Getting Started
A practical onboarding guide for new players: how to follow DREADNOUGHT TARTARUS today via Steam wishlists and developer channels, what the campaign actually has the player doing, the three decision layers (route, loadout, firing mode), mech deployment, the progression loop, the four enemy categories, and a pre-launch checklist for the 2026 PC release.
On This Page
DREADNOUGHT TARTARUS is an upcoming semi-automated strategic simulation built around a single, city-sized battleship. It has been announced and trailered, but it is pre-release: there is no public build, early access, or open beta yet. This page is the practical onboarding guide for players who want to follow along now and be ready when the launch window opens. For the broader pitch, see the main overview.
The project was built single-handed by benkimchi, who said at the end of May 2026 that outside investment was expanding the project to a two-person team. The fiction places the player in command of the TARTARUS in FC 2057, after an unidentified super-scale battleship arrives in Earth's orbit and a war erupts before its origins can be deciphered.
How to Play Right Now
There is no playable build available yet. The most useful action today is to wishlist the game on Steam: a wishlist pings you when the storefront flips to a release date and when a demo window opens. Following the developer's public channels is the second-best signal, since devlog posts are where new gameplay footage and design notes have been landing. For storefront specifics, see Platforms and Release. The current release window is 2026 on PC via Steam; the storefront display currently reads "Coming soon" without committing to a specific quarter, and no exact calendar date has been confirmed.
What You'll Be Doing
On launch, the core activity is commanding the TARTARUS across a continuous campaign set in FC 2057. The battleship is the size of a moving city, and the strategic map advances as combat unfolds rather than resetting between missions. The player picks routes, lines up engagements, and reconfigures the ship's modules between fights instead of choosing missions from a hub menu. Most of the friction lives at the strategic layer: which warzone to enter next, what loadout to take in, and what firing posture each weapon group should be in.
Decision Layers
Three layers of decision-making sit on top of one another. Each feeds into the next.
Layer | What You Decide |
|---|---|
Which warzone to advance into next, and the order to engage objectives along the way. | |
Loadout Configuration | How to outfit the TARTARUS: hull modules, cannons, missiles, super weapons, carrier-based fighters, support units, and the deployable mech. |
Firing Mode | Per hardpoint: Manual for direct control, Automatic for autonomous engagement, or Focus Fire to redirect every weapon at one target at once. |
Mech Deployment
Not every confrontation calls for a city-leveling response. The TARTARUS carries a combat mech in its hangar bay that the player can drop into for ground-level fights. The mech is a secondary feature; the dreadnought is the star.
How the Campaign Is Divided
The developer has referred to the story in numbered episodes rather than levels or missions. Episode 1 is described as covering how the player comes to command the battleship, with roughly half of that stretch played from the combat mech and the other half from the dreadnought itself. That split is worth knowing before you start: the opening is not purely a battleship game, and the mech is introduced as part of the story rather than as an optional side system.
How many episodes the full campaign runs to has not been stated. The planned demo build is described as covering two of them.
Progression Loop
Progression runs through a single, well-defined loop:
Engage and defeat an enemy force in the active warzone.
Recover intel from their wreckage, systems, or remains.
Reverse-engineer that intel into a new upgrade or armament.
Install the result on the TARTARUS and carry it into the next engagement.
Because the campaign is continuous, every engagement compounds. The deeper into the campaign, the more diverse the available system catalogue becomes. The detail breakdown lives in the reverse engineering article.
Enemy Profile
Threats fall into four publicly-confirmed categories. Each gives the player a different intel pool to draw from. The full breakdown lives in the enemies article.
Occupied or rogue urban defence systems
. City-scale defences seized or repurposed by hostile actors.
Human military forces
. Conventional armies, navies, and air forces of Earth's nations.
Gigantic monsters and anomalous lifeforms
. Non-mechanical threats outside the human military.
Extraterrestrial invasion units
. External invaders with their own technology base.
Pre-Launch Checklist
Wishlist DREADNOUGHT TARTARUS on Steam. The most reliable notification channel for the release date and any demo window.
Follow the developer's public channels for devlogs and gameplay footage as launch approaches.
Watch the periodic devlog posts. Each one is the clearest read on which systems are landing in the shipping build.
Watch for the demo. A demo has been described but not released. In March 2026 the developer said it would carry two episodes of story, roughly thirty minutes of play, and a subset of the battleship refit parts. As of August 2026 no demo has appeared on the storefront, no date or window has been given, and Steam Next Fest participation has not been announced.
Bookmark this wiki. Pages are updated as official information is verified.
Most concrete pre-release specifics have not been disclosed: exact controls and default keybinds, opening-hour pacing, the precise release date inside 2026 (Steam currently reads "Coming soon"), and when the described demo build will actually open. Verified information will be folded into the TARTARUS battleship, continuous campaign, and combat mech pages as it lands.