In October you can play Kepler Protocol. In November you can buy it.
Two pieces of news that belong together.
The first: a demo in October
Kepler Protocol will be part of Steam Next Fest, 19–26 October. For one week there'll be a playable demo — the landing on Kepler-186e, the first scouting moves, building a colony under a red sun.
For us that's the more important half of this announcement. So far you've been reading about Kepler Protocol. In October you'll have your hand on the lever.
The second: Early Access moves to November
The launch was set for 2 October. It will be November 2026.
That's the second delay, and the first time we simply swapped the date without a word. This time we'll say why.
In our last devblog — "The Army Nobody Saw Die" — we analysed 540 complete test games and wrote down, fairly bluntly, what came back. The headline number: in 87 percent of those games, not one engagement took place. The colony doesn't lose its army in battle. It loses it quietly to hunger, from turn 25 onward, without the game so much as reporting it. The Swarm meanwhile grows twentyfold and never shows up.
Kepler Protocol is meant to stand on three pillars: the fight to survive, building and running the colony, and battles against the Swarm. By our own measurements, one of them currently holds.
We now know exactly why — the analysis laid the whole causal chain bare, and the repairs have started. But they need more than nine weeks, and every one of them has to go back through the same test machine that found the problem. An Early Access that promises you a war the game doesn't deliver would be the worse road.
What this means for you
You get something to play earlier, not later: a demo in October instead of a buy button in October. And the Early Access launch arrives with an opponent worthy of the name.
We'll pin down the exact November date after the festival — we'd rather hear what you run into in the demo before we commit to a day.
Follow along
Wishlist on Steam: Kepler Protocol
Demo: Steam Next Fest, 19–26 October 2026
Early Access: November 2026
The numbers behind this: devblog "The Army Nobody Saw Die"
Kepler Protocol — 4X strategy on an alien world. Discipline against the Swarm. Codex against pheromone. A red sun over both.