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Heat Signature

$14.99
Release Date:
Metacritic:
79
Platforms:
Windows
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About This Game

What's in the Supporter's Edition?

The Supporter's Edition of Heat Signature comes with a bunch of fun extras:

  • Play through Heat Signature's development with 8 early prototypes from its 3.5 year development.
  • Watch 9 developer commentary videos showing and explaining its evolution: from drilling through hulls to liberating empires. (Total: 70 minutes)
  • Own the full soundtrack in 320kbps MP3 format. (19 tracks, 83 minutes)


About the Game

Break into spaceships!

Fly your pod up to any spaceship in the galaxy and dock with its airlock to sneak inside. From there, you've got to sneak up on the crew, outshoot them in slowmo gunfights, or outthink them with clever gadgets. Take missions to steal loot, assassinate VIPs, or rescue friends.


Take your time!

Get out of impossible situations by pausing at any time and taking as long as you need to figure out a clever plan. You have a wide range of gadgets with clever uses, and you can switch, aim and fire them with no time pressure at all, letting you pull off ridiculously cool tricks without needing twitch skills.


Liberate the galaxy!

All your missions get you closer to liberating new space stations from the empires that control them, and this unlocks new gadgets to buy in your shops, and special challenge characters to play.

Lots more features!
I'm not making GIFs for all these!
I'm not made of GIFs!
I'm not some kind of GIF-golem!

Emergent gameplay!

Use gadgets like teleporters, stealth shields and subverters to invent your own solutions to tricky situations.

Galactic zoom!

Zoom smoothly from a view of the whole galaxy down to your character sneaking up on guards inside the spaceship you're boarding.

Choose your difficulty!

You choose each mission, ranging from trivially easy to nightmarishly hard. There's also a practice mode where you can try items and tactics with no consequences and instant-restart.


Randomly generated missions!

Each one picks a random combination of guard kit, ship layout, and complications like space battles.

Each life is a new character!

Choose between randomly generated characters with different starting kit, and when you die, play as someone new in the same galaxy.

Personal missions!

Every character has one grand heist to work towards: rescue their brother, steal their gun back, get revenge on their partner's killer.


Modular destruction!

Blow up any part of a ship with breach grenades or fuel barrels. Rip a ship in half. Get sucked into space by the vacuum.

Rescue your friends' characters!

If someone on your friends list gets their character captured, and they aren't able to rescue them, maybe you can! You'll sometimes get a character whose personal goal is to rescue a friend's character. If you manage it, you unlock your friend's character to play as! They don't get it back. They had their chance. It's yours now.

Find your friends' items!

When you retire an accomplished character, you can choose one item to pass on. You get to name it, and both your Steam friends and your own future characters have a chance to find these as loot. Equally, you'll come across items your friends have named.


What Heat Signature is not:

We don't want you to buy Heat Signature if it's not for you. We'd always rather have a happy non-customer than an unhappy customer. So here's what it isn't:

-

  • It's not story-driven: there's a backstory to this place and a few conversations with characters, but there's not a story that develops as you play. It's much more about the stories you generate by playing, about how you got out of impossible situation X or pulled off crazy stunt Y.

  • There aren't other careers: You can't mine asteroids. You can't build ships. You can't recruit a crew. You're an infiltrator, you break into spaceships for a living, it's all about that.

  • There are no planets: The whole game takes place in this nebula full of space stations. You can dock at any friendly station and board any hostile ship, but it's not a space exploration game.

  • It's not multiplayer: The friends features mentioned above are fun but they're just sharing content, it's not multiplayer at all and you're never in the same world together.

There are cool games about all those things. This is a cool game about something else!

Screenshots

User Reviews

Overwhelmingly Positive
8 user reviews
100%
Positive
48 hrs at review
Recommended

I've been playing this game for 7 years now. I'm probably going to play it until I die. It's just a good game. It's really that simple. It's fun, simple, has plenty of challenge to it, and rewards good gameplay. It's great for binge sessions and quickies. There's just absolutely nothing wrong with this game. Buy it, play it, enjoy.

6 helpful 1 funny
32 hrs at review
Recommended

Nice game that's not too complex, but is still challenging

32 hrs at review
Recommended

Good game. Not sure what it goes for but definitely worth 5 to 10 dollars. It's cool and has a top down strategy vibe, with the ability to pause. Everything happens fast but you can pause any time and give all the commands. Items add some fun, and it is rogue-like in that you get new items in your shop, and new skills with your new people.

58 hrs at review
Recommended

Great game from great devs. The only thing I could complain about are the multiplayer/co-op achievements were really annoying to get, but they are cool features nonetheless. Every level is a different puzzle, but you'll start to find strategies that work for different situations and it snowballs into being able to make do with next to nothing. 10/10 recommend the whole Defenestration Trilogy, all are great games and you can really see the path and how it got better with each iteration, while still being totally unique.

93 hrs at review
Recommended

Review Yes Review more

51 hrs at review
Recommended

This is an example of perfectly executed game design.

47 hrs at review
Recommended

How have I not played this until 2025?? Fantastic and endlessly replayable, game loops, with such a nice skill level to reach for. Hurling yourself into space, going after your targets using a simple variety of fun and interesting gadgets, and as the game proudly boasts, making terrible mistakes and then finding ways to solve them. I really like that you can get legacy items from your friends and former characters across your playthrus. Great Game!!

39 hrs at review
Recommended

It's really fucking good. You can beat people with wrenches. You can throw wrenches like shuriken. You can teleport your wrenches back to you and continue the wrenching. Wrench my brothers. Wrench them. Wrench them all.

System Requirements

Minimum

Minimum:
  • OS *: Windows 7
  • Processor: 1.7GHz dual-core CPU
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Intel HD 5000 or better (GeForce and Radeon tend to be better)
  • DirectX: Version 9.0
  • Storage: 400 MB available space

FAQ

How much does Heat Signature cost?

Heat Signature costs $14.99.

What are the system requirements for Heat Signature?

Minimum: Minimum: OS *: Windows 7 Processor: 1.7GHz dual-core CPU Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: Intel HD 5000 or better (GeForce and Radeon tend to be better) DirectX: Version 9.0 Storage: 400 MB available space

What platforms is Heat Signature available on?

Heat Signature is available on Windows PC.

Is Heat Signature worth buying?

Heat Signature has 100% positive reviews from 8 players. Metacritic score: 79/100.

When was Heat Signature released?

Heat Signature was released on Sep 21, 2017.

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