The Gravhounds Demo is Coming!
Octopus Panic, Inc.
Hey Gravhounds!
After a successful Open Playtest where 20k+ testers deployed to alien planets (and survived the hordes), we’re thrilled to announce that the Gravhounds Demo is coming October 12th, 2026!
The demo will allow you to visit 2 Solar Systems with 7 planets, and you’ll be able to choose between four different Gravhounds, Selene, Zane, Dozer and Finn!
Also note that Demo progress does not carry on into our Early Access Release planned for November, 2026 but that the feedback that you share from your sessions most certainly will.
If you have thoughts after playing the demo come share them with us in Discord !
What’s New Since the Playtests
Thanks to all of you who joined our Playtests and provided feedback bug reports and shared your thoughts. Your input has helped us implement a few changes for the demo:
Highlights:
- Jump into Multiplayer right away: we’ve added the option to skip tutorials and jump in from the main menu. (You still need to complete a tutorial for solo play).
- Smoother movement and combat. Free ground dash, better pipeline grinding, stronger grenades, and weapon and enemy rebalancing.
- Faster Progression. Reworked Research Point rewards.
- Lots of fixes. Steadier multiplayer, better performance, a tougher (and healable) Coffee Cat and less COSMO chatter.
New Mod Deck Builder
One of the biggest points of feedback we saw from the Playtest has been a desire for more autonomy to balance out RNG, so we’ve worked hard to implement a new Mod Deck Builder:
Unlocking more Mods used to make it harder to get the ones you wanted. Now you can choose. Build a deck of 10 common Mods and up to 2 Showstoppers, and reward pods will only draw from that deck. Swap it between expeditions to try new builds.
This is our first version based on your feedback so if you were in the Playtest, let us know what you think? And if you’re new to the game drop us your thoughts as well on how you think this feels from your perspective.
We’ve changed a lot and if you want the full detailed breakdown of what we’ve done, including the changelog, we’ve just launched our first of many Devlogs!
⋘ GET THE FULL DEBRIEF FROM OUR FIRST DEVLOG HERE ⋙
Playtest by the Numbers
We’ve got some interesting telemetry for those interested in the numbers:
Total playtime for this Playtest was just shy of 50,000 hours.
Average time pr. player was around 2h 24m.
Average success rate was around 70%, with Purrmafrost coming in at just over 50%!
Zane was your most popular character with approx. 30% of you choosing to play as him.
If you read this far, thanks for locking in and we look forward to you diving in the Demo on October 12th!
Stay in the loop with all things Gravhounds:
- Join the Pack on Discord!
- Follow us on X, Instagram and TikTok.
Team Octopus Panic
This announcement was originally published by Octopus Panic, Inc. on Steam on Oct 7, 2026.
Open the original on Steam