Fallen Aces's second episode won't be out this year, but it will feature a first-person car chase with a tommy gun in both hands and a foot-operated steering wheel

Fallen Aces goon getting held up making surprised face

(Image credit: New Blood)

If you haven't played Fallen Aces, I highly recommend it whether you're a dedicated immsim sicko or an FPS greenhorn. It's Dishonored by way of Dick Tracy: an immediate and stylish neo-noir FPS dripping with pulpy comic art and a tantalizingly interactive goon sandbox. And that's just the first episode, which launched into early access last year.

Fans have been eagerly awaiting the second episode since then, but a development update on Steam confirmed yesterday that it won't hit its old release window of "before the end of 2025." That said, it did share some exciting details, as well as a brief teaser.

Fallen Aces - Episode Two Teaser - YouTube

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The teaser shows off a thing of beauty as hilarious as it is genuinely cool: a first-person car chase where the player smokes a cigar, blasts foes with a tommy gun through each window, and maneuvers with one foot on the steering wheel and another on the gas. If nothing else, it seems like the second episode will lean in even harder to the over-the-top comic book action.

The rest of the update shows off some new areas, story comics, and teases Delia, a "fully controllable NPC companion" that responds to commands like "move there," "stay here," and "shoot that fuckin' guy!" It looks awfully ambitious, and while I'm a little disappointed I won't be able to see out the holiday season with a new goon-filled episode, at least I have the Immersive Sip update to tide me over with some new spritework.

It's become something of a pattern for New Blood's published FPS to enjoy extended stays in early access, with Gloomwood in that state since 2022 and Ultrakill since 2020. It makes the games harder to recommend if you like to get through a whole game in one go, but all three stand tall as some of the best old-school shooters around, finished or not. Fallen Aces is shaping up to be one of my favorite shooters in a very long time, so here's hoping that the second episode is all it's cracked up to be.

Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he's amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky '90s esoterica. Whether he's extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it's hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he's not at his keyboard, he's probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...

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