Nova Drift
Worth it · Roguelike · 2024
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $17.99.
- Length
- 7.4h
- Value
- $2.43/hr
- Reviews
- 96% positive
Recent reviews trending down: 88% over the last 30 days against 96% all-time.
Watch this gameOne alert when it is worth buying.
Minimum on the Steam store: 4 GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000 or equivalent, Integrated cards also work, 799 MB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS.
Nova Drift distills the mechanical depth and strategy of an ARPG into classic arcade space combat. Control an endlessly evolving bio-mechanical ship, face legions of strange and deadly foes, and ride the wake of a dying star across the void.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
The value story
The lowest price on record is $6.11, set in September 2026. Its cuts run 40 percent off as a rule. There have been 86 in the 8 years tracked, about 4 weeks apart.
Against its own genre it lands in the top 5 percent on value. It is pricier than 72 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 96 percent. It outscores the games it most resembles, including Bounty of One ($2.79, scores 66) and Slime 3K: Rise Against Despot ($4.99, scores 49).
Players rate it 96 percent positive over its lifetime, but the last 30 days run 88 percent. Something recent has soured the room. Of the 800 Steam-purchase reviews this site sampled, 17 come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written February 2021 to August 2026. That is fewer refunded reviewers than 7 in 10 paid games this site has sampled to the same depth, and among the 698 games in its genre sampled this deeply, 547 have a larger share. Inside the two-hour refund window, 72 percent of the 969 reviews written there were positive, against 96 percent overall, and those are 7 percent of everything written about it.
HowLongToBeat players log 7.4 hours as a typical playtime, and completionists log 46, 6.3 times as much.
It carries Valve's Deck Verified rating and runs 7.4 hours, about as long as a handheld game wants to be.
The drop-off
47% start to 1% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
80 players online when we last checked, on Sep 26, 12:46 UTC.
Player counts from the Steam Web API.
What players say
While I can see the charm, it just didn't click with me. I saw posts about the development of this on Reddit, and it looked intriguing back then, so I finally got it from the 5€~ sale. Tutorial, or "Practice" mode: You can only access the Practice mode from the start. It's a normal run, and you can finish all the bosses -- I did. Beating the "end boss" during a tutorial run felt kind of.. awkward to say the least...
I play this game while listening to audiobooks. My issue with it is that after unlocking all of the upgrades there is still only one viable weapon choice if the player desires to reach level 140+ and that would be the missiles. Every other weapon however powerful is way too slow to be effective before RNG grants proper upgrades. Yes there are early choices that might mitigate this but they require the sacrifice of...
I've been playing video games for over 45 years and Nova Drift is darn close to what I consider to be a perfect game. Brilliantly balanced, well paced, and lovingly crafted, every time I see or play another roguelike arena shooter I usually think "that's cool but I'd rather just play Nova Drift again" and I do, then I get sucked into another two, or five, or ten runs. It is a must have, must own game that I have...
Steam reviews, mixed to match its Steam ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Nova Drift scores 84/100 on the BANG Score (worth it) as of Oct 2, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/858210/nova-driftReviews set the ceiling, and the size of the player base moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 26, price as of Oct 1.
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