Tempest Rising’s Three-Faction War Ends With Veti’s Wrath

More than a year after Tempest Rising brought classic RTS gameplay back with a modern presentation, Slipgate Ironworks’ post-nuclear battlefield has just taken another major step forward. The Veti’s Wrath officially launched on September 29, 2026, bringing the Veti out of the shadows and placing them at the center of a full campaign. It also serves as the final chapter of the current Tempest Rising story, while completing the three-faction structure that players had been waiting for since before the base game launched.

A Year Later, the Veti Finally Step Onto the Front Lines

Tempest Rising launched on April 24, 2025, and quickly found its place among modern RTS games with a very clear approach: take the familiar base-building, resource-gathering, and army management formula of strategy games from the 1990s and 2000s, then modernize it with faster combat, updated visuals, and factions built around their own distinct mechanics. The game takes place in an alternate timeline following nuclear war, where the GDF and Tempest Dynasty fight for control of Tempest, a mysterious resource spreading across Earth.

That approach was received positively. Tempest Rising currently holds a Very Positive rating on Steam, with 88% of its English-language reviews being positive, earned a Metacritic score of 80, won Best Gameplay at the Pixel Awards 2025, and was later nominated for Best Sim/Strategy at The Game Awards 2025. Those milestones gave Slipgate Ironworks a strong foundation to expand on something players had been waiting a long time to see fully realized: the Veti.

With The Veti’s Wrath, players can finally experience the conflict from the perspective of the alien civilization that remained behind many of the mysteries in the GDF and Dynasty campaigns. Following the Tempest Wars, the Veti have been scattered, their technology has fallen into other hands, and their own people are facing a growing corruption from within. The new 11-mission voiced campaign focuses on regrouping their forces, reclaiming lost technology, and restoring the Veti to the position they believe rightfully belongs to them.

What makes this faction different goes far beyond a new unit roster. The Veti are built around the Subjugation and Sacrifice mechanics: defeated enemy infantry can be turned into Enlightened, which can then be used in battle or sacrificed to strengthen units and structures. The Ascension Anchor also plays an important role in base development, linking with other structures and empowering them as more Enlightened are sacrificed. As a result, the Veti bring a noticeably different approach to economy and progression compared with the game’s two human factions.

The full Veti roster includes:

• 9 structures and 5 defensive structures
• 7 vehicles, 6 infantry units, 5 air units, and 5 specialists
• 5 support powers and 1 superweapon

The Veti’s Wrath is a paid DLC built around the new 11-mission campaign, but the Veti faction itself is not completely locked behind the expansion. Everyone who owns the base version of Tempest Rising can use the Veti for free in Multiplayer, Custom Games, and Skirmish. Players who want to continue the story can purchase the campaign, while the multiplayer community still gets access to the third faction without being split apart.

The update released alongside the expansion also brings a range of quality-of-life improvements, balance changes for the GDF and Dynasty, Map Editor updates, a multiplayer ladder reset, and improvements to features such as the Codex, minimap, and unit ally-response behavior. Even so, the biggest change is that Tempest Rising now operates with three fully realized factions, each with its own approach to army development and battlefield control.

Players can check the official Tempest Rising Steam announcement for the full details on The Veti’s Wrath, its unit roster, and every change included in the latest update. If you are looking to enter this war from the beginning or add the new expansion to your game, visit our price comparison platform to find Tempest Rising and DLC The Veti’s Wrath  at the best available price.