The Anacrusis is a four-player, cooperative first-person shooter set aboard a massive starship stranded at the edge of explored space. Team up with your friends in an infinitely-replayable fight against alien hordes to unlock perks, weapons, and new ways to play that you can share with your team!

In the distant future, mighty corporations have carried humanity to the fringes of the galaxy. After expanding unfettered across tens of thousands of systems--all devoid of intelligent life--humanity has grown complacent, until disaster strikes. Work together and survive the alien hordes!

Developed by the creative lead of Left 4 Dead series, The Anacrusis builds on what was learned making those games to create something new and modern that still feels familiar to returning players. The core of The Anacrusis is a new breed of AI Director. The AI Director monitors players’ status and ability, then uses its control over enemy, weapon, health, and ammo spawns to dynamically change the state of the game—pushing players right to the edge of their capabilities, before letting off and giving them time to recover. By creating the peaks and valleys necessary to build alternating feelings of dread, excitement, and relief in players, The Anacrusis’s AI Director makes every game exciting.

Battle the alien menace using an astounding arsenal of classic sci-fi weapons. Buy yourself some time with a stasis grenade, toss a shield grenade to provide instant cover while you pop off a heal, and bring your friends back to life using the Respawner. Or throw caution to the wind and burn friend and foe alike with the laser rifle.

Matter compilers spread throughout the game give you access to dozens of perks that will change the way you play. Stack all of your upgrades to power up the last-resort pistol or boost your defense by supercharging your shield pulse. Unlock new perks as you play, and share your unlocks with everyone on your team!

After 23 months of intensive Early Access development, more than a million players, 53 updates (and counting), and the constant help of our community of players; The Anacrusis will reach version 1.0 and leave Steam Early Access on December 5, 2023, when you’ll be able to find out if Lance will finally get that corn dog.

The Anacrusis will remain in Early Access through Xbox Game Preview until 2024.

Stray Bombay launched The Anacrusis in Early Access because we knew we how difficult it is to make a game that’s simultaneously accessible to new players and challenging for experienced players. Since the Early Access launch in January of 2022, we’ve built the game with the community – 53 updates later, our new Steam reviews are Very Positive and the community is thriving.

"In addition to the traditional co-op and holdout modes, we added asymmetrical Versus to The Anacrusis this summer. Versus lets players take on the role of the Special aliens, working together to prevent the human Survivors from reaching their goals. (Because of its asymmetrical nature, we like to think of it as a form of sanctioned griefing—teams basically take turns being mean to each other.) Unlike other titles, Versus is tuned to allow between 1-8 players to play, with our AI bots taking on unfilled roles. That means you can play a Versus game with any size group of friends, you don’t need to get 8 players together to have a compelling game. Additionally, our full bot support lets players practice as the aliens against AI Survivors."

"One of our most requested community features was Steam Workshop support. We rolled that out last year, giving players access to community-built episodes, unique cosmetics, emotes, character skins, and more."

"We’re proud of how far the game has come during our Early Access period. We embraced the spirit of Early Access—a virtuous circle of feedback from the community followed by updates to the game followed by more feedback—to create a successful game. The game wouldn’t be in the place it is now without the active community that’s formed around The Anacrusis. We owe a great deal of thanks to everyone who has given us feedback and helped us build the best co-op shooter."

“The Anacrusis is built on everything I learned from making the Left 4 Dead series," said Chet Faliszek, founder of Stray Bombay.  “I wanted to modernize the core L4D concepts, so we started with a strong, replayable story mode and built from there. The Anacrusis is among the best of the genre and showcases our unique take on co-op shooters. I’ve enjoyed working directly with the players and modders for the last two years, but what we’re shipping with 1.0 is just the beginning for the game."

Key Features:

• Four-player Cooperative Fun - Team up with your friends in an infinitely-replayable fight against alien hordes to unlock perks, weapons, and new ways to play that you can share with your team!
• A Fight For Survival Is Just the Beginning - The first season of The Anacrusis tells the story of four unlikely survivors - Nessa, Guion, Liu, and Lance - who are unwilling combatants in the battle to defend humanity from the alien menace. Unlock more of the unfolding mystery of the alien attack.
• Fight Aliens Using Fantastical Weapons - Battle the alien menace using an astounding arsenal of classic sci-fi weapons. Buy yourself some time with a stasis grenade, toss a shield grenade to provide instant cover while you pop off a heal, and bring your friends back to life using the Respawner. Or throw caution to the wind and burn friend and foe alike with the laser rifle.
• Earn New Perks and Change the Way You Play - Matter compilers spread throughout the game give you access to dozens of perks that will change the way you play. Stack all of your upgrades to power up the last-resort pistol or boost your defense by supercharging your shield pulse. Unlock new perks as you play, and share your unlocks with everyone on your team!
• Never Fight the Same Battle Twice - In The Anacrusis, the AI Director 2.0 controls every aspect of the game. It spawns every enemy, directs each boss, and places every weapon, gadget, and health kit. No matter your skill level, you'll find the perfect level of challenge. More than that, the Director 2.0 creates the kinds of video game moments that you can’t wait to tell your friends about.
• PC Friends, Meet Console Friends - The Anacrusis supports full cross-play between all platforms at launch, so players can play with their friends across all supported platforms.

The Anacrusis is coming to PC (Steam + Epic Games Store) on December 5, 2023, followed by Xbox Series X|S and box One in 2024.