T-Minus Zero Entertainment has surprised everyone, shadow-dropping their eight-player co-op horror-comedy game DREGS into Early Access on Steam. Priced at $9.99, DREGS features a limited-time 15% launch discount until July 24.

Described as friendslop (in a nice way), DREGS lets players take on the role of expendable clones sent aboard abandoned deep-space facilities to recover salvage on behalf of a mysterious, unreasonably generous client. The relics in question are less “ancient artifact” and more random remnants of a civilization long-gone, like rubber ducks, plush toys, or scented candles, but nobody on the crew is paid enough to ask why they matter.

Each salvaging expedition combines tense exploration, unpredictable environmental hazards, cooperative puzzle-solving, and encounters with unspeakable horrors through the chaos of a eight-person crew of clones whose greed and judgment rarely point the same direction.

Exploring derelict space stations in pursuit of long-abandoned relics is dangerous work, with death lurking around every corner. Not to worry, as every expendable clone lost to a bad decision, an environmental hazard, or a teammate’s “accidental” betrayal is simply replaced by another, letting each mission’s disasters escalate a little further than the last.

DREGS is the first release from the newly independent T-Minus Zero Entertainment. Originally founded in August 2023 as a AAA studio under NetEase Games, the studio was closed two years later, only for four members of its leadership team to immediately reboot T-Minus Zero as an independent, project-based production company, with DREGS as a result.

“Nine months ago, T-Minus Zero was forced to shut down by our parent company. But we weren’t done,” said Zachary (Zac) Beaudoin, CEO of T-Minus Zero Entertainment. “We rebooted the studio and immediately started work on a new co-op game. Now we are delighted to share DREGS with the world.”