Numbers first: one to four players, one free chapter, launching October 26. Antistatic Studios announced Phantom Line: Prologue, a free introduction to its paranormal tactical co-op shooter, arriving on Steam and the Epic Games Store ahead of the full game’s release, planned for 2027.

What Phantom Line is

Phantom Line is a PvE co-op shooter set in a Europe on the brink of nuclear devastation. Players join a kind of paranormal SWAT team tasked with investigating and containing unpredictable phenomena, the anomalies, across an open world where danger can strike at any moment.

What is in the Prologue

In the Prologue you play an elite operative of the mysterious Mortfield Industries, sent to a research facility that has gone dark in the Iron Corridor, a region of Eastern Europe caught between international tensions and paranormal activity. When nuclear war breaks out, the world starts to collapse.

In practice, the chapter includes the tutorial, the first story mission and the journey to your base. The explorable area is smaller than in the full game, but it introduces the core mechanics. Two additions stand out. The H.U.S.K. system is Mortfield’s experimental technology that moves an operative’s consciousness between artificial bodies. Anomaly Pockets are alternate spaces reached through portals, where the rules of reality break down, with hostile creatures and puzzles.

According to co-founder and executive producer Maciej, “thousands of players” took part in the March demo, and that feedback is shaping the game. Co-founder and creative director Kris says the team wants to bring “some of the best of creepypasta and anomalies to life”.

Translated from the jargon: it is a big, free demo, a good way to test the game with your squad before deciding on the full release.

See also this month’s game release calendar.

Source: Antistatic Studios.