Deep Dark Forest

Deep Dark Forest is an RTS strategy game about building and managing a civilization under the “Dark Forest” law from The Three-Body Problem. You develop your economy, technology and military, explore and expand into space, and make strategic choices with limited information about other civilizations. Up to eight players can compete in PvP, and the game also includes ten single-player chapters with individual stories.

Build and manage a civilization

You construct economic, research and military facilities, choose congressional bills, and make decisions to improve the economy, advance technology, protect the population and maintain social stability. Since resources in each area are limited, you send exploration satellites to uncover nearby regions and build military bases, spaceports and other facilities for invasion and immigration. You must balance resource use and technological development against the risks of depleted resources, falling cohesion and mounting social pressure; if these problems get out of control, your civilization can collapse from within.

Explore with limited information

Civilizations conceal their traces under the Dark Forest law, leaving you with little information about their galactic environments, current state or actions each round. You gather and analyze information through exploration and technological development, then make decisions at the strategic level. When you encounter another civilization, you can stay hidden and silent or communicate with it, risking the exposure of your coordinates in exchange for information and potential benefits.

A discovered civilization may face a fleet attack, but advanced technology can help detect and counter an enemy’s actions. Other threats include a mass bomb capable of destroying a galaxy and an almost unstoppable light-particle attack. You can also broadcast a rival civilization’s coordinates, hide and let others attack it. Decisions about concealment, communication, peace and war affect whether your civilization survives.

Create a civilization

The civilization creation system lets you choose the types and number of ideas that shape your civilization. There are 10 civilization trends, each with exclusive skills, technologies and other features, with over 90 possible combinations. You can create more than 170 distinct civilization stories.

Technology and battles

Develop and upgrade technologies across 35 types, with more than 500 technologies in total, to open up different strategic options. PvP matches last 30–60 minutes and take place on completely randomly generated maps, so each battle has a different layout.

Game content

• Up to eight players in PvP
• Ten single-player chapters with unique stories
• 10 civilization trends and over 90 combinations
• More than 170 civilization stories
• 35 technology types and more than 500 technologies
• Randomly generated maps