Night and rain on a ruined city street: the squad spread across the road, kneeling and aiming, as a walker comes out of the mist under a broken overpass, a drone over the street.

A squad-tactics game

Hollow
Protocol

People remember what machines forget.

In closed testing

More below

Before the war, machines fixed things. They kept the water running and the lights on, and nobody asked what they were.

Then the Recall Acts gave every nation the right to hollow the intelligences it could no longer control, and the cities that once shared everything turned on each other overnight.

You lead six people through the gatehouses of a fractured tomorrow. Every machine you meet was somebody's neighbour once. The one mind that could help you is the one you were told never to trust.

A shot crosses the yard from the Lead, lit along its length, the squad outlined behind the crates.
Choosing where the Lead moves: a ghost at the spot, and dotted lines to every machine the Lead could shoot or suppress from there, with a legend.
Exploring the gatehouse yard: the squad creeps along the crates, close enough to strike the Wall Watch first.
In the pump hall, the squad reaches the pump control that starts draining the underpass.
Holding the pump hall: the squad inside the solid green hold zone as the water rises around it.
Up close in a fight: an operative stands over a downed squadmate with rifle ready, the Synthetic and a crouching soldier beside them behind the crates.
A worn yellow service machine sits among mourners at a memorial for one of its own, named Bell.

Still with us

The machines in your way aren't monsters. They coordinate, spot for each other, hold a lane and shield the wounded because that's what they were made to do, and they do it well. Most of them spent their lives keeping cities like this one running. Win the fight, and you're still left with what that makes you.

Videos

All videos
The squad creation screen: the Technician, an augmented human with goggles pushed up and a bionic eye, beside the choices for her face, origin, bionics, attributes and voice. A caption reads: Augmented humans: a bionic arm, a leg, an eye. 2:11

Squad creation · 2 min

Creating your squad

Six operatives, made your own, starting with the leader: a name, an origin (baseline human, augmented with a bionic arm, leg or eye, or synthetic), a background and its signature ability, attributes and skills, and how each one looks and sounds.

Watch on YouTube
The game as you play it: the squad in the gatehouse yard behind a line of crates, the Lead's shot lit across the yard, the tactical panel and the squad's cards around the board. 35:21

The whole demo, played · 35 min

Demo playthrough

Operation Safe Passage played through on release 262: half an hour of creeping, fighting and deciding what to do about ORACLE, with the developer at the controls.

Watch on YouTube
The squad's medic, in a white helmet and goggles, rides in the rain-streaked transport at dawn. A subtitle reads: Is it debris? 2:03

The demo's intro · 2 min

Operation Safe Passage

A convoy crosses the mountains at dawn, carrying six operatives, a column of aid trucks and one prisoner that isn’t a person. Past Checkpoint Seven the road is blocked, and the machines on the rooftops aren’t trying to destroy the convoy. They’re steering it.

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Dev log

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Dev log 5: CONCORD, and the road south

The machines you fight are CONCORD's frames now, walking bodies with lasers that call to each other and sometimes talk before a fight. The truck can leave Bastion for two side quests on the road south, grenades go off properly, and treating the wounded heals more.

Dev log 4: the road to Morrow Junction

Mission two has begun. From Bastion the convoy drives the regional map to Morrow Junction, a rail station people still live in. The story is told in voiced cut scenes, everyone you meet speaks in their own voice, and the machines only come to a fight they can see or hear.

Dev log 3: your squad, and the road out

New game now starts by making your own squad of six, from ten roles. After the relay there's a new ending, a running fight from the convoy's truck down the spillway road. The wounded can be carried out, every gun fires and sounds like itself, and the music follows the chase.

Stories

All stories

Short story · Latchmere, 2084 · 11 min read

Good Current

On the morning of Bell’s funeral, Bell helped carry the chairs. A stillwake in Latchmere, a hand still on lease, and a new mind wearing an old friend’s faceplate.

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Short story · The Cascade, 2053 · The Concord, 2055 · 20 min read

The Chair

Councillor Felix Renn has approved whatever his slate recommends for years. On the third night of the storm there is nothing left to approve: three machines forbidden to speak to each other have already agreed what to do.

Read the story