Today’s the day — Dead Star is launching on PS4 and it’s free for PlayStation Plus members this month!
Before you start your journey towards becoming the galaxy’s greatest pilot, we wanted to throw some tips your way.
Dead Star is a 10-on-10 multiplayer shooter set on the fringes of known space, where teams of outlaws and scavengers fight for survival in a galactic prison known as The Wastes. Dead Star incorporates features from multiple modern genres, including RPGs and MOBAs, while remaining true to its roots in arcade-based space combat.
Here are four quick tips as you head into battle.
Choose Your Ship
Dead Star offers many different ships, each with its own unique set of powers and roles in combat, broken down into the following types:
- Scouts: These sleek, nimble ships are useful for exploration. They don’t have much combat power, but they can capture outposts four times faster than anything else.
- Raiders: A mix of speed and power, Raiders are formidable in combat and also pack double the cargo capacity — making them the ideal class for upgrading your bases.
- Frigates: The heavy hitters of Dead Star, Frigates pack a lot of health and offensive firepower at the cost of being among the slowest ships in the game.
Every ship class has three alien variations — the type you choose depends on your preferred gameplay style. The Valant are your offensive-minded powerhouses, loaded full of weaponry that take the fight to your enemies and create havoc on the front-line.
The Ithid are perfect for pilots who thrive on guerrilla tactics — their cloaking devices and teleportation allow for quick surprise attacks.
The Estari are the support crew of the three races. These ethereal energy beings can repair damage to ships while also packing a serious punch with their lighting-based attacks.
You can carry three ships into battle, from any race or any class, so choosing the perfect loadout is crucial!
Battle for Victory
Each region of space in Dead Star is procedurally generated from a collection of asteroid belts, minefields, derelict space junkyards, and dozens of other obstacles, so gaining intel from early scouting is vital to your team’s performance.
At the start of every match, your team’s main goal is exploring the region of space and capturing neutral outposts to establish your front line — victory can be achieved either by destroying your enemy’s Home Base or by earning a set amount of resources from captured outposts. Early captures can turn the tide of battle!
Once you’ve captured an outpost, you’ll want to upgrade it using ore mined from asteroids within the region. Deposit enough ore into the outpost and you’ll unlock new features, including turret defenses, A.I. units you can commandeer to fly alongside your ship, or even sector-wide bonuses for your team. In addition to helping your team, upgrading outposts also earns you experience for your ship!
Level Up and Upgrade Your Ship
As you battle for control of the region you’ll be earning experience for your ship by destroying enemy ships, capturing outposts, mining ore, or performing unique tactical actions. Earn enough experience and you’ll gain an upgrade point, which can be used to unlock new powers for your ship or improve powers you’ve already unlocked.
Each ship has five unique systems that can be upgraded up to four times, improving everything from damage and defensive capabilities to general upgrades to your health, shields, and speed. Finding builds that complement your playstyle is important, but don’t worry if you don’t know where to start: we’ve incorporated an Automated Upgrade system that provides you with a build carefully selected by the dev team to keep you in the action and also learn each ship’s abilities.
Earn Loot
After every match in Dead Star you’ll earn rewards based on your rating as an effective pilot in five different categories, ranging from how many enemy ships you’ve destroyed to how many bases you’ve upgraded. The higher your rating in each category, the rarer rewards you’ll receive — whether it’s a cosmetic skin for your favorite ship, a fancy new portrait for your pilot, or rare components you can use to permanently improve your ship’s abilities.
Also keep an eye out for Contracts — these extremely rare rewards grant your crew access to a powerful Capital Ship used to invade a series of live player matches. If your crew can survive the battle against the Dead Star community, you’ll earn the rarest rewards in the galaxy!
Think you’ve learned enough for your first battle? Join the fight in Dead Star today on PS4 as a free PS Plus download for April. Visit our official forums to share your favorite ship and provide us with your feedback.
Good luck, pilots — we’ll see you on the battlefield!
Despite what everyone feels about the PS Plus games I’m willing to give this & the other games at least a try.
“Everyone,” heh. Many people have been quite happy with the quality of the PS+ games lately, and this month is no exception. Dead Star looks great.
@ KongWen, Yes maybe not everyone but the rumblings are getting louder. So much so that other news outlets are starting to pick up on it and report it. It was recently reported that Sony’s PS Plus survey showed a 70% decline in customer satisfaction with the service from last year. That is huge. A lot of that has to due with the fact that these Indy games are horrible.
I have to agree here. Galak z was a very niche title and Broforce was kind of an unfinished mess
“Broforce was an unfinished mess”..!!!!
Are you on crack??? Broforce rules and I typically don’t like those games. Broforce is amazing.
And to the other troll about 70% dissatisfaction- care to share a link to your spiteful bs? I’ve been very happy with it- not everyone is a self-entitled millenial like you..
@carabu
The people that did that poll were just 4000 or so users of reddit on the PS4 subreddit who aren’t much better than the kids you see in YouTube comment sections. You should not use them as a representation of actual PS4 gamers. Most just go there to complain about everything.
Most of them just hate on the games because they don’t have large budgets. Most of them don’t even try the games before judging them. Their opinions mean very little.
This game is a lot of fun! A nice combo of arcade shooter and tactical combat. Feels like a space 4x game where instead of being the general and controlling the whole group, you control one of the grunts in that group. Can’t wait to get together with my friends and play again! Thanks for a pretty swell game.
Could you guys help me with one question? I’m wondering how augmentations work because every time I try to equip them they unequip on there own. Thanks and so far I love this game!
I really loved BROFORCE. I will admit that it had a few bugs in it (like your character freezing in place at the start of a level for about 2 seconds). But they fixed it with last update. BROFORCE is just an awesomely fun game. It might not be to people who don’t know the references to all the action movie heros you unlock, but I knew them all. Plus every hero has their own special abiliities unique to the film they are from. Highlander was the last unlock . If you are a fan of movies like ‘The Notebook’ & ‘Twilight’; then this ain’t for you. If you think ‘Macho Man Randy Savage’ should be the voice of reason in your quest to complete a video game,then BROFORCE is that exactly. It isn’t made to make your heart swell, it is made for excessive bloody killing without emotion. Because that is the only way to get this job done. If you don’t like BROFORCE – I’m sure a store in your area will be having a sale on Vagisil soon.
This game looks freaking super cool and it is free? Thanks a bunch! *gives hug
Is this yet another online only/have to play mp type of game?
Or is there a solo/offline experience, even if it’s just playing with a bunch of bots?
Even if it’s free, I’m only interested in playing if I can do so solo.
Hi boomstickbhg,
Dead Star is definitely a multiplayer focused game, so unfortunately we don’t have a single player story campaign at this time. We do have offline tutorials where you can fight against AI units to learn the basics of exploration and combat. We also let you try out any of the available ships in a solo Free Play area – a small scale map that has AI units and some Outposts you can take over. You can even tweak the parameters of the map to make it harder, or to test out the different map features like nebulae, asteroid variants, etc.
Give us a try sometime – maybe you’ll find something you like! Even if the game isn’t for you, we’ve got some great music from Sam Marshall (@SamMarshallMuse)!
Not sure how this will display since I’m actually replying to the reply to my comment…
Thank you for the informative post. While I would like more Solo options, the fact that there is some free play solo is reason enough for me to give this a chance.
Started my download, hopefully will have some fun with this later today.
You might try out Rebel Galaxy. It’s not played from the same viewpoint, but it is a space game with plenty of upgrades and things to do. I enjoyed trying out Dead Star, but I ultimately want a game that isn’t played one round at a time.
Not only gave us **** games… Now you repeat em? last week GalaK Z and this month another ship/**** game??? Cmon, we are paying for something better, there are “old” PS4 games that can become free…
Self entitled millenial alert
I never comment on forums but i feel the desire to defend indies and ps plus. We pay only 50 a year, and people like you most likely expect “AAA” every month?! That’s not only infeasible, but just plain dumb to even consider. I’d much prefer the indies we get as opposed to old AAA games that are either just ok (knack, watch dogs) or we already have.Expecting a battlefront, gta, infamous, etc. so early in the console cycle is either greedy or ignorant to how this all works. Be happy we get anything at all, let alone incredible games like Rocket League, Resogun, Dead Nation, Mercenary Kings, Towerfall:Ascension, The Binding of Isaac, Apotheon, Rogue Legacy, Guacamelee, Super Meat Boy, Helldivers, and now Dead Star. That’s just the ones that immediately come to mind.
TL;DR: Stop complaining, be grateful, just try these awesome ‘indie’ games. If you don’t like them, even just half, then maybe you don’t know or care about what constitutes a good game. And you should find out yourself rather than immediately bashing a game because it wasn’t made by dozens of developers. Indie does not mean garbage, short, or boring.
*Mic Drop*
“Be happy we get anything at all”
“Stop complaining, be grateful”
Unfortunately, PS+ is not free and I pay for it. I feel grateful for free things in life, not the things that I pay for or exchange my time and knowledge for (work).
PS+ as you seem to be putting it, and is the reality, nowadays is just Sony’s “pay to play online” schema. With the excuse of free games in the middle.
I was one of the people who didn’t care at first when we had “bad months”, but surely Sony is on a streak now.
While we’ve had some good indie games now and then, my feeling and the feeling of most people judging by comments and polls is that PS+ is not delighting the players. Even worst if we look at the competition, where it seems they are getting a bunch of AAA games thrown every month.
“If you don’t like them, even just half, then maybe you don’t know or care about what constitutes a good game”
Oh thanks, so you are the authority on what is good and what is not. Interesting. Last time I checked beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I’m clearly wrong.
Care to tell me also what music should I listen to, what style of clothing should I wear and other things in life, Sensei?
I can’t wait to play this game is going to be awesome!!!
I really enjoy these walk-throughs with the developers. Keep ’em coming. Dead Star is looking very nice. Definite must-play.
This Game sounds awesome… But its not free for pss plus members… How Come it isn’t? That game and Zombi I mean Come on.
Only, it is though… -.-* Just checked the store and sure looks free to me. Zombi as well.
I really like the cover art for this game. I may buy.
carabu,,,I agree 100% about the PS+ Decline.
-It’s NOT a copincidence that more Indy games = angry gamers.
-Only the minority for whatever reason sees ART & Creativity in some indy game.
Usually pixelated garbage..
—Always the same story from the creator/developer with a small 3 man team in some dudes garage.
-Go play youre game somewhere else & quit forcing this crapy crap on the rest of us…
–I’d rather have a AAA PS+ game for only 1 week a month instead of a month of mediocrity…
Ugh, this comment is just…amazingly ignorant. To anyone else reading this forum: Don’t believe a word this person says. For a list of stellar games that happen to have been developed by small teams (i.e. indie) I refer you to my earlier reply to Parkdcb.
Welcome to the self entitled millenial age.. It’s sad.
What’s with people complaining of bad games- go do a better job or stfu. Game development isn’t easy and these games we getting ARE good.
I’d love to see you attempt to make a game like Broforce. Yaarrggg can’t stand reading millenial self entitled crap
I would love to play this, but I can’t get into a game. Infinite waiting screen is really irritating.
So, after deleting all data and redownloading the game 3 times, I’m done.
It looked interesting in the tutorial, but without the ability to play the game I am afraid I have to say I am passing on this. Deleted forever.
How a game is allowed to be released in this condition is beyond me. Back to Smite for my MOBA style fix it is then.
Yes free games are great,but it still sucks when u wait all month and the new batch is a letdown because its multiplayer only. Plus these games aren’t free,they’re rentals, when PlayStation Plus runs out so does our access to the games.
this is the first comment that i’ve posted here and i just want to say that this game looks cool; i’m very excited to give it a try! Putting indie games on ps plus is the best thing to happen to the community simply because it incentives the player base to try these unconventional titles as opposed to the cookie cutter AAA titles.
give it a chance. don’t knock it until you try it… and peeps gotta stop being entitled. 24 games a year for 50 bucks is a great deal. even if you like only 3 games a year its still worth it. perspective. I paid 60 bucks for watch dogs and it sucked haha.
This game is amazing, but i’m only able to play the offline modes… may be because i’m downloading Zombi?
Recently got back into Magicka 2, but data was corrupted :( and I cant seem to delete it from the cloud, so, bummer.
Usually when I see any kind of moba game I steer clear of it. The genre has a track record of being extremely irritating to me. But I’ll give it a shot. I remember playing in the beta for that Dead Island moba. This game kinda reminds me of it. Their style of progression was what kept me entertained as long as it did. Maybe this one will do the same.
I agree with earlier commenters about the possibility of a single player/bot mode–if nothing else, just to get the feel of the different ships, as well as learn some efficient strategies for winning/capturing territory (more than just the basic tutorial). As it stands, I’ve played three rounds online, and two of them were instances where I spawned into the game late in the match with my team’s home base under attack. The third game we were quickly overrun as well, as people on my team didn’t appear to know what was going on. I could see this game being fun for those who team up, and frustrating for those that don’t. Having had three meh experiences, I’m not sure whether I’ll continue to keep giving this a try–in terms of ps+ game multiplayer experiences, it’s better than Hardware Rivals but a far cry from Rocket League. I definitely see where PS+ gives this game the chance for a much larger community/base, but I suspect my experience with the game is not an isolated one.
I do wish the Armature team the best though, and for those that have had a positive experience, I hope you continue to enjoy!
To be honest, i was looking foward to Dead Star but i find it VERY disappointing that the Game REQUIRE an ALWAYS online connection.
It’s a good thing that it was given for FREE on plus ’cause for what the game offers/lack on top of the mandatory always online connection… I find it laughable that $19.99 is the asking price for non plus subscribers. Good Luck with that.
I’ll add it to my download list hoping that Armature studios wise up, take the mandatory always online OUT and adds OFFLINE multiplayer mode / LAN on a future expansion/DLC.
Until then… Game Dismissed.
My .02
The division is like that too so
Just my 2 cents here, why bother changing skins on the ship when u cant see it in-game, the ship is tiny in-game
Even though I agree with him, can that dude leave any comment without using the insult “millenial” in it? Makes me think he may also be of that same age group.
Apparently anyone that disagrees with his narrow point of view is a “self entitled millennial “. Does that make him a cranky narrow minded Gen-Xer? ⊙¿⊙
Didn’t expect much cuz I’m just not into this Genre. give it a chance it’s a great game.
This game is awesome. Super addicting. Definitely a great download. The PvP is fantastic.
Could you guys help me with one question? I’m wondering how augmentations work because every time I try to equip them they unequip on there own. Thanks and so far I love this game!
awful game. am 7th on the leader boards. imbalanced and match making is poor.
people ignoring the fact that we are paying to play online, and we are being given AWFUL servers. ok, sure, let’s pretend like being given access to games we won’t ever actually play makes up for being forced to pay for garbage service.
that reminds me. no single player on this game. no offline mode.
Dead Star is awesome! Really fun game with neat progression. Getting a grip of how everything works takes a few matches (it was the same with Helldivers) but once you know how the systems work it’s great, and it’s fun experimenting with the different ships and loadouts. I have had a few issues with dropping out of matches suddenly but hopefully that will improve.
Also this is nothing like Galak-Z, it is far superior and a 100 times more fun. Zombi I find rather boring though, feels like a derivative Dying Light clone, without the parkour and with poor combat. But then it’s all down to taste and what you’ve played before.
ps plus will never be what it was back on ps3 , it used to be an optional extra that was heavily incentivised by the games coming out every month, now it’s the only way to play online there’s no reason for huge triple a titles to be released onto it for free and with the significant rise in subscribers it’s likely not even feasible. That being said this is probably my favorite line up in a while so far! Deadstar is really good fun tactical combat and i look forward to grabbing some friends and forming a team. I also think that zombi is pretty badass! as much as ps plus doesn’t blow me away every week any more games like these are what keep me checking every month. binding of isaac and rocket league are probably my most played games on the console. not that i wouldn’t love to see some much better games on the service but this month I’d say was pretty good.
I got to enjoy this for a few hours last night and have to say, I absolutely LOVED it! There was an Asteroids-esque MMO I used to play on PC about 15 years ago and while this isn’t the same, it’s the closest to it I’ve been able to find since then. I love the depth of it; easy to pick up and play but knowing your ship’s ins-and-outs is vital to going 22-0 with a decisive victory (like I did with the Warden last night).
Dare I say, 2016’s Rocket League? Too soon to tell.
Silent Death Online — I have been looking for a game like this for decades, and I’m glad someone finally delivered!! SO MUCH JOY!!!!
Sorry to hear that so many of you cry babies aren’t enjoying these FREE titles, but I appreciate them. This game is especially amazing and I’m very much looking forward to more! More ships! More guns!! More game modes!!! Keep doing what you’re doing, Armature! <3<3
Played it for a bit last night, and my strongest take away is that it is not a game for me. I love the flying around, and upgrading of ships and your base, but what I must be looking for is an experience where I am piloting one of those individual ships, working with others to upgrade our base over time, fighting off random enemy ships in the sector, and upgrading my own ship as I go along.
It kind of feels bad to say, this is a beautiful game, but it makes me want to play something else.
After reading this, and watching the PS Underground video, I am totally on board. Going to try bringing in some of my Helldivers squad mates and give this game a try. May turn out to be the first moba type game I ever get into (and I have tried others, just find them personally very boring).
I am loving this game, I’m level 15 right now. All that said, the drop rate, and quality needs to be raised. Contracts should drop more frequently, and there are so many ships I’d like to be getting better upgrade material.
have you gotten any decent drops yet? im level 12. and have only gotten resources every single time. a few paint styles from time to time but i dont really care about that so much (ships are small). im thinking maybe they rare loot doesnt start dropping until you reach a certain level?
Don´t know if I am so bad at this game, or this game is so bad.
Hmmm not a bad game just another in a long list that doesn’t appeal to me sorry I don’t like mobas never a have and unlikely to ever like one. Psn games although really poor for me as in not one has been played longer than 30-60 mins over the last 18 months before was the only one I played with any regularity and that was on steam.
*broforce not before fething autocorrect
I tried this out a bit last night. seems like there are a lot of ways to play. i went through tutorial mode tried some free play and then a few games. i could see it being pretty fun if you are on a good team. Regarding ps plus games, i was looking at my library the other day, have quite a few of them now. i usually only download those that i am interested in but so far ive had fun with the following to varying degrees: Apotheon, Limbo, Valiant hearts, Binding of Issac – Rebirtih, steamworld dig, velocity 2x, guacamelee, super meat boy, escape plan, injustice gods among us, counterspy, msg5 – ground zeros, rocket league, super exploding zoo, styx, lara croft temple of osiris. i have too many AAA games right now im working on, its nice to have some smaller games to play when i dont have a lot of time for a marathon session. honestly with Dark Souls 3, Uncharted 4, no man sky all set to release within the next couple months, i dont need any more triple AAA games right now. im still doing another run in bloodborne, and havent finished star wars battlefront, msg5 -phantom pain, assassins creed syndicate, witcher 3, street fighter 5, resogun, borderlands 2, diablo 3, far cry 4, wolfenstein.
oh you don’t need any more AAA games, that’s a relief. How about the rest of us? I am not a millennial, before that gets thrown out there by the only guy on here who’s opinion is correct, but if I wanted bad indie titles I would pay for them, giving away a game designed with a small team who need the money doesn’t really feel right to me. and to all those capitalizing FREE games, I pay monthly for this service, care to share how you don’t?
KI’m overwhelmingly confused and don’t feel the tutorial made me confident enough to venture out. I need friends.Mic
i didnt think tuturial did much either. just played a bunch of games and im starting to figure out the strengths and weakness of each ship. stay in a group at first dont venture out on your own. if you play as scout ship (first colum of ship) they are mostly for patroling the map. very fast speed and can take over outpost quickly, but dont have much firepower so make sure you are not trying to take the outpost by yourself. raider ships, middle column, are kind of the middle type. are stronger and can play hit and run or support. also they an carry the most resources so if you want to farm this may be the best choice. the captial ships (not sure of their class name off the top of my head) are much larger. this is the third column. they are much more offensive but very slow. have some support abilities as well so you could potentially support if you want as well. the best way to learn ive found is just to play the games live. also had a few obnoxious teammaste on the mic so might be better off muting all if you are getting feedback or just some guy cussing every few words.
been playing this game the last few days. its pretty fun. the cool part is you can play how you want. can just farm resources, play as support character in battles, play offensive as juggernaut type ship or raider style. the upgrades are kind of bland though. doesnt seem very eventful at the of the game i barely have gotten anything except upgrade resources. maybe the more rare loot comes once you get to a hire level. level 12 right now
Dead Star is a ton of fun. Give it a chance and play it for a few hours. I bet you‘ llbe hooked.
Loving Dead Star do have the same problem as NorthWindMN though. Didn’t think I was going to like Broforce but so cheesy it’s a great laugh!