TAILS GEAR HD, a 2.5D vertical-scrolling shooter by Morikem (@morikem04), who runs the solo circle “BLUE&WHITE,” will launch on PC (Steam) in November 2026. It is his 11th game and his first release on Steam.

Morikem has been making shooters since the days when such games were called “doujin software.” In an interview at the indie game exhibition Tokyo Game Dungeon 13, held in Hamamatsucho, Tokyo, on August 8, 2026, he said the following.

“I’ve made a lot of shooters since the days when they were called doujin software, and this is my 11th one. This one is a remake of a game I released once before, back in 2007. This is my first time releasing on Steam. Before that, there wasn’t even such a thing as digital downloads, so I sold everything offline.” (translated from Japanese)

TAILS GEAR HD is an updated version of TAILS GEAR, a doujin shooter he distributed in 2007. He chose a remake over a brand-new title for his first Steam release in order to first gauge the response from the global market.

“Since this is my first time releasing a game on Steam, I decided to play it safe and start with a remake. After that, I’m thinking I’ll go on to release a completely new title. I wanted to try it out first and see what it’s actually like to sell on Steam, so I ended up doing this remake as a kind of test.” (translated from Japanese)

For the remake, Morikem redid all of the music, rebalanced the game for modern tastes, raised the resolution, and significantly expanded the player ship’s equipment. Commenting on the result, he said, “It’s technically the same title, but the content is pretty close to a different game.” (translated from Japanese) The 2007 version had no tutorial, and some players never noticed the core mechanic of absorbing enemy bullets to power up. This time, he said, he rebuilt the game starting from the introduction.

That mechanic is handled by the special weapon Tail Pod, an optional armament linked directly to the protagonist’s augmented nerves. It deploys a shield around the player’s ship and converts the energy from blocked enemy bullets into power-ups and counterattacks. Built around the concept of “a shooter that can be cleared even by players who aren’t good at bullet-hell games,” the title features a five-stage Arcade Mode, a stage-select mode, and four difficulty levels. The soundtrack can be switched between an HD arrangement and a classic version based on the 2007 original. UI, voice, and subtitles support both Japanese and English, and the game can be played with a keyboard or various gamepads.

A TAILS GEAR HD gameplay screen: set in space, the player's ship attacks a large enemy warship amid pink enemy bullets

The story is set five years after the end of a war between the United Nations Forces and the giant corporation Astral Tech. The protagonist, Hermann Arnold, underwent nerve-steeling surgery as a corporate soldier and lost most of his emotions and sense of pain. Even after the war ended, he has kept running, tormented by the voices of comrades suffering in his nightmares. To free those comrades, he boards the prototype unit DYNOSTAIL, entrusted to him by Dr. Hegel.

After the Steam store page went live, Morikem received many responses from players overseas.

“I’ve been posting videos and stuff on Twitter — well, X — quite a bit, and I got quite a lot of responses from people overseas. Since it’s a shooter, there isn’t much text involved, but even so, I’ve been reminded that I need to localize things like the options menu, at the very least.” (translated from Japanese)

Regarding ports to other platforms, Morikem said only that he was prioritizing the Steam release and would consider them afterward.