Demo de Dust Front RTS: qué incluye y si sigue activa

For an unreleased game, Dust Front RTS has an unusually substantial demo, and it is the only part of the project anyone can play today. It is not a vertical slice of the campaign and it is not a tutorial campaign — it is one large, replayable macro battle with most of the interesting systems switched on. This page covers what is in it, when it shipped, why it is still available, and what it deliberately leaves out.

What the demo contains

The demo is a single procedurally generated battle with a fixed mission type. The developer's stated goal was roughly two hours of content; community play reports put actual time played far higher, because the mission is built to be re-run at higher difficulty rather than completed once.

What is switched on is generous for a demo. Technologies are unlocked, meaning units and buildings from some high-tier doctrines are available so you can field a real army against enemy hordes rather than a starter roster. Strike groups and reinforcements are included, with an interface to simulate the system where part of your army deploys immediately and the rest arrives later. There is a basic tutorial, though it shipped with a bug that could trigger a premature battle start, fixed in D-30.

The demo also carries a full set of quality-of-life tools aimed at controlling mass armies:

• Repositioning a phantom placement projection on the run — select the phantom and move it.
• Bomber flight correction — after setting a bombing direction you can adjust the flight path.
• Attack priorities — units have preferred target types and switch when a priority target enters line of sight.
• Drag movement — right-click movement creates a formation, with units distributing into rows and a line.
• Screen select same-type limiter — double click selects all of one type on screen; turn the limiter off to select that type across the whole map.
• Control groups can be created with T + number, not only Ctrl, and buildings offscreen are selected when the toggle is off.

When it shipped and why it is still downloadable

The demo released June 15, 2026, in the 7–8 PM Moscow time window, for Steam Next Fest. It is free, and it has stayed free.

After the festival ended the demo was extended by one week, and then left up for good. In the developer's own words in the June 29, 2026 post: "Demo will remain available for an additional indefinite period." He has also said no further patches are planned for it, that it may be used as a public test platform going forward, and that he will not announce when it eventually closes.

The mission: Siege of an Industrial City

The mission type is one of several battle types in the full game, chosen specifically because it focuses on macro. The enemy has fortified military bases; you establish positions and clear the area.

The map itself is procedural. The mission type is fixed — you will always be sieging an industrial city — but the terrain and layout are always slightly different, which is what gives a single mission enough replay value to absorb tens of hours.

The two opponents

You fight one of two factions per run.

• Bandit Faction — the starting faction that exists in the gray zones of the global map. Human rebels resisting imperial oppression, with light and fast units and outward-looking armored vehicles such as Technicals: Mad Max-style industrial vehicles with turrets bolted on. Lower defence than the Empire.
• Mutant Faction — described by the developer as "an enemy that inspires horror." Heavy units, worms and flies, lots of heavy armour, and a design that forces close-quarters combat. Their corpses spawn flies, a free but weak unit effective against any target type, and some corpses spawn worm swarms that serve as the mutants' standard infantry.

The other two designed factions — Robots and the Empire as an opponent — are not present in the demo.

Difficulty, scale and the chevrons and stars

A multiplier sets enemy strength and base size; the enemy base can be made up to 4x larger. This is the main lever for replayability, and the game tracks it.

In the developer's words, "chevrons and stars are awarded for the enemy base multiplier, and the numbers represent the maximum difficulty multiplier you have on the corresponding enemy base size." So the badge on your profile is a record of how large an enemy base you have beaten and at what multiplier — a scoreboard for a single mission rather than a progression system.

Update D-30 added a further optional modifier on top: enemy durability and health multiplied upward. It is optional and separate from the base-size multiplier.

What the demo does not include

Being clear about this saves disappointment. There is no campaign, no global map and no strategic layer — those belong to the full game. There is no multiplayer and no co-op, and the developer has stated there never will be. There are no redemption codes of any kind, no console and no mod support.

Save behaviour in the demo is unconfirmed. The demo is a single procedurally generated mission with no published manual save spec, so do not assume you can leave a run and come back to it.

Related pages

• Demo patch D-30 changelog
• Dust Front RTS demo review: score and playtime
• Dust Front RTS guide index
• Dust Front RTS how to play: base, economy and pause
• The Dreadnought: modes, howitzer and wrecks
• Official Dust Front RTS demo page on Steam