Revision 5

The Arandi Empire is one of the six mercenary groups in ZeroSpace, contracted mid match and folded into whichever main faction you are already commanding. Their motto is "Reality is negotiable", and of the six they are the group least interested in fighting a conventional battle: their units are built to move armies where they should not be able to go and to take enemy units off the board without killing them. They are listed among the hired guns rather than the main powers.

Who They Are

The official description presents the Arandi as an advanced civilisation that commands interdimensional energy, warping matter and bending the laws of reality. Their technology lets them cross vast distances instantly, which makes them unpredictable to play against, and their units are written as deliberately refusing traditional roles, shaping the flow of a fight through unconventional tactics rather than raw output.

They also anchor one of the game's lore connections. The Endari, the sixth mercenary group, are described on their own official page as outcasts of the Arandi Empire, hunted for powers no one else understands. The two groups are the same people, split by what the Arandi were willing to tolerate.

How They Fight

The official faction page names two combat traits.

Commander

The Arandi are led by I'olin, whose title is Malicant Enforcer. She is a caster rather than a duellist, built around creating a singularity and teleporting short distances. She rebuilds automatically after dying, like every hero described on Heroes and Commanders.

I'olin also gave her name to the shared reward for the first season of the Galactic War. When the Keeper Council took Season Zero, the studio announced on August 6, 2026 that an I'olin Season Zero portrait was going out to every player.

Forces

Arandi units are produced from the Penumbra, and several arrive as squads. The figures describe build ZS.c36778, current in September 2026, and they move with the patch cadence.

Each of the five has its own page, reachable from the table below or from the index on Units. Being hired rather than produced, none of them carries a build time, and their prices draw on the currencies described on Resources and Economy.

Two of these best illustrate the "unconventional roles" the official page describes. The Ethermancer does not kill an enemy unit, it takes it: mind control drains the caster's energy at a rate set by the target's status resist, the controlled unit's own abilities stay locked, and since August 28, 2026 it cannot be used on a massive unit at all. The Chronowarper is an air unit that fights by slowing rather than by killing, dropping into a phase mode that cuts enemy attack and move speed in an area by 30 percent. Earlier builds also had it teleport friendly units to itself; the current build lists no such ability on the unit, and the group's repositioning now runs through the Penumbra Recall power instead. No patch note covers that removal, so read it as an observation of the build rather than a studio statement.

In the August 11, 2026 roster: The Judgement is not available at the start. It unlocks through the level 6 talent, which spawns two of them at once.

The Penumbra

The Arandi structure is the strangest building any mercenary group fields. It flies, it carries troops, and it kills things by sitting on top of them.

Its passive, Abduct, takes a light-armoured unit directly underneath the Penumbra and kills it outright, on a 120 second cooldown. Because the Penumbra is airborne and mobile, the ability is aimed by flying the building over whatever you want removed.

Faction Power and Talents

The Arandi top bar entry is Penumbra Recall, which teleports selected units to your Penumbra for 10 faction power on a 90 second cooldown. Because the Penumbra itself moves, the recall point moves with it.

Penumbra Ascendant changes what Abduct is. At a 15 second cooldown it stops being an occasional removal and becomes a rolling threat to any light-armoured unit that stands still, which is why it sits at the top of the talent line.

Changes Since Launch

For historical context, an official post in March 2024, before Early Access, gave each mercenary group a single passive bonus rather than a talent line. The Arandi's made research upgrades instant.

In the Wider Game

The Arandi Empire is one of six groups on the Factions page, beside The Marran, The Valkaru, the Free Corsairs and the Cha'Kru Kingdom. They can be hired in Skirmish matches and across the galaxy map, and their flux-focused level 2 talent connects directly to the systems on Resources and Economy. Note that the official standings page keeps total-damage boards for only seven of the game's ten factions and mercenary groups, and the Arandi are not among them, in company with the Endari and The Xol. For the wider roster their units join, see Units.

October 3, 2026: Galactic War / Penumbra

The Galactic War Penumbra received 300 additional shields and a container size increase from ten to 25.

September 12, 2026: Versus, Skirmish and Survival

Judgement became available from Penumbra without a talent. Its attack buff was removed and it gained the Hallucination spawn aura; the spawned Hallucinations' starting health increased from 25% to 50%.

Penumbra Ascendant no longer unlocks or spawns two Judgements. It instead grants Penumbra an area attack that stuns ground units for 1.5 seconds and raises Penumbra health by 50%.