Wow! That was wild, was it not folks? At this point we have to ask ourselves when we are going to stop being utterly amazed and bedeviled by the yearly fireworks provided by the Ship Showdown tourney and its inevitably thrilling finale. My only answer is “not this year” because that, my friends, was as they say, a doozy.

With the first-ever inclusion of divisional match-ups in the opening round, the tourney looked a bit different this year but still managed to rock our space socks thanks to some old favorites returning to shades of former glory, young hopefuls soaring to amazing heights, inter-manufacturer grudge matches, plenty of twists, turns, and afterburns. Of course, after the smoke cleared and the wreckage was hauled away, the mighty F8C Lightning stands victorious, proving that good old fashioned firepower is still good for winning a lot of fights, and although you may not need a military spec loadout and a chip on your shoulder to make it to the final, those things certainly don’t hurt. Give each other a pat on the back, Anvil faithful, you did it.

The top four ships will receive a limited edition paint option and an in-game poster, which will be distributed to all owners of these ships during the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo later this year. The F8C will receive a collectable in-game championship pennant to commemorate the glory of being this years Ship Showdown champion.

We thank you for participating in another amazing Showdown. We'll see you back here next year for more thrills, chills, spills, and non-stop aerospace action.