Orbitals Gets a Friend's Pass and Free Demo Ahead of September Launch

One Game, Two Players, Zero Excuses

Orbitals was already shaping up to be one of the more thoughtful co-op releases on Switch 2, but developer Shapefarm and publisher Kepler Interactive apparently decided “pretty accessible” was not good enough. As reported by Nintendo Life this week, the game will launch with a Global Friend’s Pass app on September 3, letting a second player jump in online completely free as long as one person in the pair owns the full game.

The setup will feel familiar to anyone who played It Takes Two or Split Fiction, Hazelight’s co-op titles that used the same general concept. One player owns the game, one player downloads the companion app, and the barrier of convincing a friend to buy a game they have never tried essentially disappears. For Orbitals, which is co-op only, that matters quite a bit.

The Demo Sweetens the Deal Further

Here is the part that pushes this from “nice feature” to genuinely clever marketing. The Global Friend’s Pass app does not just enable online access for the second player. It also contains a free standalone demo of Orbitals’ opening chapter, playable in local co-op without a single penny changing hands.

The demo is local co-op only, so it will not work as a solo trial or over the internet. But for the obvious target audience here, two people on the same couch trying to decide whether to commit, that is exactly the right format. You and a partner can run through the opening chapter together, get a real feel for how the game plays, and then make an informed call. The Friend’s Pass app covers both scenarios: try it locally for free, or join your friend’s full copy online once someone has pulled the trigger.

How All the Co-Op Options Stack Up

Orbitals offers a surprisingly wide spread of ways to play, depending on what hardware and subscriptions each person has. Online play through the Friend’s Pass or through GameShare both require Nintendo Switch Online membership. Local GameShare, though, works even if one player is on an original Switch rather than a Switch 2. And straightforward local co-op on the same system is available with no extra apps, passes, or subscriptions involved.

Nintendo Life noted earlier this month that GameShare alone had already made Orbitals feel accessible, and hands-on preview coverage described the game’s cosmic anime co-op as evoking a genuinely nostalgic kind of joy. The addition of a Friend’s Pass and a bundled demo builds on that foundation rather than replacing it.

What This Means for September 3

The launch picture for Orbitals now looks like this: buy the game and you can invite anyone online for free, demo it locally with someone before committing, or share via GameShare across Switch generations. The co-op-only structure, which some players understandably see as a limitation, has been met with about as many workarounds as a studio can reasonably offer without just making the whole thing free.

Orbitals launches September 3 as a Switch 2 exclusive. The Global Friend’s Pass app will be available to download on that same day. If you have been sitting on the fence waiting to see whether you and your co-op partner can make the logistics work, Shapefarm has done most of the work for you.