This week at gamescom, we lastly revealed Gravhounds, the primary sport from our seven-person unbiased studio, Octopus Panic – it’s set to launch into Recreation Preview on XBOX Sequence X|S and XBOX on PC on November 2, 2026, and might be out there day one with XBOX Recreation Go.
We’re a small crew, however between us we’ve spent years making a lot greater video games. Throughout the studio, we’ve labored on franchises like Halo, Battlefield, and Star Wars, together with video games like Full Spectrum Warrior, Def Jam: Combat for NY, and The Saboteur. We began Octopus Panic to get small once more: to experiment, have enjoyable, and construct methods that go away room for gamers to shock us.
The canines got here early. All of us love canines, and their personalities and breed traits gave us quite a bit to work with. From there, it wasn’t laborious to think about a future company seeing those self same qualities and deciding canines would make the right workforce.
So, in Gravhounds, you’re a bio-engineered canine constructed for harmful industrial work, stranded together with your crew on the far aspect of the galaxy. Getting dwelling means salvaging alien worlds, constructing questionable infrastructure, and surviving issues significantly greater on the meals chain than you’re.
Sadly, being stranded in one other galaxy doesn’t get you out of labor. Your shipboard AI supervisor, COSMO, nonetheless has jobs that want doing.
One other Day on the Workplace
Gravhounds is constructed round a easy loop: take a job, drop onto a hostile planet, construct an operation, get what you got here for, and attempt to go away with everybody nonetheless alive. That sounds organized; it normally isn’t.
Jobs would possibly contain recovering alien expertise, extracting worthwhile assets, or establishing infrastructure someplace the native wildlife would strongly desire you didn’t. Because the operation expands, so do your issues. The longer you keep and the tougher you push, the extra harmful the planet turns into. Quickly you’re repairing defenses, hauling assets, rescuing any person who wandered off alone, and deciding whether or not you have got time to seize yet another factor earlier than leaving. Logic tends to deteriorate because the shift progresses.
Put Gravity to Work
On the middle of Gravhounds is the Grav Beam, the economic software each Gravhound makes use of to seize assets, haul gear, place Construct Kits, and manipulate objects around the globe. It additionally seems to be extraordinarily helpful for violence.
You may throw objects, transfer heavy assets between teammates, rip smaller creatures out of the struggle, or flip no matter occurs to be close by into an improvised projectile. Perhaps your teammate wants a well being pickup. Throw it to them. Perhaps an enemy is attacking your base. Decide it up and throw it elsewhere.
The Plan Lasts About 30 Seconds
We’ve at all times beloved co-op video games the place gamers genuinely want each other. Gravhounds is about fixing issues collectively, not 4 individuals merely capturing on the similar goal. Typically meaning coordinating a protection completely. Different instances, any person’s enthusiasm for exploration turns into an emergency rescue operation.
For us, the perfect co-op moments are when issues unexpectedly go off the rails, and but someway you continue to pull it off collectively. Gravhounds is intentionally systemic, giving gamers instruments and leaving room to resolve the way to mix them. We’ve already watched gamers discover options we didn’t anticipate. We count on that drawback to get significantly worse as soon as all of you begin taking part in.
Construct to Survive
Constructing isn’t a separate part in Gravhounds. It’s a part of the struggle. Your pipeline is the spine of each operation, carrying energy throughout the planet and offering locations to deploy constructions and defenses. Push farther and you may attain extra worthwhile assets and distant aims, however you’re additionally creating extra infrastructure to guard.
We wished constructing to really feel quick and bodily. It enhances the motion somewhat than pulling you out of it. Seize the gear, get it into place, energy it up, and get again to work. Ideally earlier than one thing eats you.
Each Shift Will get Weirder
As you struggle, construct, collect assets, and contribute to the job, you’ll earn Reward Pods containing randomized weapons and upgrades. You would possibly lean into mobility, uncooked firepower, protection, or construct round an uncommon mixture of upgrades. As these results stack, your construct turns into more and more highly effective. In the meantime, the opposition is escalating too. By the tip of an excellent shift, either side are typically significantly extra harmful than after they began.
Transfer Quick, Die Final
Each Gravhound wears an industrial propulsion rig that permits you to increase in a number of instructions, soar, hover, and rapidly reposition across the battlefield. Get onto the pipeline and the rig supercharges, letting you grind alongside it at excessive pace with limitless increase. This turns into significantly helpful when your base is collapsing in three totally different locations, or when any person has made a sequence of poor selections and now requires help. Once more.
Coming to Recreation Preview and Recreation Go
Gravhounds launches into Recreation Preview on Xbox Sequence X|S and Xbox on PC on November 2, 2026, and might be out there day one with Xbox Recreation Go. Recreation Preview is a pure match for Gravhounds. The sport is pushed by methods, steadiness, co-op interplay, and participant experimentation, and we need to preserve growing it alongside the people who find themselves taking part in it.
Should you’re at gamescom this week, you may also play Gravhounds on the ID@Xbox sales space in Corridor 7. We hope you’ll come take a shift.
Gravhounds
Octopus Panic, Inc
1–4 PLAYER CO-OP
Intense alone, chaotic with a crew. Mix every Gravhound’s strengths and improvise to beat again the swarm. Go lone wolf to broaden the operation or keep on with the pack and stand your floor.
BEND GRAVITY TO YOUR WILL
Fetch!
Fling objects throughout the battlefield to your teammates. Flip gravity in opposition to the swarm and ship them flying, one after the other.
Disclaimer: Transporting unstable supplies with the Grav Beam could lead to unexpected lack of Gravhounds.
BUILD TO SURVIVE
Deploy turrets, mills, and fabricators to broaden the operation and defend it from the swarm.
Lengthen pipelines throughout hostile terrain to energy your base, transfer assets, and preserve your escape route alive.
YOU ARE THE PERFECT WORKER
Select from a crew of bio-engineered canine employees constructed for harmful planetary operations.
Loyal.
Obedient.
Expendable.
NO TWO SHIFTS PLAY THE SAME
Unlock highly effective new talents and upgrades mid-shift. Stack bonuses and reshape your loadout to go well with the state of affairs. The swarm grows deadlier by the second – however so do you.
MOVE FAST, DIE LAST
Increase in any path and reposition underneath hearth. Race to your teammates’ help or make a final sprint for supplies.
Warning: Unauthorized leisure use of pipeline increase is strictly prohibited.
EVERY CHOICE MATTERS
Search out treacherous planets for the perfect supplies – the upper the danger, the larger the rewards.
Unlock new Gravhounds, weapons, and improve paths.
Keep longer, push tougher, and the swarm escalates. Each shift turns into a guess on how a lot your pack can deal with.
