The extraction shooter genre has become synonymous with unforgiving PvP chaos, punishing inventory management, and the ever-present threat of losing everything to a player hiding in a bush. Active Matter, developed by Matter Team and published by Gaijin Network, takes that formula and does something genuinely unexpected with it: it makes the PvE experience the star of the show. Set in a fractured multiverse where quantum anomalies rip through Soviet-era landscapes, this $29.99 Early Access title delivers one of the most atmospheric shooters I have played in years, even as it stumbles over rough edges that are hard to ignore.
What Is Active Matter?
Active Matter is a first-person extraction shooter built on a custom engine — not Unreal, not Unity — with both PvP and PvE modes. You deploy into zones corrupted by “active matter,” a substance that warps time and space, turning familiar Eastern European architecture into impossible geometries. The core loop involves gearing up, venturing into these anomalous zones, completing objectives, scavenging loot, and extracting before the corruption consumes you. Squads of up to three players can tackle PvE zones cooperatively, or flip the switch and enter PvPvE lobbies where other players become the most dangerous threat of all.
A World That Breathes Dread
The setting is where Active Matter immediately separates itself from the pack. This is not another generic military sandbox with a sci-fi coat of paint. The zones are drenched in a post-Soviet atmosphere that feels lived-in and deeply unsettling. Rusted vehicles sit abandoned on cracked highways. Overgrown vegetation creeps through concrete ruins, its red tendrils suggesting something organic and hostile has taken root. Apartment blocks tilt at impossible angles, their foundations ripped from reality by forces that physics cannot explain. The environmental storytelling is superb — every zone tells a story of catastrophe without a single line of dialogue.
The audio design amplifies this atmosphere tenfold. Silence in underground parking garages is worse than any scream. The crunch of footsteps on broken glass, the distant groan of twisted metal, the low hum of active matter zones — every sound is placed with purpose. I found myself turning up my volume and then immediately regretting it when something lurched out of the darkness. For a game at this price point, the audio work punches well above its weight.
PvE: The Unexpected Star
Here is where Active Matter makes its boldest move. While most extraction shooters treat PvE as a sideshow to the real PvP action, Matter Team has built a PvE mode that is fully fleshed out and genuinely compelling. You can disable PvP entirely and tackle zones solo or with up to two friends, and the experience loses almost nothing. The AI enemies are aggressive and unpredictable — sometimes frustratingly so, as they rush you from unexpected angles — but the tension they create is real. Fights feel earned, not scripted.
The extraction loop works beautifully in PvE. You venture in with a loadout you have carefully assembled, knowing that death means losing everything you carried in. The risk-reward calculus is satisfying in a way that many PvP extraction shooters achieve only intermittently, because here the threat comes from the environment and its denizens rather than from a camper with a sniper rifle. There is a purity to the PvE loop that makes each successful extraction feel like a genuine accomplishment.
PvP: Functional but Secondary
PvP is available and functional, but it feels like the mode the developers implemented because the genre demands it rather than because it is where the game shines. Encounters with other players are tense, and the gunplay — while unconventional — has a weighty, deliberate feel once you adjust to it. But the player base leans heavily toward PvE, which means PvP lobbies can feel sparse, and the balance between player combat and environmental threats is still being tuned.
The real friction point in PvP is the gun handling, which has divided the community. Weapons feel heavy and somewhat imprecise compared to more arcade-leaning shooters. Recoil patterns are pronounced, and the camera can feel disorienting during rapid movement. Some players love this grounded approach; others find it frustrating. I fall somewhere in the middle — it adds to the survival-horror atmosphere, but I understand why it pushes some players away.
Gear, Progression, and the Economy
Active Matter’s progression system is tied directly to your stash. Everything you extract with becomes part of your inventory, and everything you lose in a failed run is gone. The game provides a reasonable starting kit, and the economy — while it has been nerfed since the initial Steam launch — still rewards careful play. You do not need to grind endlessly to afford a decent loadout, but you also cannot afford to be reckless with your best gear.
The weapon modification system is deep enough to matter without becoming overwhelming. Attachments affect handling, accuracy, and recoil in meaningful ways, and finding the right combination for your playstyle is one of the game’s quieter pleasures. The inventory management, however, is clunky. Grid-based inventory systems have their fans, but Active Matter’s implementation feels needlessly fiddly, with awkward drag-and-drop mechanics and a UI that does not always communicate item stats clearly.
Visuals and Performance
For a custom engine, Active Matter looks remarkably good. The lighting is atmospheric and moody, the environments are detailed, and the anomaly effects — floating debris, warped geometry, shimmering air — are visually striking. More impressively, the game runs well even on mid-tier hardware. This is not an Unreal Engine 5 showcase that demands a top-end GPU; Matter Team has optimized their custom renderer to deliver solid performance without sacrificing visual fidelity.
That said, there are rough edges. Muzzle flash is blinding on weapons without suppressors, to the point where the developers have acknowledged the issue and attempted fixes — with mixed results. The AUG in particular is nearly unusable without a suppressor because the flash obscures your entire sight picture. Character animations can feel stiff, and some environmental textures lack the detail of the overall scene they inhabit.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Exceptional atmosphere and environmental storytelling that rivals dedicated horror games
- PvE mode that is genuinely complete and rewarding, not an afterthought
- Outstanding audio design that amplifies tension at every turn
- Strong performance on custom engine without requiring high-end hardware
- Meaningful risk-reward extraction loop that respects player time
- Co-op for up to three players with seamless drop-in functionality
Cons
- Gun handling is divisive — heavy, imprecise, and occasionally frustrating
- Muzzle flash on unsuppressed weapons is blinding and still not fully fixed
- Inventory management is clunky with poor UI feedback
- AI enemy behavior can feel random and unfair in close quarters
- PvP population is thin, making player encounters inconsistent
- Content depth is limited for a full-price Early Access title
SteamGamer Verdict
Active Matter is a rare thing in the extraction shooter space: a game that carves out its own identity rather than copying the Tarkov template wholesale. The decision to make PvE the primary experience was a gamble that pays off, delivering a cooperative survival-horror shooter that stands apart from its PvP-focused competitors. The atmosphere is intoxicating, the audio design is best-in-class for the genre, and the core extraction loop is satisfyingly tense.
The rough edges are real, though. Gun handling will frustrate players who prefer responsive, arcade-leaning shooters, the UI needs significant polish, and the muzzle flash issue is an ongoing annoyance that should have been resolved before the 1.0 launch. At $29.99 USD, Active Matter offers good value for players who gravitate toward PvE extraction and atmospheric shooters, but it is not yet the complete package it could become with continued updates.
If you have ever wished that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Escape from Tarkov would have a baby that actually cared about the solo and co-op experience, Active Matter is as close as you will get. It is rough, it is occasionally infuriating, and it is absolutely worth your time.
Score: 7.5 / 10
Lena Nakamura begins every review with one question: what is this game doing that nobody else would attempt? She covers roguelikes, narrative experiments, striking art direction, and games willing to risk failure in pursuit of something original. Familiar ideas do not bother her, but safe execution does. If a game is beautiful, strange, and slightly impossible to explain, Lena is already interested.
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