The yard is holding. The fog isn't.

Squadron 404 is a top-down 2D space shooter where half the game happens in the workshop. Outside, you keep the mothership alive against incoming waves. Inside, you build a fighter piece by piece — and fly it in a design you have earned.

The violet-grey fog at the edge of the map gets thicker every year, and the things that come out of it are built from recycled ship scrap. Three people on the station have opinions about that: a ship AI who lost her homeworld, a commander with a criminal record, and an old instructor who keeps one picture face-down in a drawer. None of them tell you everything right away.

Waves that don't stop

The mothership has 200,000 hull points and a rotating shield wall with three gaps — you repair both with scrap while the next wave forms up outside. Through wave 100 the attackers get more numerous, tougher and harder-hitting, with a boss every fifth wave. 12 enemy types, 5 named bosses (Warlord, Steel Serpent, Artillery Titan, Plasma Hydra, Shell Fortress), plus the Destroyer Core and the fortress core in the arena. Flight is inertia-based with a dash — accelerating and braking are decisions, not formalities.

A ship that's actually yours

22 modules (drones, black hole, chain lightning, vampire beam, teleporter, minelayer …) and 26 modifiers across 4 rarity tiers, spread over turret, rocket, module, thruster and shield slots. Turret, rocket and module each mount left, center or right on the hull — and that visibly changes where the muzzles sit and what the ship looks like.

Your ship is more than a list of numbers: eight complete ship designs across four different silhouettes replace the whole hull, not just its colour. None of them costs scrap — each one hangs off an achievement, i.e. off something you actually flew.

Progression with a long tail

200 levels, 8 skills up to rank 20 (30 once you've ascended). The ancient workbench fuses 10 identical modules into one +1 — free, but it makes you a collector. Ascension, at the end of the Ancient Labyrinth, is the prestige step: a bulkier hull, a second module slot, wider mount points, higher skill caps — and you can switch it back off any time if you prefer the old silhouette.

Six places, six ways to play

• Start Zone in two tiers (Aurora Outpost, Nebula Yard) — the quiet way in.
  
• Stargate: procedural corridors, level 1 through 100, each level costs scrap.
  
• Asteroid Belt: destructible rocks that split, drift and leave slowing dust clouds — including giant boulders and composite ore.
  
• Ancient Labyrinth: traps, gates, orbs. Entry needs an Ancient Key (1% drop). The workbench and the ascension chamber wait at the end.
  
• Fog Convoy: escort a 12,000-hull carrier through the nebula, pick your route across node choices, earn Aeon Dust and spend it in its own upgrade tree.
  
• Boss Arena: 14 wall segments, doors, purge phases, one core.

Economy and gambling

Scrap is the main currency, Aeon Dust the second. The workshop shop stocks 12 fixed items; the modifier and module boxes carry a visible pity counter so bad luck ends. On the marketplace you list modules and modifiers for scrap and buy from other pilots in your session (10% listing fee). Anything you don't need sells back at 40%.

Co-op for up to four pilots

Host through Steam, invite friends via the Steam overlay, or find a session in the server browser with ping and player count. Waves scale with the group — the start zone, the delve and the main waves all add more per extra pilot. Trading happens between real players.

And the four on board

Deaneria, Androkai, Strudel, and a signal that hasn't introduced itself yet: 9 quests, three of them main-line, three repeatable. The portraits change mood depending on how the mothership is doing, how recently you repaired it, and how far you are in the main story. The music changes with the place: arena, boss, serpent, labyrinth, fog.

Language note: the game is currently in German only. This English page describes the German version.