It fell six years ago
A meteor cracked open over the Pacific and seeded the planet with Spore. It burns hotter than uranium, grows like moss, and nobody has worked out how to safely put it in a box.
Contain it.
Or become it.
A real-time strategy game where two factions fight over a resource that is starting to think back.
Field Briefing / 03
Where we are right now
Two answers, no middle ground
The UN Containment Corps wants to burn it back to bedrock. The Hive Syndicate wants to let it in. Officially there is no third option. Unofficially, the people stuck between them are running out of road.
Something underneath is listening
It does not speak. It does not march. But patrols are coming back wrong, comms are picking up voices that were never sent, and the ground, when you put your ear to it, has started answering back.
Faction 01
Marine
Orbital Uplink
Titan
UN Containment Corps
Contain. Hold. Sterilize.
A disciplined, multinational military force assembled in the wake of the Incursion. The UNCC fields conventional firepower, railed armour, orbital drops, and atmospheric scrubbers, and believes the Spore is a planetary infection that must be erased before it finishes rewriting the biosphere. Their doctrine has no word for negotiation.
Faction 02
The Witness
Crawler
Flesh Pit
Hive Syndicate
Be heard. Be many. Be one.
Once a fringe cult on the edge of the exclusion zone, the Syndicate was the first to embrace the Spore, and the first to be embraced back. Their cities are grown, not built. Their soldiers share a psychic link called the Choir. They do not see themselves as the next species, only the next verse, and they cannot understand why the rest of humanity is still screaming.
Gameplay
What you will do
A real-time strategy game built around two opposing philosophies. Here's how it plays.
Explore all features →
Plus a story, a campaign, and a third faction hinted in the background.
The front line
Both factions believe they are saving humanity. Only one can be right.
Operations Timeline / Eyes Only
The road to first contact
Five phases between here and full release. We ship publicly, in waves, with the people who signed up first.
- Phase 00Complete
Pre-Alpha
Q2 2025, Q1 2026
Engine, faction asymmetry, core economy. Internal only. The Spore was, briefly, a single floating cube.
- Phase 01In Progress
Closed Alpha
Now
Invite-only stress test. A few hundred operators, one map, one match length. Telemetry on everything.
- Phase 02Upcoming
Closed Beta
Summer 2026
Beta sign-ups go out in waves. Three maps, both campaigns playable end-to-end, ranked queues open.
- Phase 03Upcoming
Open Beta
Late 2026
Public, browser-based. No download. Bring a friend. Bring two. The Spore will notice either way.
- Phase 04On the Horizon
Launch
2027
Full release. Co-op campaign, ranked seasons, mod tools. Whether you contain it or become it is up to you.
Deployment Channels
Where you can play it
Bio-Op is browser-first. No install, no waiting room. Storefront builds follow.
Primary
Play in Browser
Open Beta, Late 2026
Steam
Wishlist opens with Closed Beta
itch.io
Demo build during Open Beta
Follow the build
2026.04.18
Designing the Spore Spread System
How a single tile of contamination becomes a living map feature, and why we threw out our first three prototypes.
2026.05.02
How the Choir Sings: Audio Behind the Hive
Layered vocal beds, recorded crowd whispers, and the rule that no Hive unit may ever sound entirely alone.
2026.05.16
Balance Pass One: Why the Bloater Got Slower
Notes from our first internal tournament, and what changed for both factions in the patch that followed.
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