Extraction shooters usually ask one question: can you get out with the loot? Active Matter adds a second one, which is whether the building you are standing in still obeys gravity. It pairs grounded military gunplay with zones where space folds, flowers stand up and charge at you, and the map itself can end up rotated ninety degrees against the skyline.
Quick answer: Active Matter is a hardcore PvPvE extraction shooter from Matter Team and Gaijin Entertainment, out now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with real-world weapons and SCP-inspired anomalies.
Active Matter platforms, release date, and premise
You play an operative caught in a time loop, sent into quantum-unstable zones to recover active matter, a substance that bends space and time and is worth a great deal to the Agency that keeps sending you back in. Death resets you rather than ending the run. The zones are fragments of the real world torn out of their own realities, including a Soviet closed island, a Central African quarantine area, and a decaying North American city.
| Developer | Matter Team |
| Publisher | Gaijin Entertainment |
| Release | September 15, 2026 |
| Platforms | PC (Steam), PS5, Xbox Series X|S |
| Engine | Dagor Engine |
| Composer | Akira Yamaoka |
It is a premium game rather than a free-to-play one, which is unusual for Gaijin. Players who bought the early version through the Gaijin Store received access on Steam and can link progress between the two PC versions.
The three ways to play: PvPvE, Isolated Raids, and Hired Ops
Not every session has to be a knife-edge loot run against other squads. The mode you pick decides who is allowed to shoot you.
| Mode | Who you fight | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| PvPvE raid | Operatives, monsters, anomalies | Highest-risk loot runs |
| Isolated Raid (PvE) | Monsters and anomalies only | Learning maps and objectives |
| Hired Ops (PvP) | Other players only | Pure gunplay, no extraction |
Raids can be run solo or in a small squad. Hired Ops drops you straight into team fights on warped maps, including ancient ruins with heavy vertical terrain, and skips the inventory pressure entirely.
How a raid runs from spawn to extraction
You know it worked when the objective flips to completed on your tracker and the teleport pulls you out of the zone with your recovered gear attached. Anything still on your body when the extraction finishes is what you keep.
Enemies and anomalies in the unstable zones
The PvE side is not filler. Some of it looks like scenery right up until it kills you, which is the whole point of the SCP-inspired design.
| Threat | What it does |
|---|---|
| Flowermen | Plant humanoids hiding in red flower patches; rush in groups |
| Turned Soldiers | Armed former humans who hold ground and shoot back |
| Distorted | Warped humanoids found in dedicated threat locations |
| Invisible mutants | Cloaked creatures that stalk you through undergrowth |
| Gravity anomalies | Hovering distortions that detonate when disturbed |
| Spore bombs | Explosive traps near abnormal signal sites |
Throwing a rock into a gravity anomaly to test it will set it off and pull nearby entities toward the noise. Anomalies are worth studying from a distance first.
Terrain is a threat in its own right. Houses and whole sections of landscape hang vertically against the sky in places, and some extractions require climbing a distorted cliffside over floating islands to reach the cabin holding the portal.
Weapons, vehicles, and looting
The arsenal is the grounded half of the design, with more than 60 firearms based on real military hardware. Recognisable kit includes the M4A1, MP5, SCAR-L, PKM, SV-98, UMP, SPAS-12, M110A1, AK-pattern rifles, and the M9 sidearm, alongside optics, suppressors, armor plates, and load vests.
Bodies are a genuine income stream. Searching a fallen operative can turn up a submachine gun, loose ammunition, steel armor plates, and currency items, and cars hide loot in trunks, suitcases, and parcels strapped to the roof.
Vehicles are drivable and repairable. You can find a car at the roadside, take it across the map for delivery objectives, and patch it with a repair kit after anomalies and creatures chew through it. Trucks, buggies, armored cars, and tanks feature too, along with reconnaissance drones and robo-dogs.
Magazines have to be loaded with matching ammunition and slotted into your vest before the rifle will feed from them. A rifle that refuses to reload is usually a vest problem, not a bug.
The Shelter, the replicator, and progression
Between raids you return to your Shelter, where recovered resources go into upgrading your arsenal, your body, and the base itself. The replicator is the interesting part. Because active matter can drag objects out of other timelines, you can use it to copy specific items you have already brought back, which turns a single lucky find into a repeatable supply.
Storage slots and replicator queues both expand over time, and several edition bundles start you with those expansions already unlocked. Longer-term progression runs through Monolith Access Levels, Merits, and Harmonization Cycles.
Active Matter editions and price
Across Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Gaijin Store, buyers can choose from four editions. In applicable regions, the Standard Edition costs 29.99 USD/EUR. Standard and Advanced editions are eligible for a Deluxe upgrade, while the Gaijin Store also offers upgrades from either edition to Elite Squad.
| Edition | Credits | Prime | Notable extras |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 25,000 | 300 | 5 weapons, 10 equipment, 6 ammunition |
| Advanced | 60,000 | 1,300 | Storage and replicator expansion, Harpy drone recipe |
| Deluxe | 185,000 | 5,500 | Reaper and Knight shells, Bonecrusher quad bike, robot dog |
| Elite Squad | Deluxe | Deluxe | Deluxe plus two Standard Edition keys |
Full contents per platform are listed on the official Active Matter store page.
The game is being patched quickly since launch. Update 0.4.0.132 reworked controls, raised the danger level in Distorted threat locations, and added Shelter building previews that explain why an item cannot be placed, following earlier passes on performance, animations, sound, and the interface.
