Starfend

About this game

A Tower Defense That Becomes a Roguelite

Prepare your fleet, equip your stones, and level your skills. Then hold the line: place defensive drones and pilot your own combat drone against relentless waves of meteors. Clear the waves and Survival Mode begins, where you push as deep as you dare for rare loot. The deeper you go, the more it becomes a roguelite of builds, synergies, and risk.

NEW: Online Co-op (Open Beta)

Team up with up to 3 friends and defend one Earth together over Steam. Share a single run, hold the line side by side, and revive each other when a wave breaks through.

Co-op is a toolbox, not one fixed mode. Flip rules in the lobby, friendly fire, separate gold, per-player synergy, mirrored lanes, sudden death, and new modes appear on their own, from kill races to full PvP. Start from a preset, or share your ruleset with a code.

Online co-op is a free open beta in active development, and it is playable in the free demo, so you can try it before you buy.

Build a Different Run Every Time

In the Prepare Phase you build your drone from the ground up: pick a body, attach arms, and equip guns by color. Your colors decide your synergies, your firepower, and the upgrades open to you. There is no default loadout, every run starts with a decision.

Pilot It Actively

Your main drone is not a static turret. Fly it across the battlefield and keep it alive with three active abilities: Teleport out of incoming fire, raise a Shield when you need a hard stop, and spend gold to Repair on the fly. Meteors actively hunt you between waves, so stay mobile or lose it.

Wave Buff Cards

After each wave, choose 2 upgrade cards from 5 random options, split between cannon upgrades (crit, attack speed, power, range) and utility upgrades (drone speed, pickup range, cooldowns, instant repairs). With 48 cards and no fixed order, no two runs build the same.

Create Devastating Color Synergies

Combine drones of matching colors, Grey, Red, Green, Blue and 6 hybrids, to unlock global damage multipliers that amplify your entire fleet. Stack multiple synergies and the effect compounds. The deeper your color investment, the harder everything hits.

Hunt Giant Meteors

Giant Meteors appear throughout each run carrying powerful rewards. Destroy them before they escape to unlock active abilities and rare stones that can change the course of a run.

Grow Stronger Every Run

Between runs, invest in a persistent Skill Tree and a stone loadout system. Unlock new drone types, gun colors, hybrid combinations, and fleet upgrades. Every session builds your roster, even when you fall short.

Features

• NEW: Online co-op for 2-4 players (open beta)
  
• Roguelite tower defense in 3D space
  
• Build and pilot your own combat drone
  
• Place and customize a fleet of autonomous defensive drones
  
• Color-based synergies and deep build combinations
  
• Wave Buff cards, 48 in the pool, for run-defining choices
  
• Active abilities and rare stones earned from Giant Meteors
  
• Endless Survival Mode and Steam leaderboards
  
• Permanent progression and unlockables

If you enjoy the build depth of Brotato, the strategic layering of Dungeon Warfare 2, or the "one more run" pull of 20 Minutes Till Dawn, Starfend brings that same obsessive loop to 3D space tower defense.

Build your fleet. Hold the line. Then survive.

Latest news

• Patch Notes·21 Jul 2026Official

  The Constellation Update — Starfend's biggest update yet

  I rebuilt the first hour. Then I rebuilt everything around it. A few weeks ago someone recorded 23 minutes of themselves playing Starfend for the first time. Near the end they said something I couldn't unhear: "The tutorial is vague. I didn't retain any of the information. I mostly just stumbled my way through." They were right. People who understand Starfend play it for hours. People who don't, quit in thirteen minutes. That's not a content problem — that's a me problem, and it's the one I spent the last month fixing. So I rebuilt the moment you first touch the game. And once I was in there, I kept going. What feels different The first run teaches you now. No more menu wall before you've seen the game. Your first launch drops you straight into a match with a drone already yours, and the game shows you — in the match, with your hands on it — how to move, place, shoot, dash, shield and call a wave. The build screen opens after you've had a taste. Everything you touch has weight. New audio from the ground up, meteors that die with a real explosion, hit flashes, screen shake, gold that pops off the kill, a dash that parries, and a colour synergy that announces itself when it comes online. The game used to be quiet. It isn't anymore. A 100-node constellation. The skill tree is now 10 colours x 10 nodes, drawn as a constellation you light up across runs — with keystones that change how a colour actually plays. Stones have ranks — and fuse. 10 rarity tiers, grey to cyan, and five of a kind fuse into one better stone. 100 achievements that are actually goals. Every one of them is a synergy challenge, with its own screen in the menu. They're a checklist for learning the colour system, not participation trophies. Choose how hard it gets. Five difficulty tiers, unlocked as you win, each with its own score. The menus are alive. The main menu is a 3D diorama with your real fleet in it. The prep screen sits over a living arena where your actual build is flying around. Your colou...
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• Patch Notes·2 Jul 2026Official

  The Fusion Update — stone ranks, skill drafting, and a smoother fight

  Your runs just got a plan. Two of Starfend's core systems grew up this update. Stones now have somewhere to go — ten rarity ranks, from humble Stardust all the way to Cosmic — and skills stopped being a lucky drop and became something you draft, run after run. 💎 Stones: rank up & fuse 10 stone ranks — every stone now rolls a rank, from Stardust (grey) to Cosmic (cyan). Higher rank, stronger buff, prettier frame. Stone fusion — fuse 5 stones of the same rank into 1 stone of the next rank, right from the preparation screen. Those piles of early stones finally have a purpose. Deeper runs, rarer stones — the further you push, the better the drops. Sell prices scale with rank too. New in-game stone art across the board. ⚡ Skills: draft your build You start every run with a skill — the one matching your drone body's color. From wave 1, you have a button to press. Pick a new skill every 5 waves — after the wave buff on waves 5, 10, 15… you choose a skill drawn from the colors of the meteors you're actually fighting. Skills fuse — pick the right colors and they combine into stronger tiers, with a proper little cinematic: charge-up, clash, shockwave. It's very satisfying. Giant meteors now drop stones instead of skills — kill them for loot, draft your skills on schedule. 🎮 Controller & fixes Non-Steam controllers now match the Steam layout: X/□ calls the next wave, L3/R3 zoom, B/○ levels up the drone you're flying. Navigating the drone buttons with a controller now tints the placement effect with each drone's color, same as mouse hover. Fixed bugs when starting a second run in the same session, a survival timer that kept counting on the reward screen, and a keyboard-only tip showing up on controller. Defeat is quicker and more dramatic — a short slow-mo beat instead of a long crawl. New here? There's a free demo — play a full run, no strings attached. As always, this came partly from your reports — keep them coming in the Hub. — Solo dev behind Starfend ▶ Play the demo / Wis...
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• Announcements·25 Jun 2026Official

  Starfend is couch-ready — controller & Steam Deck, now 30% off

  Pick up a controller. Starfend was waiting for this.When I first built Starfend, it was a mouse-and-keyboard game that happened to tolerate a gamepad. Not anymore. I rebuilt control from the ground up — and the game I always pictured, the one you play leaned back on the couch with a drink in the other hand, is finally here. Dashing your main drone through a swarm of meteors, snapping the shield up at the last second, calling the next wave early because you want the pressure — it all flows now. No menus fighting you, no "where did my cursor go." Just you, your fleet, and the color you chose to win with. What feels differentIt plays like it was made for a controller — every action sits where your thumbs already are. LT dashes, RT raises the shield, the sticks fly the camera, the D-pad fires your skills. Steam Deck, properly — full Steam Input support, readable HUD, the layout already configured when you launch. Pick it up and play. Menus, runs, upgrades — all on the stick — navigate the whole game without ever reaching for a mouse. Your buttons, your icons — the prompts in-game match the controller in your hands (Xbox, PlayStation, or Deck), and you can remap everything in Settings → Controls. This is the kind of update I'll keep making: not patch notes, but the game getting closer to what it should feel like. New here? There's a free demo — play a full run, no strings. And Starfend is 30% off during the Summer Sale (until July 9), so it's a good week to jump in.If you play on controller or Deck, I'd genuinely love to hear how it feels — drop a note in the Hub. — Solo dev behind Starfend\https://url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2540820/Starfend/]▶ Play the demo / Wishlist Starfend
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• Patch Notes·22 Jun 2026Official

  Steam Deck Support Update

  Hey everyone, We've put real work into making Starfend a great experience on Steam Deck: 🎮 Full controller support — every menu and action is playable with the Deck's controls, no manual setup required. On-screen button prompts match the Deck. 🖥️ UI adapted to the Deck's 1280×800 screen, with interface text tuned to stay readable in handheld. ☁️ Steam Cloud saves — continue your game across PC and Deck. We've reached out to Valve to have Starfend officially reviewed for the Steam Deck Verified rating. Until that review is complete, the store may still show the Deck status as "Unknown" — but the support is already built into the game. We'll update this post as soon as we have the official rating. Thanks for playing! — RP Entertainment
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• Patch Notes·22 Jun 2026Official

  Full Controller Support

  Full Controller Support Starfend now has complete controller support powered by Steam Input! What's New Play with any controller — Xbox, PlayStation (DualSense/DualShock), Switch Pro, Steam Deck, and generic gamepads are all supported, including future devices. On-screen prompts match your controller — Button icons in the tutorial and menus now show the real buttons for your specific controller model, and they update if you remap. Full menu & gameplay navigation — Navigate every menu, place and upgrade your ships, control the camera, and use abilities entirely with a controller. Remap your controls — Customize any binding through Steam's built-in controller configurator. Auto-pause on disconnect — The game automatically pauses if your controller disconnects mid-battle. Controller-aware tutorial — The tutorial now teaches the correct controller inputs. Fixes & Stability Fixed a crash that could break the Settings screen and the tutorial. Fixed a rare error when leaving a level. Various polish and stability improvements. Hop in, plug in your controller, and defend the fleet. Feedback is always welcome! Versão curta (caso queira algo mais enxuto para um patch note pequeno): Controller Support is here! Full Steam Input support — play with Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro, Steam Deck, and generic controllers. On-screen button prompts now match your actual controller and remaps. Remap controls via Steam's configurator; game auto-pauses if your controller disconnects. Tutorial updated for controllers. Fixed a Settings/tutorial crash and a level-exit error, plus stability improvements.
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