Desert Strike spiritual successor Cleared Hot's next update brings better Steam Deck support and arcade missions, but I'm more excited about using my winch to slingshot missiles back at enemies: 'I've been waiting months to work on this again'

A Chinook helicopter carries a boulder on a winch toward a giant Skee Ball target in the desert. Yes, this is a weird image. — (Image credit: Not Knowing Corporation)

Sometimes in life, you just need to climb in a big helicopter and blow stuff up from an isometric perspective. Some people (me) might even say it's an essential part of the human experience. Yet this foundational tier on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has been cruelly denied humanity for decades.

Fortunately, thousands of players are now one step closer to self-actualisation thanks to last year's launch of Cleared Hot. Not Knowing Corporation's helicopter action game brings back the destructive joys of 1992's Desert Strike and its environmentally diverse children.

Like the original Strike games, Cleared Hot furnishes your chopper with a winch-powered grapple that you can use to grab items from the ground. This includes obvious things like health and ammunition boosters. But since Cleared Hot is infused with wonderfully springy physics, it also means you can pluck enemy infantry from the ground and throw them around, or grab a shipping crate and turn your chopper into a flying wrecking ball.

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"I know this isn't a top priority," Karpfinger writes (wrongly, in my opinion). "But I've been waiting months to work on this again. Basically, this was possible before but not super rewarding because it didn't work w[ith] all the missiles and when it did work, they didn't do much damage."

The next update, named Chapter 1B, will address this. "Now the missiles can be more reliably redirected back to the turret (or NPC) that fired them, and they will do 3X the normal damage if you pull it off." That seems like an appropriate reward for lassoing a missile midair and whipping it back into your enemy's face.

Better missile catching isn't the only feature Chapter 1B will bring. The update also improves Steam deck performance by 30%, introduces optional arcade missions ranging from a survival mode to more eclectic options like skeet shooting and missile-based minigolf, and a new water system that creates dramatic splash effects when debris and detritus from your explosive assaults falls into it.

Apparently, there were further additions planned for Chapter 1B, like a new chopper and helicopter customisation. But these have been "postponed" for now. "We did this in the interest of getting this update out quickly while starting production on Chapter 2", Karpfinger explains. "Our main priority is getting you the main campaign content as fast as we can."

That second Chapter will swap out Chapter 1's arid landscapes for a rainforest environment, paying tribute to Desert Strike's sequel Jungle Strike. It sounds like Chapter 2 is still a ways out, but Chapter 1B will arrive on March 17.

Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.

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