Ferrite Runner is a mouse-only cyberpunk extraction RPG set in Ward Nine, a flooded district sealed by Helion Consolidated. Eleven years after the hatches were welded shut, something inside is still drawing power. You are the unlicensed courier sent to find out why.

Wren monitors your vitals over the radio. Juno keeps the underground outposts supplied and the kettle on. Director Silas Krove considers you a trespasser on company property.

Combat runs on energy

Attacking, defending and fleeing draw from energy that regenerates in real time. Spending it all on damage can leave you unable to escape. Shields are strongest when activated and weaken as they run down, so timing a defence matters.

Choose targets, control distance, and use guns, melee weapons, reusable skills or grenades. Optional auto-combat uses enabled skills and attacks while you manage the fight.

A heavier haul needs more water

Every sealed crate increases thirst and slows energy recovery. It also occupies a slot that could hold another bottle, so a larger haul leaves less room for the water needed to bring it home.

As water runs low, your energy regenerates more slowly, leaving less available for attacks, shields and escape. Run dry and dehydration drains your health. Hydro-Medic lets you spend water to heal, trading part of that reserve for an immediate recovery.

Vending machines let you drink on the spot or buy bottles to carry. Water costs more farther along the route and after each water purchase in the same run, so resupplying takes a share of your earnings.

Build for what you intend to carry

Pair your weapon with a core built for a larger energy reserve or faster regeneration. Armour can add water storage and inventory space, supporting longer trips or heavier loads. Permanent buffs can reduce thirst and improve energy recovery while hydrated. Grenades can deal heavy splash damage for crowd control.

Break through the corporate locks

An alarm announces the Gatekeeper, a construction mech enforcing Helion's lockdown. It is the first boss blocking your route through five industrial strata, from the neon shallows to the rust belt and the unsettling null wards.

Extraction takes preparation

Call a lift and defend the landing while it arrives, or enter an outpost and pay its fee. Extraction banks your remaining credits, preserves your surviving equipment and sends sealed crates to your stash.

Upgrade lifts to shorten the wait and reduce the fare. At the highest timing upgrade, the lift is waiting when you arrive.

Decide what the seal is worth

Marlow's business is sealed freight. Take his standing offer, or trade on the crate market, where the available buy and sell offers change over time. A good haul gives you choices about where to sell and what to buy next.

Open a crate to reveal equipment and supplies. You give up its value as sealed cargo for a chance to improve your loadout. Keeping the seal preserves your option to sell.

Put your earnings to work

Trade corporate shares, including Helion's, on the hub's in-game stock exchange. Your trades affect prices, and companies can raise, cut or suspend their dividends.

Paid shifts maintaining pumps, checking Helion's correspondence and calibrating clocks offer another way to fund your next run.

Expand the outpost network

Construct discovered outposts to unlock departure points farther along the route and improve Juno's stock. Lower entry fees through upgrades, improve your equipment, and invest XP in permanent offence, defence and survival buffs.

Death forfeits your carried gear, cargo and credits. Your bank, stash and permanent upgrades remain, and failed runs still award XP for the distance travelled.