Stylish sci-fi Left 4 Dead-alike The Anacrusis is free to play this weekend

Remember The Anacrusis (opens in new tab)? The groovy sci-fi Left 4 Dead-style co-op shooter didn’t exactly knock our socks off when we last checked it out in early 2022, but now it’s early 2023, and if you’re curious how things have come along since then, the free weekend that’s now underway on Steam (opens in new tab) makes this a very good time to find out.

As you might expect, a lot has changed over the past year. Over the course of 26 updates since the early access release, The Anacrusis has been given new enemies, a new Holdout gameplay mode, a modular weapon system, new special weapons, a free battle pass, and a range of smaller changes: Steam achievements, hit reactions, performance improvements, and all that sort of thing.

The Anacrusis also now offers Steam Workshop (opens in new tab) support, meaning modders can easily make and share new campaigns, maps, skins, and other creations. The mod tools are still in beta testing, but if you’re interested in giving them a shot you can request access in the Stray Bombay Discord server. The studio said it plans to release the mod tools to everyone, and implement cross-platform mod support for the Xbox version of the game, later this year.

And if you just want to squeeze in some stylish space-shooting for free this weekend, that works too. The Anacrusis free weekend is live now and runs until January 8, and it’s also on sale for 67% off—that’s $10/£8/€8—until January 19.