SANDSTRIKE

THE HUMANS RAN OUT. THE WAR DIDN'T.

The desert ate the cities, the cities ate the people, and the battle robots kept working — out of habit, with no days off. You're one of them: warranty expired, gun loaded, and a few questions for your colleagues. Time to ask them.

Free. No pay-to-win. No mercy.

• 3 ways to die: PvP, a 16-robot battle royale and the Night Run co-op against hordes of zombie cyborgs
• 8 body parts on every robot — take your enemy apart piece by piece
• 28 weapons — from a pistol to a railgun and an industrial sledgehammer
• 7 gadgets, 22 implants, armour for every body part
• Bots fill the empty slots in any match, even at 4 a.m.
• Voice chat where everyone sounds like a robot

TAKE THEM APART

Head, eyes, torso, two arms, two legs and the groin (don't ask) — every part has its own health and its own armour, and a core beats inside. A broken arm throws off your aim, broken legs slow you down, knocked-out eyes blind your targeting. Take the head or break the core, and the robot is done. And it goes out in style: a critical hit blows it into spare parts — arms to the left, legs to the right, warranty card into the wind. The sniper scope hits the head with a triple… almost triple crit, for connoisseurs of precision and autopsy reports. And the zombie cyborgs of the Night Run lose limbs on the move — and keep crawling toward you anyway.

WAYS TO DIE

• Battle royale. 16 robots, one life, a gas ring that closes in six phases. Search the houses: credits, repair kits, grenades, neurocores. One walks out. The rest is scrap metal.
• PvP. 1v1 duels, an 8-robot free-for-all, duos and 4v4 team fights. Ten minutes, a score and somebody's leg as a souvenir.
• Night Run. Co-op for up to 4 players: get the truck through the night, the rain and hordes of zombie cyborgs. 16 mutators change the rules of every run, and at the end of the road waits FRAUD SENTINEL — a boss with rockets, kamikaze drones and serious complaints about your route.
• Bots. Nobody online? Bots take the empty slots. They hide behind cover, flank, revive their allies, use gadgets and trash-talk in chat. Almost like people, only more honest.

AN ARSENAL OF BAD DECISIONS

• 28 weapons: pistols, shotguns, miniguns, flamethrowers, an acid sprayer, napalm, a laser rifle, a railgun, plasma claws, the Thunder Cannon and an industrial sledgehammer — for conversations that went nowhere.
• 22 implants and armour sets — a piece for every body part. Armour takes the hit and wears out, like everything in this world.
• Spawn firmware: assemble yourself out of a scrap heap or step out of a rift in reality. First impressions matter.

7 gadgets with character:

• Wall of Fame — a magnet trap that pins passers-by to the wall
• Interrogation Lamp — a shoulder spotlight in the enemy's eyes, until they forget where their aim is
• In Loving Memory — a shield assembled from the remains of a former colleague
• Nobody Home — a cloaking cape
• Last Flight — a kamikaze drone
• Puppeteer — a hacker spider that jumps on an enemy's head and turns it into a puppet
• Five Seconds of Fame — an energy shield nothing gets through

TACTICS OVER REFLEXES

Action points are your stamina: dashes, reloads, grenades. Burning, EMP, stun, plasma, armour meltdown and knockdowns turn any fight around. Fog of war hides the enemy around the corner, you can vault over cover, and you'd better stay out of water deeper than half a metre — short circuit. Robots and water, you know how it goes. A downed ally in the Night Run and in team battle royale can be revived before they bleed out their oil.

ROBOT VOICE

Voice chat is built into the game: hold Left Alt and talk. Everyone hears you as a robot — radio static, metal and a squelch click. Even your “I'm respawning” sounds like an order from the factory.

ASSEMBLE YOURSELF IN STYLE

Chassis colourings, weapon skins, titles. A 50-tier battle pass: the free track gives credits, implants, armour and cases; the premium track is cosmetics only. Cases can't be bought — only earned in battle.

HONEST FREE-TO-PLAY

Weapons, armour, implants and gadgets are bought only with credits earned in battle. Real money buys only looks and the premium pass. Money won't make you stronger. Prettier — yes.

For those who want to support development there are Founder Packs (DLC): the premium pass, neurocores and the exclusive “Founder” colouring that will never be sold again.

SERVERS, HONESTLY

Right now matches run through Steam: one player hosts, the others join. No sign-ups, no queues, no servers anyone can switch off. If you like the game and it starts paying for itself, the next step is dedicated servers — with stable ping and matches that don't end when the host goes to dinner. Every new player and every Founder Pack brings that day closer.

THE FIRST MINUTES

You start on the conveyor of Workshop No. 0: they assemble you, test you and hand you your first gun. The tutorial covers weapons, modules and gadgets. After that you're on your own.

EARLY ACCESS

SANDSTRIKE is in active development. Tell us what broke — we'll fix it and break something else.