Tempest Rising: The Veti's Wrath DLC Announced — 11-Mission Campaign, Free Multiplayer for All

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Veti’s Wrath: A DLC With Two Price Tags

The Veti were always coming to Tempest Rising. The public multiplayer beta ran from May 27 to June 10, 2026, on a simple promise: a third faction that every base game owner could play for free in multiplayer. The July 9, 2026 announcement confirms that the model holds, with a paid DLC next to it. What costs money is the solo campaign, not access to the faction in ranked or custom games.

Update, October 26, 2026: The Veti’s Wrath launched on Steam on September 29, 2026, at €19.99. The model described here held: the 11-mission campaign is paid, while the Veti in multiplayer and skirmish remain free for base game owners.

If you mostly play multiplayer, nothing changes. If you want a story reason to command the Veti, The Veti’s Wrath offers 11 missions, at a price Slipgate Ironworks had not announced at that point.

Who Are the Veti?

The Veti do not work like the GDF or the Tempest Dynasty. Their defining mechanic is conversion: fallen soldiers become “Enlightened”, which the faction then sacrifices to strengthen its units and structures. The loop is easy to state: kill, harvest, sacrifice, grow stronger.

The faction fields 9 buildings, 7 vehicles, 6 infantry units, 5 air units, 5 defensive structures, 5 specialists, 5 support powers and 1 superweapon: the Sanctifier Portal. It was already playable in the multiplayer beta, but without a campaign to give its story some context.

11 Missions to Tell Their Return

The Veti’s Wrath is an 11-mission solo campaign. Slipgate Ironworks describes the Veti as an ancient and brutal race fighting to turn the tide against humanity and reclaim its place in a world it once ruled. The campaign gives them a playable voice and a narrative arc that the multiplayer beta could not offer.

The studio opened a Steam demo on July 9, during TactiCon, the event organized by Hooded Horse and Firesquid. It contains the first 2 Veti missions, plus the first 2 missions of the GDF and the Tempest Dynasty. It also offers skirmishes against AI and custom games on 4 maps. The early Veti missions double as a tutorial for the faction, with tooltips explaining units, structures and mechanics.

Free Multiplayer: A Decision That Matters

Free Veti multiplayer is not a marketing detail, it protects the health of the game. In a competitive RTS, a faction locked behind a paid DLC splits the community and complicates matchups. Here, everyone can play the Veti in matchmaking, custom games and skirmish against AI, with no purchase required.

For solo players won over by the beta, the DLC adds what was missing: context, narrative progression and a reason to play through the 11 story missions. The real question right now is the price and the date.

What to Watch Now

Price and release date: Slipgate Ironworks has said nothing about either. The only hint is that the expansion is due “later this year” according to the July 9 announcement. For an 11-mission DLC, you can expect pricing within the usual range for RTS expansions, though nothing is confirmed.

If the campaign matches the quality of the GDF and Dynasty ones, The Veti’s Wrath is likely to be the most significant Tempest Rising expansion since launch. If it falls short, the faction stays free to play in multiplayer, so the purchase risk is limited to your solo ambitions. The free demo also lets you judge the first two missions before spending anything.

Going further

Tempest Rising Veti Faction Guide: Enlightened, Strategy & Beta Access (2026)

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Tempest Rising’s Third Faction Is Now Free to Play for Everyone

As of May 27, 2026, Tempest Rising has opened its Veti public beta to all players — free of charge — until June 10. You don’t even need to own the game to jump in and test the RTS’s third faction on Steam’s public test branch.

The Veti are nothing like the two human factions. While the GDF and Tempest Dynasty clash with tanks, artillery, and missiles, the Veti summon floating laser pyramids, infantry that shoots bees, and treat their fallen enemies as a renewable resource.

This guide covers the core mechanics, key units, and opening strategies you need to hit the ground running in the beta.

A Fundamentally Different Relationship with Tempest
The Enlightened System: Your Enemies as Fuel
The Veti Arsenal: Key Units and Buildings
The Sanctifier Portal: Ultimate Weapon
Strategic Priorities for the Beta
How to Join the Free Beta

A Fundamentally Different Relationship with Tempest

In Tempest Rising, Tempest functions like C&C’s Tiberium — the central resource everything revolves around. Both human factions rip it from the ground until a field runs dry, forcing constant expansion to new deposits.

The Veti operate differently. Their Refinement Altars cultivate Tempest rather than extracting it brutally. The result: a field farmed by the Veti never fully depletes. In mid-game, this translates into far less pressure on resource geography and a sustained production capacity that human factions simply cannot match without constant map control.

This is the Veti’s structural advantage in long games. The trade-off is a more deliberate early-game setup before the faction starts snowballing.

The Enlightened System: Your Enemies as Fuel

The Veti’s signature mechanic is the Enlightened system. When an enemy unit is sufficiently weakened, the Veti can dominate it rather than destroy it. The converted unit becomes an Enlightened thrall — an alien slave under your control.

These thralls aren’t just recycled soldiers. Their primary role is fueling your infrastructure: by sacrificing them through Ascension Anchors, you boost production rates, passive defenses, or the stats of your advanced units. Ascension Anchors are Veti structures that grow more powerful as they consume Enlightened — the more you feed them, the more efficient your linked buildings become.

The immediate tactical implication: don’t always kill enemy units outright. Stopping your attacks before a unit dies in order to convert it is often more valuable than a clean kill, especially in the early skirmish phase.

The Veti Arsenal: Key Units and Buildings

The Veti roster is fully fleshed out and unlike anything the human factions offer:

9 buildings — including Refinement Altars and Ascension Anchors
7 vehicles — alien constructions with ancient stone aesthetics
6 infantry units — including troops that literally shoot bees
5 air units — laser-equipped floating pyramids
5 defensive structures
5 specialists

The pivot unit for any Veti expansion is the Caretaker: a flying unit that creates build radius beneath it and deploys Ascension Anchors. Unlike fixed human bases, the Caretaker lets the Veti extend their footprint laterally across the map by creating mobile build points. This is the foundation of an expansion strategy that opponents have difficulty reading.

The Sanctifier unit carries the Consume ability: it instantly kills all ground units in a targeted area, with 30% of their combined health converted into healing for the Sanctifier itself. In concentrated defensive plays, this is a devastating tool.

The Sanctifier Portal: Ultimate Weapon

The Veti superweapon is the Sanctifier Portal — a massive energy altar that, upon summoning, instantly vaporizes all nearby units (yours included), then deals continuous area damage within its sphere of influence.

Its distinguishing feature: the Sanctifier Portal can sustain itself by targeting enemy units and consuming them entirely to regenerate energy. Properly positioned in the late game, it becomes a zone-control tool that’s nearly impossible to neutralize without sacrificing huge amounts of troops. Unlike the human factions’ single-use superweapons, the Portal can persist indefinitely if kept fed.

Build toward the Sanctifier Portal as soon as your economy allows — it fundamentally changes how late-game confrontations play out.

Strategic Priorities for the Beta

Key principles to internalize from your first matches:

Prioritize Refinement Altars early — Your long-term economic advantage depends on rapid deposit coverage. Build Altars before you rush to harass.
Practice conversion, not elimination — In skirmish or quick play, train yourself to stop your attacks before an enemy unit dies so you can dominate it.
Deploy the Caretaker offensively — Flank toward peripheral resources rather than keeping it anchored to your main base.
Feed your Ascension Anchors continuously — Regular Enlightened sacrifices keep your buildings performing at maximum efficiency.
Target the Sanctifier Portal in mid-game — It represents a power spike that most beta players haven’t yet learned to counter.

How to Join the Free Beta

The Veti beta is available on Steam until June 10, 2026, even without owning the game:

Go to the Tempest Rising Steam page
Click “Download Demo” or, if you own the game, go to Properties > Betas
Select the public Veti test branch
Download and launch

The beta includes skirmish vs. AI, custom games, and quick play multiplayer with the Veti faction against real players.

For a full breakdown of the two human factions and core game mechanics, see our complete Tempest Rising guide covering the GDF, Tempest Dynasty, economy, and opening strategies.

Veti — After Strategy