Fight for the skies against up to seven other players using gatling guns, freeze rays and anvils to take out rival pilots, all while the wind blows through your fur, feathers or scales. Spin, dive and loop through cascades of bullets and avoid perilously crashing to the ground below to become ruler of the skies.

Responding to the call to arms, animals have taken to the skies in cutting-edge early 20th century aviation technology - biplanes. Fulfil their solemn duty by taking each other down in wacky combat and bringing glory to their species in literal aerial dogfights. Choose between eight cartoony critters such as Baron von Fluffe-Botte, a high-flying sausage dog or Colonel Hock, a motherly pig following her dreams of flight. These heroes each come with their own style, voice and old-timey victory theme. 

Looking fly in styles of the period choose from four, semi-historically accurate aircraft. Each has its own stats balancing weight, handling, speed and armor, empowering ace-pilots or budding flyers to select the perfect plane for their aerial antics. Further customization comes from upgrading the biplanes stats between rounds, and changing up equipped special weapons.

While the aircraft may be historically accurate, animal pilots excluded, the weapons are hilariously not. If the basic barrage of bullets isn’t enough, equip one of more than 13 outlandish weapons to blow other critters out of the sky. Get explosive with the colourful Balloon Bomb, spew forth hot victory with the Flamethrower or simply repulse away the competition with the Stinky Fish. Crashing is only a minor setback as pilots return to the sky mere moments after their defeat to continue the aerial hijinks.

The variety of multiplayer and singleplayer modes might call for a bigger couch. Create an alliance to take down agile foes in team co-op, or embrace aerial chaos with in free-for-all. Solo ace-pilots can hone their skills in training mode or compete to get the highest score in Sheep Attack by rounding up flying sheep, putting an end to their aerial menace.

“In between crafting all the animal puns we can handle we’ve focused on capturing that chaotic couch multiplayer feeling,” said Anthony Wiese, Lead Developer of Dogmelon Games. “Our aim from the start was to make Baron as much ludicrous fun as possible and from players reactions so far we’ve done just that.”

Baron: Fur is Gonna Fly will be available on PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch and Xbox One for $20. Languages include English, Chinese and Japanese for Steam, with more to be added post-launch.