Tempest Rising Veti Key Art
Image: Slipgate Ironworks/3D Realms

Update []:

A few days after the publishing of the article below, Slipgate Ironworks & 3D Realms officially unveiled The Veti's Wrath, a full commercial expansion with eleven new story missions to dig into. There's no release date for it yet, but you can wishlist it on Steam and check out the announcement trailer below.

Original Story: Always nice to see an already-great game get even better. Released last year, Tempest Rising was a fantastic tribute to the classic Command & Conquer RTS series, recapturing the tone and style in a new setting, on a modern game engine, and adding a few new mechanical twists. The game's big secret—one easy to predict for C&C fans—was that late in the single-player campaign, a third, alien faction emerges to cause trouble for humanity.

Until recently, the Veti (pseudo-Egyptian invaders that once ruled Earth, re-emerging from underground to seek revenge) disappointingly appeared only as NPC enemies. A recent beta gave players a taste of them as a playable faction, but today developers Slipgate Ironworks have announced that the Veti are getting their own story missions. There's no date for the new story content, but they'll make their campaign debut on July 9th via a new demo.

There's no word yet on whether the Veti campaign missions (and faction as a whole) will be a paid expansion or a free update. Given the screenshots showing campaign cutscenes and a full doctrine upgrade tree, it sure looks like they're going to be every bit as fleshed out as the two playable human armies. Check out how the Veti play in the faction overview video below.

The release of the Veti demo also coincides with the beginning of Tacticon 2026, a Steam strategy showcase event hosted by publishers Firesquid & Hooded Horse. You can check out last year's crop of Tacticon titles here. And if you've not played Tempest Rising yet, it's currently 30% discounted in the Steam Summer Sale.