Today, we are looking at Active Matter, a hardcore shooter developed by the Matter Team and published by Gaijin Entertainment. You can play the demo on Steam or visit the Gaijin store to give it a try now, and it’s planned for release on Steam and consoles sometime in 2026.
What is Active Matter?
Active Matter is a first-person shooter (FPS) where you can play in a squad of three or solo, delivering player versus player versus environment (PvPvE) and player versus player (PvE) modes.
The first-person view emphasises game immersion and creates a realistic setting, but something weird is also going on. The ambience, with environmental sounds, is terrific, guiding you toward battles you might want to join or avoid and the game keeps you on your toes at all times. Just head out, get back alive, and sell or save your loot to make a profit.
PvPvE involves battling rival teams, solo players trying to get the same loot, and the never relenting monsters corrupted by active matter trying to take you out. The weird and exciting anomalies make the game unique among extraction shooters.
The dedicated PVP modes let teams fight directly without worrying about AI or extraction timers, giving the game excellent variety for everyone.
Defying Gravity
What separates this game from others is that you are not only fighting the terrain, but the weird gravity flips, creepy mutants that seem to jump out at times to scare you, and other reality-breaking anomalies, making it not the typical shooter. Sure, it’s still a shooter and looter, and trying to get out alive, but you can end up walking on walls or flipping upside down on the ceiling, opening up epic battles from land to the walls.
It can be really disorienting at first, but enjoyable once you wrap your mind and eyes around it, adding a whole new layer to battles, looting, and extraction. The game constantly throws weird physics and anomalies at you, which makes it very appealing and could be a strong selling point.
Active Matter Offers A lot of Promise
As with all of the other extraction shooters out there, Active Matter offers the same mechanics where you can buy guns, armor, and gear, but the UI needs a bit of polishing.
The guns are realistic, including ballistics, recoil, and weapon attachments, but they need some refinements. The weapon and reload animations, as well as interactions with objects, need improvement.
Some UI, audio, and AI tweaks are needed to make the game more enjoyable, but the core remains a punishing extraction shooter with anomalies, and losing still means you lose your gear despite the anomalies and weird gravity flips.
The AI is very challenging, intelligent, and can be harder to eliminate than the real players, especially in packs. They hide and can disguise themselves very well, making it hard to spot them until it’s too late while exploring, especially if you are playing solo.
Though it has a few audio and AI behavior issues, Active Matter feels surprisingly grounded right now. The AI behavior can be overwhelming at times, and when there are a lot of monsters in the same area or certain locations, the directional audio can be a little tough to figure out where they are or which direction they are coming from. Unfortunately, sometimes some can be right on top of you before you hear anything, or in some cases, you never hear them at all.
Monetization and Final Thoughts
Although it’s still too early to say, the gravity tricks and anomalies make the game feel different enough to stand out and are shaping up to be one of the more interesting extraction shooters in years. PvP will help break up the grind and game burnout after looting and losing everything in a bad raid. It is currently not positioned as pay-to-win, but with paid bonuses, and that can turn players away. Let’s see how the gaming community reacts.
Standard Edition, Advanced, Premium Edition, and Elite Squad Addition are available for pre-order items, including in-game credit, active matter, raid passes, more storage, recipes, and resources, starting at $29.99. Currently, the Elite Squad Addition comes with two additional Standard Edition keys.
The game is still in the early stages, but if it looks interesting to you, download the demo from Steam or visit the Gaijin store and give it a try.
