Depth Dwellers

Depth Dwellers is a first-person action game set in the tunnels beneath Ora. You fight Ri enforcers and automated wall turrets, explore Zendle-lit caverns, uncover secrets about the mineral Zendle and rally the Depth Dwellers against the Ri. The game includes a rebuilt version and the 1994 original, which runs under DOSBox Staging.

The story

You first visited Ora as the son of Earth's ambassador to the Depth Dwellers. The world was blue with Zendle, a mineral whose color seemed to leap from the planet into your ship and reflect the inhabitants' mood. After centuries of war with neighboring Riase, the Depth Dwellers had been driven beneath Ora's surface into tunnels of their own making. Their bodies adapted to life underground, including enlarged eyes that reflected the sadness of living below the surface.

Earth sent your father to seek peace between the Ri and the Depth Dwellers. The Depth Dwellers' Council chose him for his ability to handle even the most despicable foes and make them see the advantages of peace. The Ri would not be moved: they wanted Ora at any price, even if that meant killing every Depth Dweller. Their home planet, Riase, had been stripped of resources, leaving its gardens and fertile valleys barren and its surface to dust blown by the wind.

Your closest connection to Ora was Princess Aurora. You played together as children at social functions, then debated whether the Depth Dwellers needed to fight the Ri. You trained together with weapons and other combat skills. On your last night together, Aurora told you that she and others had decided it was time to act: the Ri had discovered that Zendle could be used to make a new weapons system and were forcing the Depth Dwellers to mine it. Intercepted messages revealed that the Ri planned to conquer all nine planets in their solar system, not just Ora.

Fight and explore

You use futuristic weapons and combat skills developed alongside Princess Aurora to battle Ri forces and investigate Ora's labyrinthine tunnels. Grenades can be aimed up or down to shoot over Ri heads or skip across the floor. The caverns hold hidden secrets about Zendle's power.

Game features

• Two versions: a rebuilt native version and the original 1994 game.
• Four difficulty settings, from EASY to INSANE.
• Enhanced Mode adds shadows and extra lighting effects from muzzle flashes and explosions; it can be turned on in Settings.
• Seventeen achievements, plus score and speedrun leaderboards for every difficulty. You must opt in to leaderboards in Settings before runs are posted, and only new saves apply.