The galaxy’s hardest-working dogs are back, and their latest assignment involves escorting a cat through hostile alien territory. There are also enormous enemy swarms to deal with, industrial equipment to operate, and an important refinery that needs defending. All in a day’s work for a pack of bio-engineered canines whose employer seems determined to get every last ounce of productivity out of them.
We first met the hardworking hounds of GRAVHOUNDS back in August, when developer Octopus Panic announced its upcoming co-op action roguelike at Gamescom 2026. Now the seven-person studio has returned with a new gameplay trailer unveiled during The MIX Showcase on October 16th, giving us a much better look at what happens when four dogs attempt to run an industrial operation while the local wildlife tries to eat them.
Better still, the footage comes from an actual September playtest involving more than 20,000 players, rather than a carefully choreographed demonstration. Judging by what we’ve seen, these dogs have their paws full.
Fetch! This Time, It’s a Cat
The new trailer takes us into two of the game’s environments, showcasing snowy landscapes and scorching desert terrain where the Gravhounds will be carrying out their increasingly dangerous assignments. There are also two missions getting some attention, and one of them involves a rather unusual co-worker.
In the Coffee Cat escort mission, players must protect Coffee Cat, an ally normally found at their hub, as they travel through dangerous territory. Quite why the dogs have been put in charge of escorting a cat across an alien planet is a question we’d love to ask their supervisor, but keeping their feline companion alive should give the pack something else to worry about beyond their own survival.
The second mission, Refinery, is a more defensive affair. Players must hold a hardpoint against incoming enemies while using their Collector to gather resources.
It’s a good demonstration of the game’s mixture of combat, construction, and teamwork. One player may be busy defending the operation while another is collecting materials, with everybody needing to react when the alien swarm decides it’s had enough of the industrial development taking place in its backyard.
Four Dogs, One Grav Beam, and a Lot of Flying Aliens
For anyone who missed the original announcement, GRAVHOUNDS is a one-to-four-player co-op action-builder that sends a crew of genetically engineered working dogs to hostile planets. Their objective is to establish an operation, gather valuable resources, and escape before the local creatures overwhelm them.
Each Gravhound comes equipped with a Grav Beam, a gravity-manipulating tool that can move equipment, transport supplies, and send enemies flying across the battlefield. You can even fling useful items toward teammates, making it possible to deliver emergency supplies without having to run across the entire map.
Of course, there’s also the temptation to throw something explosive at precisely the wrong moment. Octopus Panic has already warned that transporting volatile materials with the Grav Beam can result in the unexpected loss of a few Gravhounds.
Construction plays an equally important role. Players can deploy turrets, generators, and fabricators while extending pipelines across the terrain to power their expanding operation. Those pipelines aren’t simply there to keep the machinery running, either. Your canine workers can use them to travel at high speed, combining their propulsion rigs with pipeline boosting to reach distant objectives or rescue teammates who’ve wandered into trouble.
The Overtime Pay Had Better Be Good
Every mission in GRAVHOUNDS revolves around deciding how much danger your team is willing to accept. Stay longer, and you’ll have more opportunities to gather valuable resources. The problem is that the alien swarm grows increasingly aggressive as the shift continues.
Players can earn randomized weapons, abilities, and upgrades during their expeditions, stacking bonuses to create more powerful builds. That gives the roguelike progression plenty of room for experimentation, particularly when four players are combining their abilities. But stronger equipment doesn’t guarantee a successful extraction. Push your luck too far, and you could find yourself defending a collapsing operation while desperately trying to collect the last few resources needed to make the trip worthwhile.
The new trailer gives us another look at how quickly these situations can escalate, with combat, movement, and construction all happening during the same frantic encounters. It should be especially entertaining when the team can’t agree whether to grab another haul or get back to the ship.
The Pack Reports for Duty on November 2
GRAVHOUNDS is the debut game from Octopus Panic, an independent studio founded by industry veterans whose previous work includes Halo, Battlefield, and Star Wars. Development is led by Josh Holmes, former Head of Halo Studios and Creative Director on Halo 4.
The game launches into Steam Early Access on PC and Xbox Game Preview on November 2, 2026, with day-one availability through Xbox Game Pass.
You won’t have to wait until then to find out whether your friends can be trusted with gravity-powered industrial equipment, though.
A free GRAVHOUNDS demo is available now on Steam and Xbox, giving players a chance to try the game’s co-op chaos before the full Early Access launch.