For a Jetpacking Open Worlder Starring Bug-Sized Captain Picard, Infinitesimals Feels a Lot Like Operation Flashpoint

Much to my surprise, the overgrown garden setting of Infinitesimals is not especially indebted to any Dreamworks and Pixar films about insects. Nor is the game's steel-jawed space flea protagonist, Captain Awkney Relinrake, directly inspired by Buzz Lightyear. Instead, he channels the stately, swaggering Englishness of Jean Luc Picard and Richard Sharpe, aka Napoleonic Sean Bean. This last revelation slightly disappoints me, in that Relinrake seems a bit ridiculous, with eyebrows the size of aviation flaps, and I'd like the game to own that humour in a more obviously Toy Story-ish way.

But what most catches me out, during my 30 minute hands-on with Cubit Studios' deceptively toony action game, is that it takes a fair few cues from milsims. You may be even more surprised if you last read about Infinitesimals in 2014 - back when it was a loose pitch for a "cinematic platformer" you could summarise as Spidermech Limbo. Since then, Cubit Studios founder and game director James McWilliams has recruited a small team and found a publishing partner in Epic Games, allowing the game to enter development "properly" in 2019, with McWilliams now working on it full-time.

In the process, Infinitesimals has swelled from a moody sidescroller into a mini-open world shooter about a crash-landed star trooper, searching for lost squadmates and the research expedition he was sent to join. This is Earth, Jiminy Cricket, but not as we know it. There are robot Hunter Gatherers all over the shop, and being only eight millimetres tall brings a fresh perspective - together with some predictable disadvantages.

Suffice it to say that arachnophobes should not play Infinitesimals. The game's ordinary insects are "definitely not your main foe, but you've come to their world, and so if you come across them, some of them could be quite aggressive," McWilliams notes. "You can absolutely fight them, if you want, but generally the idea is that the game isn't about fighting insects, as in, [that's not] the objective of the thing. You're here as explorers."

It's a straightforward setup for a story about the evils of colonialism, though I get the sense that Awkney will ultimately be presented as the Good kind of coloniser, purging the less fun invaders on behalf of the indigenous lifeforms.

"There's serious moments, and then there's plenty of humour as well, so it's a bit of a mix," McWilliams says of the main storyline. "But it's definitely meant to be a serious story. No spoilers, but there's going to be tragedy and there's going to be difficult moments."

All this notwithstanding, Infinitesimals often feels like the kind of Saturday morning gadabout you'd hand a younger teenager, offering explosive gadgets and a jetpack that lets you soar and rocket-strafe with "very lenient" fall damage.

During my hands-on, I have a rare old time zipping betwixt glossy Unreal leaves while dodging the acid spittle of territorial ants. Then, McWilliams starts talking in-depth about radar. Relinrake's fancy spacesuit supports a couple of vision modes. One of them picks up radar sweeps and enemy comms chatter.

The game's recreation of radio waves is startlingly complex. McWilliams points to a passing dropship, noting that it has a "forward-facing phased array", which suggests that it won't notice you if you fly right behind it. The squat metal bases of the Hunter Gatherers have spinning dishes, and again, you'll only show up on their screens while the dish is pointed your way.

"This will end up being used in stealth and combat," McWilliams elaborates. "The enemy units that are moving around the world, when they communicate, they send the signal, and you might be able to pick that up. So you see, there's a bit of an electronic warfare vibe."

Electronic warfare, in my gambolling Picardlike with very lenient fall damage? Gosh.

Aside from detecting radio waves, Relinrake's suit can visualise electromagnetic fields. This allows you to read the circuitry of bases through walls, so as to disable security devices or trace them back to power supplies.

There are many ways into each H-G fortress, ranging from blasting the doors off through surgical hacking to that ancient friend of every videogame burglar, the unnecessarily roomy ventilation duct. To this spec ops bouquet, add guns with alt fires and customisable stocks, barrels and grips, plus more advanced spacesuits with backracks where you can park gadgets like remote surveillance drones and anti-aircraft launchers.

All of this actually represents a retreat from an earlier version of Infinitesimals that went full-blown Ghost Recon. "In the early days, not so much when it was a side-scroller, but certainly, as soon as it moved to 3D, I was leaning quite heavily into simulation," McWilliams recalls. "At the time, I was almost thinking Operation: Flashpoint vibes, but sci-fi, and we've certainly retained some of that. I think we've become a little less simulation, just a little bit more accessible, but there's definitely a pedigree."

You might be turned off by the flashes of Flashpoint here, if you just want to play a game about riling up anthills and formation-flying with bluebottles. In practice, I found that the "simulation pedigree" gave the tactical grasshopping a nice level of sandbox reactivity, with encounters that made me think a little of Halo 3.

Later on, there's the promise of a vehicle, the POD, with wiry legs that allow it to scale grass blades. My demo ended with Awkney clambering up one such grass stem so as to lob grenades at Hunter Gatherer dropships, catching the opposing Toy Soldiers out as they rappelled from the hangar.

The larger bogeys are as enjoyable to behold as to fight. They are chrome, insectile confections with a touch of H.G. Wells, coming at you in a flurry of looping limbs and redeye weakpoints.

I'm keen to discover whether I can lure them into skirmishes with the terran insects, as when siccing the local cassowaries on pirates in Far Cry 3. In the absence of a Pixar story climax with Awkney realising that he's just a regular Action Man cosplaying as Star Trek's finest, a full-scale war between everyday garden pests and encroaching cyberbugs would make for a magnificent finale.