The concept of ‘six degrees of freedom’ combat is, primarily, around because of Descent. The 1995 shooter was one of the first to really popularise the idea of a shooter where you could move freely in all directions in 3D space.
For more space shooting, check out our list of the best space games.
That was two decades ago, though, so the prequel Descent: Underground is trying to bring that concept into 2017. It was funded on Kickstarter in 2015, and has been on Steam Early Access for some time, but now there’s a free multiplayer demo for you to try.
There’s both competitive and co-operative modes, but this demo is only currently available through Brightbox, a ‘gaming platform’ for developers and players to communicate more easily. In case you don’t have any friends, there’s also some single-player content in the leadup to the game’s story mode, which is only described as “upcoming” for now.
The demo can be downloaded here, but you’ll have to create a Brightbox account to access it. In case you want to buy the game and see what the full Early Access version is like, you can do so on Brightbox or on the Steam page for the game.