01 Enter
Drop in with two squadmates
You bring your own weapons, armour and gadgets into the intervention area. The map is full of hazards, lore and other people who want what you came for. No two raids run the same way.
Enter. Secure. Extract.
Deep Worlds describes the raid in four beats. Each one is a place the run can end.
02 Secure
Find the artifact first
Artifacts each have properties worth exploiting, and in this world that is the difference between a city surviving and a city collapsing. If someone already has it, take it off them.
03 Extract
Fire the flare and survive the wait
A flare calls the helicopter, then you hold until it lands. Leaving without the artifact is allowed. Dying is not: everything you carried in stays behind with you.
04 Progress
Answer to the traders
Quests, artifacts and clean extractions pay. The rewards go into an RPG style progression tree, or back to the traders for the gear that makes the next raid survivable.
Who is in the raid with you
One match holds 24 players: six squads of three operators, and six anomalies. The anomalies are not AI set dressing, they are players with their own win condition, and it is not the artifact.
18 Operators · six squads of three · full gear loss on death
6 Anomalies · one slot each · separate progression
Eighteen armed humans against six monsters is a very different problem from four survivors against one killer. Holding an angle, moving loud, or treating the PvE threat as background noise are all habits that get you eaten here. Compare it with Hunt: Showdown and Tarkov.
Anomaly, alpha footage
You can play the thing in the dark
A limited number of players per raid drop in as an anomaly instead of an operator. Your objective is to hunt, kill and eat the humans so that nobody extracts with the artifact. Everything confirmed about anomalies.
- Progression kept entirely separate from your operator
- Eating players earns the experience that feeds your skill tree
- Skills unlock new abilities, and new anomalies to play
- One playable anomaly and four AI anomalies at Early Access
- Closest relatives are Dead by Daylight and Evolve, inside a tactical shooter
The forearm PDA, alpha footage
The interface is in the world
Beautiful Light uses a diegetic HUD modelled on military interface design. Your map, inventory and objectives live on a PDA strapped to your forearm, so reading them means lowering your weapon and standing still.
- Breathing, footsteps, heartbeat and gas mask audio carry the tension
- Lasers, tactical lights and night vision, all of which give you away
- An advanced inventory system rather than a menu of slots
- Deep tactical FPS mechanics with a deliberately steep learning curve
What ships, and what is promised
Deep Worlds is launching as a work in progress and developing with player feedback. Both lists below are the studio's own, taken from the Steam store page.
At Early Access
December 2026- Raid, the asymmetrical 24 player mode, as the single game mode
- 2 maps
- More than 20 weapons with customization
- 4 AI anomalies and 1 playable anomaly
- Diegetic forearm PDA and the advanced inventory system
- Lasers, tactical lights, night vision
- Traders, quests and the progression tree
At full release
No date given- A mercenary and contractor system, with missions you publish or complete
- A team system with stats, leaderboards, ranks, roles and management
- More guns, gadgets, cosmetics and anomalies
- More maps
- A secret expedition game mode
Will it run
The studio marks these as temporary and they target 1080p. An SSD is required either way, and the install is 60 GB. Read the full breakdown.
| Component | Minimum, 30 fps low | Recommended, 60 fps high |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel i5 8600K | AMD Ryzen 5 5600X |
| Memory | 16 GB | 16 GB |
| Graphics | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce RTX 3060 |
| DirectX | Version 12 | Version 12 |
| Storage | 60 GB, SSD required | 60 GB, SSD required |
| Network | Broadband | Broadband |
What Deep Worlds has not said
Plenty of sites will fill these in for you. We would rather leave them blacked out until the studio speaks.
The exact release day in December 2026
The price, and whether Early Access pricing changes at 1.0
The names and layouts of the two launch maps
Which anomaly is playable at launch, and what it can do
How long Early Access is expected to run
Any console version
Every other figure on this page is sourced from the Steam store page or from Deep Worlds directly.
The place you are being sent
Official screenshots from Deep Worlds. Alpha footage, so treat everything in frame as work in progress.
