Dyson Sphere Program's Dark Fog are here to blow up your space factories

Dyson Sphere Program is one of the best factory-building games out there, and it has picked up a lot of interesting features during its trek through early access development—but now the biggest game-changer of the planned features has hit. Rise of the Dark Fog, the update that adds an interplanetary menace to your game, has arrived.

The update includes not just enemies with their own way of spreading and building on planets, but the infrastructure required on your end to defend against them: turrets, planetary defense shields, automated factory-rebuilding drones, and even battlefield scavenging equipment to recycle your enemies. The Dark Fog are entirely optional, to be clear, but including them in the game gives a whole new layer of challenge to the construction of your interstellar sun-enclosing factories.

"We hope you enjoy this update. Rise of the Dark Fog is the first part of the combat system, and there will be future content related to space combat. Building space stations and confronting space hives are already in our plans," said developers Youthcat Studio in the update post.

The update release trailer shows off the Dark Fog themselves, highlighting how they're apparently self-replicating machines that may well have been designed for exploration purposes, but are now its enemies. The trailer also shows scenes of massive, swarming Dark Fog space armadas and attack drones throwing themselves against planetary defense shields and immobile turrets.

I have to admit, though I found this line in the release trailer very funny: "As Dark Fog rises, the stars dim." Is dimming the stars a bad thing now? Because that's literally what we do in this game. We cover the stars in big spheres. They aren't shiny anymore. They go out.

As a very wise man once asked, "are we the baddies?"

You can find Dyson Sphere Program on Steam, 10% off until December 21, and Xbox Store for US $20. You can read the full Rise of the Dark Fog patch release notes on Steam

Contributor

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.

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