Above Land: Rhapsody might look at first like another cooperative action RPG roguelite, but Flying Amateurs’ new Chinese project quickly makes it clear that it has no interest in being a solemn fantasy adventure. Built in Unreal Engine 5, the game asks players to defend a sanctuary, survive roughly 30-minute runs, gather upgrades and smash enemies with absurd weapons such as folding chairs, spinning tops, dice and even a basketball.

The Chinese games industry has been pushing more visibly toward the international market in recent years, and now Flying Amateurs is trying to make its own mark. The studio presented Above Land: Rhapsody at Bilibili First Look in Shanghai, showing a cooperative action RPG roguelite that mixes tower-defense elements with completely unhinged weapon ideas. According to its Steam page, the game will support both solo play and online co-op, although it does not yet have a release date.

The basic concept sounds fairly simple at first: players travel through a fantasy and science-fiction world set high above the clouds, exploring different territories while defending a central sanctuary from waves of enemies. Runs are expected to last around 30 minutes, meaning Above Land: Rhapsody is not being built as a sprawling, endless RPG, but as a dense, replayable experience made of quick sessions that build up fast and collapse just as quickly.

The game’s real hook, however, is not just base defense. It is the fact that Flying Amateurs clearly has no fear of making its own ideas look ridiculous. Most fantasy action games rely on swords, hammers, staffs and magical relics. This one turns everyday objects into weapons. Folding chairs, basketballs, spinning tops, dice and other items that were definitely not designed for combat end up in the player’s hands, each with its own combat system, movement style and tactical role.

The Chair Is Not A Joke, It Is A Combat System

One of the best ideas in Above Land: Rhapsody is that its absurd weapons are not just visual gags. The folding chair, for example, can be used for basic attacks, but with heavier attacks it can grow in size and generate area-of-effect damage. The spinning top can manipulate the battlefield, while dice introduce random combinations and special abilities, bringing chance directly into combat decisions. That matters because the strange objects are not merely there to make trailers look funny. They actually shape how each run plays.

The developers seem to be leaning into that contrast deliberately: a large-scale fantasy sci-fi world where players do not always fight with dignified legendary weapons, but with things more likely to be found on a sports court, in a living room or inside a child’s toy drawer. That clash may become the game’s real identity. In a medium full of iconic weapons like the Lancer, Above Land: Rhapsody essentially asks: the chainsaw rifle is cool, sure, but have you ever tried saving a shrine with a basketball?

During matches, the team must do more than simply fight. Players can divide roles between defense and resource gathering, while upgrade cards and run-based bonuses shape each character’s direction. That structure appears designed to let veterans and newcomers find useful roles within the same team, rather than forcing everyone to play with the same level of mechanical precision.

Based on the Steam description, Flying Amateurs is building an action RPG roguelite where chaotic runs, wild builds and cooperative survival all matter. The game is still in development, and the Steam page currently lists its release date only as “to be announced.” PC is the confirmed target for now, while console versions have not yet been formally detailed, though the studio may expand depending on development progress and reception.

Above Land: Rhapsody is interesting, then, not because it claims to reinvent the roguelite genre, but because it dares to look gloriously stupid in a space where many games take themselves far too seriously. If its combat system is deep enough to keep those absurd objects from becoming old after five minutes, Flying Amateurs may find an audience that wants more than another fantasy grind. It may want an action RPG where survival sometimes really does come down to a perfectly thrown basketball.

Sources: 3DJuegos, Steam, GameDaily