ZeroSpace is a cinematic RTS with an epic sci-fi story where your decisions determine the fate of the galaxy. Powered by Pros!
Our Kickstarter has closed, but if you'd like to support us on our development journey (and lock in some great rewards, too!) please consider investing in a reward level below!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
ZeroSpace Update #15: Release Timeline, PvP Fest, Next Fest, and New Art Reveals!
about 2 months ago
ā Sun, Feb 08, 2026 at 10:42:37 AM
Hey commanders, weāre excited to kick off February with some major announcements and share an update on our progress!
Steam PvP Fest (February 9ā16)
Our Steam PvP Fest demo starts tomorrow, running from February 9ā16! This open playtest will spotlight our competitive side, with a focus on Versus mode, but donāt worry, Co-op and Skirmish will still be available for anyone who prefers those, or wants something more relaxed than ranked.
The demo will feature:
Versus (Ranked 1v1)
Co-op (3 new maps!)
Skirmish (1v1 & 2v2 with friends or AI)
On February 15th Artosis and Mapu will be hosting a tournament, sponsored by ZeroSpace (more details to come during the demo)
This will be on the ZeroSpace Demo App, which you can download for free on our Steam page when the festival begins. This is what the demo app will look like in your Steam library (It has a blue icon)
For those interested in the patch notes since the last public playtest, those can be found here
Steam Next Fest (Summer, June 15ā22)
Steam Next Fest is one of the most important visibility opportunities Steam offers developers before release. Given the importance of making a great first impression with new players, weāve decided to continue improving and refining the game so that we can participate in the June Next Fest, instead of the February event, giving us extra time to polish the experience to the highest possible level.
Early Access Release (Summer 2026)
Weāre confident enough in our development timeline to begin planning for an Early Access release this year.
Weāre still pinning down the exact date; weād like to aim for shortly after Next Fest, but we need to avoid the Summer Sale and other Steam takeovers that massively reduce the visibility of newly released games. Weāre sure many of you understand the importance of timing!
Planned Early Access Content:
Xol release
Act 1 of our campaign, including 12 Campaign missions
Expanded co-op missions, commanders, and co-op meta progression
Full skirmish mode (1v1, 2v2, & FFA with friends or AI)
Full versus mode (Ranked, 1v1, 2v2)
Revamped survival mode
Our current plan is to release 1.0 about one year later with the complete campaign, additional mercenary factions, and more. We know many of you have been waiting for us to complete the game for quite some time, and we appreciate your patience. We donāt want to rush things by releasing the game before itās ready. Early Access should be a very exciting time for you to be a part of ZeroSpace growing and improving as weāll be releasing new features and content throughout the year.
Recent Art Progress:
In-Game Building: Endari Tavern
This Endari creature flies to its target location anywhere on the map before turning into a stone mercenary tavern.
Cinematic Model: Sofia
In-Game Unit: Legion Stormcaller
We felt and got feedback that Legion was lacking abilities and AOE damage outside of Heroes. That is where the Stormcaller comes in. The Stormcaller is in an alpha state. For now, it shares a lighting attack with the Fanatic and is able to cast "Lighting Storm"; a powerful radial AOE damage ability. In the future, Lighting Storm will be a channeled ability and the Stormcaller will swap its auto-attack for a channeling debuff that siphons life force out of enemy units, slowing their move and attack speed.
Map Objective: Koru Heart (Name likely to change)
Youāll discover the importance of this objective in the campaign mission: Leviathan, where youāll also encounter the ChaāKru for the first time.
Future Art Updates:
Weāre working on a full Protectorate model refresh to bring the faction to a higher quality bar. Weāre working on replacing all of our icons and 2D assets in the game from the placeholders they are now, to faction-specific designs for better UI clarity and immersion.
These updates are part of our push to deliver a visually stunning RTS experience. More to come soon!
Thank You!
A massive shoutout to our backers and community for the ongoing enthusiasm, your feedback from past playtests has shaped ZeroSpace into something special. We're gearing up for an amazing year ahead!
The ZeroSpace Backer Playtest is Live! Play Now!
4 months ago
ā Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 06:16:57 AM
Our playtest is now live on Steam! It features:
Campaign Prologue
Co-op (2 New Missions)
Versus/Skirmish (Including an alpha version of our new 2v2 mode)
Survival
If you have played ZeroSpace via the ZeroSpace Playtest app before (Red icon on steam) you have access, this includes backers at the Solar Monarch level or higher, and anyone who received a key through a giveaway.
If you backed at Solar Monarch or higher and don't have the game, the key should have been emailed to you near the time you backed, and is available under the "Digital Downloads" section of Backerkit. If you still have trouble, message aweesomesauce in the ZeroSpace Discord.
To those not in this playtest, we'll be back with an open demo in February, stay tuned for more detailed regarding that!Ā
ZeroSpace Backer Playtest Tomorrow! Details & Development Updates Inside!
4 months ago
ā Sun, Dec 14, 2025 at 10:25:41 AM
Playtest
Our closed playtest starts Tomorrow, Monday the 15th at 10AM PT, and ends on the 28th.
This playtest will be available to those that have backed the game at Solar Monarch or higher, or have received a Playtesting key from a giveaway or via a friend key.
There will be no streaming during this playtest
This playtest will feature:
Campaign Prologue
Co-op (2 new missions!)
Versus & Skirmish (including an alpha version of our new 2v2 mode)
The playtest will be played on the Playtest App in steam, this is the one with the red icon.
If you donāt have access to this, but believe you should because of your backer level or otherwise, please message aweesomesauce or chloviss in our discord.
Development Updates
New Unit: Hammerhead
Joining the Protectorate line up is the Hammerhead, an air transport that heals units inside! The protectorate values keeping their troops alive and this gives them another avenue to do that, and on the offensive side, a well timed drop behind enemy lines can be devastating.
New Unit: Cha'Kru Hero
Heās not quite ready for this playtest
New Co-op mission: Scavenging
Commanders, the enemies have set up a massive mining operation, and their base is heavily protected. The local Free Corsairs are willing to help, but only if we secure enough resources from enemy warehouses and supply convoys. Weāll need to be quick or the enemy will hire the Free Corsairs before we can.
Cinematic Progress
Weāve been hard at work on our cinematics! Creating new cinematic characters, updating uniforms, implementing new animations, and working on sound design. Thereās a lot more polishing to do, but we hope you enjoy the Prologue!
āYearl Hexlanā, leader of the Free Corsairs. (WIP)
The Protectorate heading into Grell territoryā¦
Thank you for the support! <3
We hope everyone has a fun time during the playtest.
For the non backers waiting to play, our next open demos will be in February 2026 for Steamās PvP Fest, followed by Next Fest. We hope to earn some shoutouts from you during that time as it will be an extremely important moment for us!
In case you missed it, here is our roadmap that we shared a few updates ago, as of now weāre still on track to hit these targets.
ZeroSpace: December Playtest Information and Development Updates!
5 months ago
ā Sun, Nov 02, 2025 at 08:17:04 AM
Hey, Commanders!
Check out our upcoming playtest details, new developments, and Ironwardās upcoming RTS game! Also, we're starting the creation process for your Kickstarter rewards, so please make sure to double check your Kickstarter and/or Backerkit information like address, email, etc. so we can make sure you receive your goodies!
December Playtest
Weāre having a closed playtest for backers December 15th - 28th!
This playtest will feature:
Campaign Prologue (More polished, and for those who missed this at Tacticon. Note: We have more missions completed, but we are saving them for launch)
Co-op (2 new missions!)
Versus (Including an alpha version of our new 2v2 mode) [More reveal on this later]
If youāve participated in a previous closed playtest via backing, key giveaway, etc. you will be able to participate.
Updated Operating Towers
Last update we shared images of some of our new operating towers, and weāre excited to share their new animations! Check out the Protectorate and Grell operating towers in action:
Volumetric Fog
Weāve got new fog effects! Weāre excited to add in these effects and create unique atmospheres for our alien planets!
The fog dissipates as units move through it
Environmental Sound Effects
Weāve been polishing our campaign experience to be more and more immersive; recently, weāve been layering ambient environmental sounds on top of our music. Hereās a short video of our first mission with environmental sounds. Weāll also be adding these to our coop and versus missions!
Pathfinding
Marv - our lead engineer and CEO - created an awesome video breaking down pathfinding in RTS games. He goes over the common problems and solutions that both ZeroSpace and other games have implemented. Weāre proud to say weāve completely tackled all of these problems and more!
Thereās also more to come with pathing improvements; including different styles of pathing and animations to make infantry movement feel more real and immersive.
This video is just the first of many technical breakdowns weāll be creating. Weāre planning on going into more detail on pathfinding, targeting and vision, netcode, and enemy AI in the next videos.
Let us know what other topics youāre interested in learning more about!
Check out Atre: Dominance Wars
Ironward just launched the kickstarter for their new 4x real time fantasy strategy game!
ZeroSpace Update: Development Roadmap, New Content, Playtests, and More!
6 months ago
ā Sat, Oct 04, 2025 at 08:26:45 AM
Weāve got a lot to share this update! First, dive into new game content and get a sneak peek at our upcoming faction, the Xol. Next, check out the latest technical updates from our lead developer and CEO, Marv Gouw - heāll also be hosting a Reddit AMA soon to answer your ZeroSpace questions! Finally, get ready for upcoming playtests and future content. Have fun scrolling, Commanders!
New Cinematic Models
Endari Devourer
Sherman (Left) and Tanner (Right)
In-game Models
Mission Retreat Co-op Objectives: Grell Nest and Grell Lair
In-game Civilians for added immersiveness during missionsOur civilians have swappable heads, bodies, and clothes allowing for many combinations!
Team Colors
Weāve updated our team colors to better align our units with the look and feel of the world around them.
Competitive players donāt worry - weāll have a high contrast option for increased visibility!
Maps
Campaign Mission: Prometheus Colony
Co-op Mission: RetreatEvacuate Grell eggs before the planet is destroyed!
Updated Base Building
We are in the process of re-designing Operating towers, to go along with our new Hexite Pits!
Why: We received feedback that it wasn't always obvious for new players where to place their expansions. Hexite pits will remove any ambiguity in placement, so that you can snap right in and start mining some hexite!
From an immersion perspective, we also thought that Hexite pits can be made to feel more natural than four evenly spaced hexite nods. Furthermore, we are taking the opportunity to re-design and improve on our new OT's - to allow some interaction with the pit, rather than completely covering it, as our previous models would have. "Extractors" are also being re-designed to help our bases feel more active and lively.
From a game design perspective, Hexite pits and our new OTs offer us avenues into more economic granularity and avenues into asymmetric designs such as different numbers of extractors - and allows us the freedom to explore avenues into more or less granularity as we continue to evaluate the system in the future.
Protectorate Operating Tower
Grell Operating Tower
Xol
Behold the Xyther! This is the basic Xol ground unit. It is a melee unit with medium armor who gains a shield that blocks the first instance of damage.
His hands shift into giant knives when he attacks!
Localization
Weāre adding language translation to ZeroSpace! For the next demo, we plan to have initial implementation for Spanish (Latin America & Spain), Korean, German, Italian, Russian, French, Japanese, & Brazilian Portuguese!
For release we plan to have more languages, so let us know any language youād like to see thatās not listed here.
Reddit AMA
Have questions about ZeroSpace? Our lead developer and CEO, Marv Gouw, will be hosting a Reddit AMA! Join the event in /r/realtimestrategy on October 24th at 1PM PST. Hope to see you there!
Playtests
We currently have 3 playtests planned!
Backer Only Playtest - December 2025
In addition to the content that was available in our Tacticon Showcase, weāll be testing out the alpha version of our dedicated 2v2 mode and showing off 2 new Co-op missions in this test.
Steam PvP Fest - February 9th - 16th 2026
This playtest will have a focus on our versus mode, featuring a tournament and prizes!
Weāll release specifics as we get closer to the event
Steam Nextfest - February 23rd - March 2nd 2026
Weāll have a slew of new things to show off here! A few of them:
New Merc Faction: Endari
New Co-op mission
Co-op and Campaign Meta Progression Ā
Development Update/Roadmap
We know people are eager for an update on release, there are still a few moving pieces and we are having some promising conversations. So while we can't yet give a precise date for release, we do have concrete developmental goals. We made this snapshot to offer some clarity about our near term projected timelines as well as longer-term plans.
We are still weighing the options of a potential Early Access after Next Fest, or holding off for a full release. We will continue to update you as we inch closer into certainty.
Weāre happy to say that a majority of the technical systems of the game are mostly done, so at this point itās mainly content creation we are focused on.
Hereās a snapshot of where weāre at and our projected timeline Ā
The future of ZeroSpace is bright! Please share this roadmap with your friends so theyāll know what content is coming up.
Next Update
We will have another exciting update in a few weeks about our groundbreaking technical improvements on pathing and animations which allow us to have more than 1,000 units on the screen while staying above 60 FPS! For now, check out this teaser!
THANK YOU
A huge thanks to everyone whoās been supporting us and sending love to the dev team. Your comments and messages are a constant morale boost, and we hope you enjoyed the update!
