Defense Grid: The Awakening
Sci-fi tower defense where tower placement shapes enemy routes
Hidden Path Entertainment · Released Dec 8, 2008
- Reviews
- Overwhelmingly Positive
- 96% of 5,375
- Recent reviews
- Not enough recent
- Playing now
- 32
- peak 24h 42
- Steam Deck
- Playable
- Last update
- Unknown
- no patch notes found
Free demo available, 1 playing it now: get the demo.
Metacritic: 81/100 (critic reviews)
What is Defense Grid: The Awakening?
A sci-fi tower defense game in which you place and upgrade towers to stop invading aliens from reaching your base. Levels have different road layouts and tower locations, while challenge modes change the starting conditions and goals.
For you if...
- +you enjoy planning tower layouts that change enemy routes
- +you like replaying levels to improve your defenses
- +you want single-player strategy with varied challenge conditions
Not for you if...
- −you prefer straightforward tower placement without rerouting enemies
- −you want a forgiving difficulty curve and plentiful resources
What players say
96% of 5,375 reviews are positive
Players praise the strategic tower placement and replayable levels. Some find the difficulty steep or the viable strategies too restrictive; others complain about slow waves, fiddly controls, or the announcer.
Screenshots and trailer
Defense Grid: The Awakening system requirements
As published by the developer.
Minimum
- Processor
- 1.8GHz CPU or higher
- Graphics
- Video: DirectX 9 video card with shader 2 support such as the following: ATI Radeon 9600 or newer (9600-9800, X300-X1950, HD 2400-HD 4870) NVIDIA GeForce 6100 or newer (6100-6800, 7100-7950, 8300-8800, 9600-9800, or GTX 216-280)
- Memory
- 512 MB RAM
- Storage
- 1GB available space
- DirectX
- DirectX 9.0c or higher, June 2008 version or later
Recommended
- Processor
- dual core 2.0GHz CPU or higher
- Graphics
- DirectX 9 video card with shader 3 support and 256MB VRAM such as the following: ATI Radeon X700 or newer (X700-X1950, HD 2400-HD 4870) NVIDIA GeForce 7600 or newer (7600-7950, 8300-8800, 9600-9800, or GTX 216-280)
- Memory
- 1GB RAM XP, 1.5GB RAM Vista
- Storage
- 1GB available space
- DirectX
- DirectX 9.0c or higher, June 2008 version or later
PC version details
DRM, required accounts, controller support and Steam features.
- DRM
- None declared on Steam
- Controller
- Full controller support
- Platforms
- Windows
- Achievements
- 87
- Steam features
- Family Sharing, Trading cards
Steam Deck: Playable
- Sometimes shows mouse, keyboard or non-Deck controller icons
- All functionality is accessible with the default controller configuration
- In-game text is legible on Steam Deck
- Default graphics settings perform well on Steam Deck
- External controllers are not supported for the primary player
Multiplayer and co-op
Languages
Text only: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain.
Tags
- Tower Defense
- Strategy
- Sci-fi
- Singleplayer
- Indie
- Aliens
- Futuristic
- Addictive
- Touch-Friendly
- Replay Value
- Adventure
- Action
- Controller
- RTS
6 DLC available.
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