Vaultbreakers gets Square Enix Collective publishing deal

Vaultbreakers, the extraction action RPG from BetaDwarf, will be published by Square Enix Collective, with a free Steam demo now available for players to try. The game combines top-down combat with PvE and PvPvE expeditions, while its full release date remains to be announced.¹²

Square Enix returns to indie publishing

The deal marks the return of Square Enix Collective as a publishing label. The division says it will support independent developers while allowing studios to retain creative control, and is inviting proposals from teams working across different genres.¹

For BetaDwarf, the partnership brings a publisher behind a game built around high-risk expeditions. Players can fight alone or with friends, recover relics and decide when to escape before a run’s progress is lost.¹²

A demo is available on Steam

The Steam version supports both PvE and PvPvE, with shared progression between the safer player-versus-environment mode and the higher-risk mode that adds rival players. The game is designed around changing environments, bosses and the push-your-luck decision of whether to keep exploring or extract.¹²

The Steam store currently lists an upcoming test window from October 15 to October 22 and does not give a full release date. The demo and playtest should therefore be treated as previews of Vaultbreakers, not as confirmation that the finished game has launched.²

AI use is disclosed

The Steam page also discloses the use of AI during development for prototyping simple assets, assisting game design, and generating and reviewing code. That disclosure is separate from the game’s publishing announcement, but it is useful context for anyone deciding whether to try the demo.¹²

Our opinion

The Square Enix Collective deal makes sense for a game that needs a healthy player population to support both PvE and PvPvE. A free demo gives BetaDwarf a chance to test the extraction loop in public, while the publisher can help turn that early interest into a stable launch rather than rushing the game out around a fixed date.

The important caveat is that Vaultbreakers is still a work in progress. The demo can show whether the combat and risk-reward loop have legs, but it cannot answer whether the long-term progression and player population will hold up after launch. For now, this looks like a promising test run rather than a finished product.