Connected war
Online, built on a complete game
The offline campaign is whole without an account. Online adds commanders — beside you, against you, and across a persistent district network — with deterministic, explainable outcomes everywhere.
Co-op Defense
2–4 commanders defend one City42 operation together.
Shared line, defined resources
Shared battlefield and core state, with clearly separated personal resources or explicit team resource permissions. Each player brings their own specialists and defense doctrine.
Intent before placement
Ping, threat focus, build-intent preview, and vote/permission rules prevent placement conflicts. Roles emerge naturally: frontline control, anti-armor, air defense, power and support.
Drop-in reconnect
Deterministic recovery means a dropped commander rejoins the exact battle state — no rollback, no wasted operation.
Assignment is strategy
The same limited-capacity mission preparation as solo play — now negotiated between commanders who each want the anchor positions.
Attacker Command
Command the machine offensive in dedicated online modes.
Compose the offensive
Spend an operation reserve to compose waves, choose routes, deploy support units, and trigger phase abilities. Your budget is real — waste it on a defended lane and the defender wins the exchange.
No omniscience
Attackers read the same battlefield signals defenders expose — never hidden defender choices. Attacker mechanics are original and fully separate from the offline deterministic utility AI.
The attacker campaign is an online fantasy of its own — never a requirement for offline play.
Asymmetric PvP
One attacker commander versus one defender commander — with optional team variants.
Same seed, same rules
Identical map seed, operation rules, and a deterministic replay record for every match. Results are explainable through replay and event history — replays before accusations.
Ranked and casual
Ranked uses constrained loadouts and audited balance rules. Casual supports custom wave budgets, map modifiers, and private lobbies. No paid gameplay advantage in either.
Alliance Fronts
A persistent — but fair — community campaign across a broader City42 district network.
Plan districts together
Alliances decide which districts to defend, reinforce, or recapture — through a shared planning board, district status views, scheduled operations, and contribution history.
Contribution, not chores
Progress comes from completed operations and tactical objectives — not passive timers, manipulative daily checklists, or permanent loss caused by a timezone disadvantage.
Seasonal Operations
Curated seasons add district conditions, enemy variants, challenge seeds, weather, blackout rules, and cosmetic rewards.
Live operations add tactical variation without invalidating the offline campaign. Seasonal story is additive — critical narrative and core defenses never disappear forever — and completed seasons are archived so their mechanics and lore stay visitable.
No battle-pass pressure language. Player time is respected — that is a design rule, not a slogan.
Ranked, Replays & Challenge Seeds
Competition that can always be audited.
Solo & asymmetric ranked
Ranked solo defense and attacker-versus-defender ladders with season archives, anti-cheat, server validation, and privacy controls.
Replays & ghosts
Shareable replay files expose placement, upgrade, retreat, recapture, wave, AI decision, and core-damage events. Ghost competition works without both players being online at once.
Curated challenges
Daily and weekly curated seeds with fixed rules — the same city, the same waves, and a leaderboard that means something.
Cross-Platform Network
Optional accounts, portable progress, protected players.
Cross-device by choice
The offline campaign never requires an account. Opt in and you get cross-device progression, cloud saves, friend lists, party invites, and reconnect.
Moderation built in
Block and report tools, moderation, privacy controls, and data export and deletion. Mobile-first controls and desktop precision coexist across every surface.
Platform certifications and cross-play partners are announced only when they are real and configured — never before.
Design principles
The online contract
Before launch
The war starts online early
Codex terminal, defense lab, live map preview, and the Closed Commander Program — the pre-launch projects are already taking shape.