Hellfire: Cleared Hot
They are legion, but you have a helicopter in this action-packed arcade shooter.
‣ Cleared Hot
From: Not Knowing Corporation, MicroProse Software
Platforms: PC
Release: 2025
Genre: Arcade Gunship Massacre
Steam page • Developer Page
Demo Video • 10 Minute Video
An over-the-top arcade game for people with itchy trigger fingers
Warships? Pft. Tanks? Meh. Top guns? Go fly a kite. Helicopters are the coolest military hardware, and the helicopter pilot is invariably the madman, to the point that it's a massive cliche. But some things are cliches because they are cool, and action arcade games featuring helicopters are cool. They just don't make enough of these, which is why I'm thrilled this title has been Cleared Hot.
This game leans into its archetypes. You are a military veteran who got into trouble for disobeying orders. Jump forward a few decades and he's a down-and-out loser living in a trailer somewhere in Texas. But things turn around when a local scrap dealer offers an old helicopter to him. What's a retired helicopter pilot to do? That's a silly question—helicopter pilots don't retire. They just become crazier.
Cleared Hot is a nostalgic helicopter shooter with physics elements. It salutes the golden age of arcade games, though with plenty of modern flair to make it a thoroughly current experience.
The game is divided into levels where you pilot a helicopter, doing various tasks. Much of this involves firing your machine guns and rockets at rivals, which in the demo prologue are enemy soldiers, then for the rest are rogue bandits and their armed pickup trucks in the Texan hills.
The helicopter also has a rope that attaches to objects, ranging from gingerly transporting chickens to snagging rocks, vehicles, even flying missiles, and flinging them at the bad guys for simulated physics carnage. This is all accomplished with fluid twin-stick shooter controls that let you duck and dive around while raining destruction down on your foes.
The twin stick-motion of moving in circles while targeting enemies can be amazing or frustrating. Fortunately, Cleared Hot gets this right on all the levels.
It's impressively easy to manoeuvre the helicopter around while switching between weapon types, grabbing objects, and making the guys down below regret that they got up that morning. There is also a minor strategic angle where you can direct ground forces (but the demo didn't include this).
The result is a straightforward action game that anyone can pick up immediately, and the demo's four levels present a nice spread of gameplay ranging from basic tasks like chicken wrangling and moving delicate boilers to aggressively dispatching hostile neighbours through guns and flinging their occupied vehicles into the desert.
Cleared Hot also has good presentation and polish. The visuals are pretty with nice art design and warm colours. Professional voice actors fill in the characters over the radio channels with Texan drawls and jingoist military bravado.
When I first spied videos and screenshots of this game, I worried that it might be too one-dimensional even for an arcade experience. But banish the thought. Cleared Hot knows what it's doing. The world has nice detail, the soundtrack is solid, and every level has its place and purpose. The action is intense but not frustrating, and if things do feel a little stale, start grabbing and throwing stuff towards your foes. Watching them scatter and fling like ragdolls doesn't get old.
📽 Demo Snapshot: Time to weapon up
There is real passion and attention to detail in this game. It doesn't lose sight of its vibe: an over-the-top arcade game for people with itchy trigger fingers and an appetite for simple yet focused gameplay. It's also another revival title for Microprose, the once-massive publisher that has recently reemerged as a home for good indie and double-A games.
In military jargon, being cleared hot means to proceed without hesitation or caution. This game lives up to that title: Cleared Hot is good arcade fun made for today's gamers. step up as a madcap helicopter pilot, throw caution to the wind and show them why a steel hornet with guns is nothing to trifle with.
Cleared Hot is set for release in 2025, on Steam.
Explore The Game with Youtube Chapters:
📽 0:54 Into the fray
📽 5:03 Mission 2: Some odd jobs
📽 6:00 Get those chickens back!
📽 8:39 Move some volatile junk
📽 10:29 Let's get 'em canyon boys
📽 11:28 Take your truck home
📽 13:07 Mission 3: Those boys want trouble
📽 13:39 Let's throw stuff at them
📽 14:31 There's more coming
📽 14:45 Squash ‘em with a rock
📽 15:35 They keep coming
📽 16:54 Time to weapon up
📽 17:45 Trigger happy
📽 19:05 Mission 4: Into the canyons
📽 19:50 Dodge those missiles
📽 21:51 Oof, they got me
📽 25:20 Night assault
📽 28:52 They have a jet!
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It's like a remake of Desert Strike! Looks like fun
I'm not usually a fan of shooter games, but this takes me right back to the good old NES days of swapping turns with my brother on the helicopter shooter game we had as kids.
Might have to give this one a try for nostalgia's sake.
Thanks for sharing!