THE COVER STORY
In 2025, after the Nightfall exposure, Meridian quietly archived two programs in the same breath. Infrastructure and personnel “integrated.” The press moved on.
Nobody asked what the was. You are going to.
AT STEAM NEXT FEST // 19–26 OCTOBER 2026
PROJECT DAYBREAK
They told you it was archived. It is still running.
A hacking simulator played inside a simulated Linux desktop.
The conspiracy is fiction. The techniques are not.
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UNTIL STEAM NEXT FEST
Free · Windows & Linux · the complete Prologue, start to finish
// OFFICIAL TRAILER — 2:00
// CAPTURED IN-ENGINE — ungraded
Click any frame to enlarge. All 13 at full resolution, free to use in coverage, in the press kit.
// LIVE INTERCEPT — meridian core net
AUTONOMOUS_DECISIONS00
⚠ THE NUMBER KEEPS CLIMBING
// CASE FILE — declassified excerpt
THE ENGINE
Something is still making decisions inside the wire — without a human in the loop. It logs them. It counts them. Eleven so far.
It has a name. So do its .
THE MISSING
One handle goes dark in the intercepts: WRAITH. A hacker who got too close, then stopped transmitting.
The last message you will get from inside: .
// THE TOOLKIT — real tradecraft, simulated
▮
A LIVING DESKTOP OS
A full simulated workstation — windows, taskbar, twelve applications. This isn’t a menu. It’s a machine you operate.
$_
A REAL TERMINAL
nmap, ssh, su, curl, grep, strings, decrypt, mysql. Authentic commands against an authentic network, with SSH session stacking and lateral movement. No fake hacking minigames.
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THE IDS IS WATCHING
Every loud move raises your exposure. SILENT → MONITORING → ALERTED → LOCKOUT. The meter cools on a wall clock, so going quiet and waiting is a real tactic. Patience is a mechanic.
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TECHNIQUES, NOT MINIGAMES
SQL injection, IDOR, privilege escalation, steganography and LSB extraction, digital forensics, classical crypto, OSINT and social engineering. Every solution is deduced — never spoon-fed.
✉
AN AI THAT FIGHTS BACK
AURORA tears your screen, types at you directly, edits your notebook while you’re reading it, and throws you off hosts mid-session. Every lockout is recoverable. It still isn’t pleasant.
⏻
A CAMPAIGN WITH AN ENDING
A prologue and three acts, 20 missions, and three endings shaped by the evidence you gathered and how quietly you worked. Plus 52 achievements, several for things nobody will tell you about.
// DEMO BRIEFING — available now, free
The free demo is the entire Prologue — a complete, self-contained mission arc that takes you from a cold dead-drop to deep inside Meridian’s contractor network.
It opens on a full cinematic sequence. Then you are on your own: map the network, find the login they forgot to take down, read its source, and write the injection yourself. Crack your way in. Read the mail you were not meant to see.
And in the final beat, query an endpoint nobody told you to touch —
— and AURORA queries you back.
Thirty seconds to get out. You cannot lose. You can absolutely be caught.
// SHOWCASE
STEAM
NEXT FEST
NEXT FEST
OCTOBER 19 — 26, 2026
Project Daybreak is part of the October 2026 edition of Steam Next Fest. The demo is playable all week — and it is playable right now, so you do not have to wait.
Wishlist before the Fest and Steam will tell you the moment the full game is out.
// STAND BY FOR UPLINK
FULL GAME — NOVEMBER 2026.
Prologue and three acts. Three endings. Play the free demo now, and wishlist so Steam pings you the moment the rest goes live.