants most, the customization screen.

Frame the piece as Fenlon's hands-on reaction, not a verdict on the full game. Per the columnist, the combo-heavy action immediately made the game feel like it was onto something. Story side is thin in the demo: plenty of anime-tinged voiceover about aliens called "The Apocalypse," and the columnist came away expecting to pay little attention to plot.

Rogue Orbit is from Bandai Namco. The full game is out in March. Our job here is to relay the columnist angle, the hands-on texture of the demo, and why the missing build screen matters more to him than the flashy weapons.

Demo texture matters for how we read the column. Per the columnist, the 30 minutes were all action, with no menu browsing. He notes that demos always strike a balance between showing too much and not enough, risking confusing up-front complexity or a slice so thin that the fatty goodness is missing. His read is that Rogue Orbit's slice is fat on combat and thin on build expression, the opposite ratio he hoped for from a mech game.

The preview also carries a quiet compliment about tone. Per Fenlon, Rogue Orbit is not the politically tinged deliberation on war he loves from the best Gundam shows, and he gives it permission to be something different. The combo-heavy action made him feel the game was onto something before he had any opinion about story. That inversion, action first, narrative later, sums up the preview.

The whip sword gift

The headline sensation from the preview is the whip sword. Per Fenlon, it is exactly the kind of esoteric weapon that suggests Rogue Orbit has a real shot at being the action game he wants out of Gundam: more melee crunch and nuance than the brand usually offers. Gundam itself dabbled with whip-like blades in the mid-'90s, so the Bloodborne comparison comes with a footnote, but the columnist's excitement is about the present build in his hands.

He is not mad at the sword itself. He is ecstatic about it. The grievance is that he cannot pick it himself. He wants the moment where a short list of demo weapons pops up and he thinks: whip sword, yes, I will be having some of that. That choice moment is currently theory.

Combat shape per columnist

Per the columnist, Rogue Orbit skews more action RPG than Devil May Cry. Combos are a few repeated button presses, and much of the damage comes from throwing in active skills, each with its own cooldown. Holding a trigger and tapping Square on a PlayStation pad made his Gundam swirl the whip sword in a 360 degree frenzy, catching anyone nearby in a flurry of quick hits.

Damage numbers are on by default. That detail pushes the loop toward cooldown monitoring, the columnist reports, similar in spirit to how Granblue Fantasy: Relink asks you to track timers as much as attack timing or perfect dodges. So the demo already feels like a numbers-flavored action RPG shoehorned into a Gundam chassis, in his telling.

On edginess, Rogue Orbit has nothing on "XXXG-01D2 Gundam Deathscythe Hell" from Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, per the columnist's comparison. He also notes the game is not the politically tinged deliberation on war he loves from the best Gundam shows, but that is acceptable because it is doing something different.

Arms: Sword Lance and Beam Phalanx

The second showcased arm is the Sword Lance. Per Fenlon, it feels almost Monster Hunter-inspired: each heavy lunging attack performed mid-dodge builds a unique meter, and that meter can then be spent to spawn a "Beam Phalanx" of laser-spewing orbs. So the demo already shows two distinct weapon rhythms, one about crowd-clearing spins and one about patient meter building that pays off in a screen-filling laser salvo.

That variety is the core argument for optimism. The columnist's preview reads like evidence that the demo is more than a spectacle slice: it is teaching players two different resource games inside the same frame. Whip sword rewards movement and proximity flurry; Sword Lance rewards dodge timing and meter banking. If the full game expands those resource games across a proper build menu, it lines up with what he wants from mech action.

The Armored Core 6 cousin question

Per Fenlon, this is the closest any Gundam game he has played has felt to FromSoftware's Armored Core 6. He is careful with the label: gentler, more "have fun pressing buttons and watch shiny particles go everywhere," but a cousin nonetheless. He traces the lineage: in the pre-Dark Souls days, FromSoftware developed several Gundam games for Bandai Namco around the same time it shipped Armored Core: For Answer and Armored Core 5. The learner has become the master, in his framing.

If the current Gundam team studied AC6 with envy and decided to replicate it for a slightly less hardcore audience, he thinks that was a wise move. Based on early impressions, he thinks they pulled it off. That is the strongest praise in the column: not a score, just the AC6 cousin verdict and the compliment of intentional lineage.

The missing customization screen

The grievance half of the column is the customization screen. Per Fenlon, the fact that you can customize your mech in Rogue Orbit is not secret: there is a screenshot of the menu on the Steam page. Stars like "close-range power" and "output" are visible there. What the demo would not give him was the chance to actually sit in front of that menu and pick.

Mechanics demo balancing is real: too much up-front complexity and the slice feels confusing; too thin and the flavor is missing. He played about 30 minutes, all action. His counterpoint: demo practicality be damned. Until he is putting the whip sword in his Gundam's hand himself, he cannot know whether this is the next great mech action game.

We think the missing screen matters because mech games live or die on build expression. Armored Core's joy, he writes, is assembling a build before a mission: balance of speed and durability, raw damage and ammo capacity, range versus up-close stopping power against the coming threat. Strip that away and you are left judging the spectacle, not the game.

Launch and buy signals

Per the columnist, the full game is out in March. The demo suggests a combo-first, cooldown-managed action RPG with Armored Core 6 cousin energy and a gentler landing. The customization promise is visible on the Steam page but unproven in motion. Buyers should weigh the whip sword spectacle against the locked build system.

FAQ

Who wrote the hands-on this article relays?

Per PC Gamer, Wes Fenlon, the outlet's senior editor. Our piece is an Indie Kings summary of his column angle, not a full review.

What is the one thing the columnist wants most?

Per the columnist, hands-on time with the mech customization screen. The menu exists in a Steam page screenshot with stats like close-range power and output, but the demo build did not let him use it.

What weapons showed up in the demo?

Per the columnist, the whip sword and the Sword Lance. The whip sword spins in a 360 degree flurry; the Sword Lance builds a meter via mid-dodge lunges that can be spent on a Beam Phalanx of laser orbs.

How does the columnist classify the combat?

Per the columnist, more action RPG than Devil May Cry, with damage numbers on by default and active skills on cooldowns. He compares the loop to cooldown monitoring in Granblue Fantasy: Relink.

What is the Armored Core 6 connection?

Per the columnist, FromSoftware made several Gundam games in the pre-Dark Souls era alongside early Armored Core entries. Rogue Orbit feels like the closest Gundam game to AC6, a gentler cousin, and he calls that a wise move.

When does the full game launch?

Per the columnist, the full game is out in March.

Bottom Line

Per columnist Wes Fenlon, Gundam Rogue Orbit delivered the whip sword he wanted and the customization screen he did not get. Treat our piece as a relay of his hands-on angle: the action reads like an AC6 cousin with action RPG cooldown flavor, the arms show two promising resource games, and the missing build menu is the swing factor for the March launch.

Sources: PC Gamer, Wes Fenlon, October 6, 2026.