The Crimson Contract: Now in Early Access
We're a small bootstrapped team and this is the game we've been building for the last three years. Early Access opens today, which means it's yours to play while we keep building with you guiding. This post isn't just "check out our game", it's what we'd say to a friend who asked what we made, what it took, and what comes next.
What it is when you sit down with it
You and up to three squadmates accept a contract, drop into a Quarantine Zone, and try to live through what's in there. HQ talks to you over the radio. Your operatives have names and voices and their own places in the chain of command. The horde comes hard. The area you're in fills with enemies you're fighting through. Hold on until the next rendezvous opportunity to receive your payout and a next contract. It's a co-op bullet heaven zombie shooter at its core, but the seams in the world are where we put most of the work.
What three years got us to
We built it from the ground up. So many systems, refactors, custom dev tools, and tinker. From Game managers, menu flows, weapons, and zombie behaviors to a performant networking stack and progression spine. The networking alone took years. Hundreds of squashed multiplayer bugs sit behind the version you're loading today. Every co-op game ships on the carcasses of synced weapon prefabs, server-authoritative projectiles, and party-flow edge cases that nearly broke us a few times along the way. Some of the bigger pieces of what that work bought you:
A bullet heaven you actually aim. Move, aim, commit. The horde scales hard, your build scales harder, and the difference between Wave 3 and Wave 13 is half loadout and half you.
True co-op, not co-op-shaped. 1 to 4 players in real time, dropping in by helicopter, getting downed and revived, splitting to flank a boss or stacking at a chokepoint. The pacing was tuned against actual co-op sessions at every party size, not solo with multiplayer bolted on.
Enemy behaviors with weight. Each threat type wants something different from you. The Brute lands heavy and combos into you. Hounds call a pack before they charge. The Boomer's fuse gives you a beat to read it. The Shotgun Zombie pulls and aims. Smarter threats know better than to trade head-on. They wear you down and break off when wounded. Tuned individually, not stamped from one template.
NPC teammates that don't break the co-op. When you're solo or short a friend, the strike team rounds out the party with operatives that fight, take cover, and get revived. They keep the pacing of multiplayer co-op without dragging it.
The runs get harder. So do your tools. Wave 13 isn't a scaled-up Wave 3. The horde stacks, the threats compound. Progression is the answer: weapons unlock, provisions tier up, operatives roster in. What you bring to the next run is shaped by what the last one broke you with.
End-of-match grading is content with roasting you. S+ to F across kills, accuracy, revives, survival, and teamwork. Stacking multipliers when you've actually earned it. 23 distinct failure messages waiting for the runs where you didn't. Skill issues inbound and we're here for it.
Server-authoritative everything. Earnings, weapon purchases, provision unlocks, leaderboard scores. All backed and validated. You can't be cheated by a host. You can't lose a save to a bad sync. Integrity got the same time and care as the gameplay itself.
We also built our own in-game bug reporting tool, because we knew the first wave of Early Access feedback would be too good to lose.
What's in your hands today
1 to 4 player online PvE co-op across the full mission flow (offline mode is available)
Two operating zones with their threats, progression, and signature bosses
A roster of named operatives (NPCs), each with their own loadout, voice, and contract (just like you!)
Last Stand mode alongside standard mission/objective-based play
A progression backbone that carries earnings, unlocks, and party state between drops
Storyline cinematic hooks and in-mission radio chatter from HQ, your strike team, and the civilians caught in the zone
Coming from the demo? Here's what changed
The demo was a slice. Early Access is the rest.
The maps. You had Forest Easy. EA opens Forest and Town across Easy, Medium, Hard, and Last Stand. That's eight distinct play targets. Last Stand was visible-but-locked in the demo. It's yours now.
The squad. Demo was solo. EA is 1 to 4 player online co-op, with friend invites and NPC squadmates that you unlock as you progress.
The bosses. Demo capped you below the boss tier. The signature boss fights are yours every 6 waves on Medium and up.
The build depth. Demo capped you at Tier 1 provisions. EA opens all four tiers across 7 provision types. 28 upgrades total.
The roster. Two fixed characters in the demo. EA opens the full operative roster you unlock as you progress.
Where it goes from here
The mechanical bones are in. Most of the post-EA work is content built on top of them, on a steady cadence of major drops with smaller updates landing in between. In broad strokes, without spoiling the parts that should land in-game:
More Quarantine Zones, each with its own setting, signature threats, and story beats
More bosses and the encounters around them
More zombie variants with new behaviors and new ways to make a run go sideways
More Cinematics and dialogue tying the missions together
New ways into the lore for the players who go looking
We're holding back which zone lands when, which signature threat introduces it, and where the story turns. That sequencing is core to the story and we'd rather you get it through playing than through a roadmap.
Help us decide what comes alongside
A lot of what could ship during EA isn't required to finish the game. They're optional layers that some players may want a lot and others will skip. We have rough plans for all of them, but what we don't have is your priority order:
Public Lobbies so you can party up with any member in the community
Daily personal challenges and community-wide goals where contributions roll up against a shared target
Upgradeable weapons and/or Consumables We are thinking things like modular weapon attachments that offer performance boosts, new bullet modifiers, and new consumables to match. More damage = more kills = more rewards
Modular character customization Why limit players to presets. We would love to give you total customization (in-game currency earned of course, no microtransactions here)
Custom control mapping Maybe you don't like our layout and want to make it your own
A dedicated accessibility pass We don't know the full extent of it, but think this would be really cool anyway
Localization Help us reach more players.
More achievements and more leaderboards
All types of aesthetic clean up We know we've got lots of opportunities here and need to know what matters most to our players before we commit to major changes
If you want to see one of these sooner, or argue we should drop one entirely, the Discord is where that conversation actually happens. Your voice will move the order and maybe even decide what is on/off the list.
We made this with our names on it. Early Access is where we get to keep making it with you. Join the Discord and help steer what comes next. Thanks for being here at the start. Keep the bug reports and feedback coming. The in-game tool is wired up and waiting. — CovenantBaRbIe, DragonsKin, & DyingBreed