Hovering and ‘rocketing’ are two entirely different control schemes in Dark Void, which together grant tremendous freedom to outmanoeuvre and generally emasculate the enemy.

But it’s a steep learning curve when taken all at once, the only thing separating one scheme from the other being the gap between face buttons. Several games spring to mind, none of which control quite as well, or better capture the thrill of flying without wings. Superman Returns?

“It wasn’t particularly outstanding, was it?” laughs Gray. “No, Superman Returns did not come up. But there’s a bunch of games that did. Crimson, obviously, for the aerial combat, but also Ace Combat – brilliant series. The experience from Tribes, actually, going from the ground-based interiors to the air, seamlessly and at will. Then the epic boss battles of Devil May Cry. In a lot of games, you do your quick-time event and the world stops; here, if you’re on a UFO, that thing still flies. We liked that about Shadow Of The Colossus, though we’re not going too crazy. We’re not into fur.”

You can say that again. As Dark Void rockets towards an alpha stage at which only basic features are in place, the texture so far is very much Halo-tinged steel. There’s little of the random clutter that made Crimson Skies as attractive down below as it was up above.

“The mere foundations are going in at the moment – I wouldn’t even mention polish,” says Gray. The action within each mission is themed around its objectives and its position within the story, some taking place entirely indoors, some under more natural canopies, others in the open air.

“But you can fly anywhere if you’re awesome,” he says. Dark Void clearly has some climbing to do if it’s to reach its intended heights, though as far as can be judged from such early code, it’s trajectory is sound. It is, Gray confirms, a game that knows what it wants.

“Sometimes, when we play a Japanese game experience, we’re at a disadvantage of them being exclusively Japanese in their aesthetic, and the narrative style that completely suffers the cultural transition. When you think about a game’s personality, what you’re really talking about is that the game and its universe really know what they are. Halo has it, Half-Life has it, even though Gordon Freeman is pretty one-dimensional. Even Gears. Even a bad game is served by knowing what it wants rather than being schizophrenic.”