Questions and answers
Short answers to what people ask first about Shellfall: what kind of game it is, how gentle it is, how long it lasts and what comes later.
Shellfall is in development, so these answers describe the game as it is designed today. Where something has not been decided yet, the answer says so.
The game
What kind of game is it?
A cozy artillery game. You command one railway gun, Old Marta, far behind the lines, and you see the war only through recon on a watercolour map table. Its closest relatives are map-driven strategy games and games where you hunt by information, like submarine sims. See What is Shellfall.
Do I command soldiers?
No. You have one gun and nothing else: no squads to order about, no base to build, no research tree. The soldiers on your side hold, dig and charge on their own. You help them with your shells, and with where you park the gun. See Old Marta and The living battlefield.
Is it violent?
It is a war, told gently. Soldiers are tiny figures seen from far above, never close-up characters. When a figure is hit, it tumbles over and fades into a puff of grey smoke, like a toy soldier. There is no blood, and no bodies are left behind. Wounded figures limp back to a field tent. Shells that harm nobody are real tools, and letters reward restraint as much as accuracy. See Shells and Letters.
How long is it?
The campaign is planned at 10 to 15 hours, told in four seasons of one continuous war. After it, Valley Mode keeps the valley's war running for as long as you like, or starts a new valley from a seed you can share. It has no story pressure: just the gun and the front. See The campaign: four seasons.
How do I choose what to play?
On the map, by rail. There is no menu of missions to pick from. The Lowmarch is one continuous war. Story operations and officer requests are pins on the map with their distance by rail, and you take one on by driving Old Marta within range. Several can be open at once, and the war carries on while you are elsewhere. See One continuous war and Operations and requests.
Playing it
Can I play without the maths?
Yes. The gunner's notebook pins targets, corrections and firing-table rows with one click, and the difficulty decides how much it fills in, from "suggests the full solution" to "blank page". The Gunner's assist option fills in the whole firing solution for you. You can also pause anywhere and play at half speed. See Accessibility.
Can I use a gamepad?
Yes. Every mouse and keyboard action has a gamepad button. See Controls.
Is there multiplayer?
Not at launch. The plan is a shared war after the single-player game ships: one persistent war that every player fights in. Your gun, your recon and the sectors in your reach stay yours. What you achieve there adds pressure to the front for your side, and everyone sees where the front has moved. You never fight another player directly; the enemy soldiers in your reach are always run by the game. See The shared war.
Release
Which platforms?
PC, on Steam. Steam Deck Verified is a goal. Consoles and VR are not planned for version 1.0.
When is it out, and what will it cost?
Neither has been announced. The Roadmap shows what is being built now, and Dispatches report each step along the way.