Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop’s 8th Birthday

It’s that time of the year again. The anniversary of Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop’s Steam release.

As always, Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop is only possible due to contributions from community volunteers in the form of donations, code, translations, and game content.

Also as always, there’s a double experience bonus going on all throughout this week in-game, and if you look hard enough, you might be able to find some cake.

Mapping Competition 2025

This year’s theme is “Residential, Commercial, Industrial”. Tag campaigns, missions, or challenges with RCI2025 on the Steam Workshop to enter. Competition entry deadline is August 1st, 2025.

There are a lot of missions in Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop, both in official campaigns and workshop content, that take place around infrastructure like highways, sewers, train stations, or power plants, or in hidden or remote laboratories and military installations. There aren’t a lot of missions that take place where people lived and worked prior to the Swarm attack.

Let’s change that. This year, your task is to make a short campaign, a mission (standalone, endless, or deathmatch), or a challenge that represents a place that feels “lived in”. If you need help getting started, head on over to the Modding / Mapping Help and Tips forum.