Active Matter on Steam

The short answer

Active Matter is on Steam, released 15 September 2026 at $29.99 for the standard edition. The developer credited on the listing is Matter Team and the publisher is Gaijin Network Ltd. Steam and the Gaijin Store are two storefronts for the same PC game, not two games, and the developer's own progress answer is written specifically about the relationship between them.

What Steam sells

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Prices read 17 September 2026. Steam prices vary by country, and the two bundle prices are bundle constructions rather than the flat edition prices the console stores print.

What the standard pack grants

A credit grant, a one-time Prime grant, and starting sets of five weapons, one weapon modification, ten equipment items and six ammunition types. Credits are earned in raids and spent on weapons, ammunition and equipment; Prime is earned from daily contracts, does not reset after a Harmonization, and can be spent on Credits, Monolith access levels, additional secure containers and respawn beacons. Prime supplied with an edition is granted once, and a death in a raid costs every weapon and item that was not in a safe container or marked personal. The price page compares the packs across all four storefronts and the pay-to-win page works through what the packs do and do not change.

What Steam adds, and what installing it commits you to

• Features. The listing records MMO, online PvP, online co-op, Steam Achievements and Family Sharing, with 38 achievements.
• Interactive elements. In-game chat and online interactivity are declared on the listing.
• Anti-cheat. The listing states that the game uses kernel-level anti-cheat, names BattlEye, and adds that it requires manual removal after the game is uninstalled. In plain terms: the anti-cheat runs with system-level privileges while the game is installed, and uninstalling the game through Steam does not by itself remove it.
• Third-party agreement. Installing requires agreeing to a separate end-user licence agreement belonging to the game rather than to Steam.
• AI content disclosure. The developer discloses on the listing that the in-game character Ms. Second uses an AI-generated voice, with their stated reason being that using human voices for an AI character would be cultural appropriation. It is a disclosure the developer makes on the store page and it is repeated here rather than paraphrased away.

Windows and Linux

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Two things are unusual and both are stated by the developer rather than inferred: the game ships a native Linux target rather than relying on a compatibility layer alone, and the SSD is written as a requirement at both tiers, not as a recommendation. The system requirements page works through what that means for a specific machine.

Steam Deck

The Steam Deck compatibility badge read "Unknown" at the time of this check, while the developer's own FAQ states that the game supports Steam Deck and native Linux. Both are published, because they are different kinds of statement: one is a commitment from the developer, and the other is a badge that only Valve can change and that had not been filled in. Until Valve's badge moves, a reader should treat Deck performance as unverified by Valve rather than as unsupported.

Languages

Interface and subtitles are supported in English, German, Russian, Simplified Chinese, French, Spanish (Spain) and Portuguese (Portugal). Full audio is supported in English, German, Russian and Simplified Chinese only. A French, Spanish or Portuguese player therefore reads the game in their language and hears it in another.

Accounts and progress

This is the part the store pages do not spell out, so this page states exactly what is documented and nothing more. Two different questions get filed together here and they have different answers: which players you are matched with — crossplay — and whether your progress follows you between platforms — cross-progression. Crossplay is the same on every platform and is set out on the crossplay page; cross-progression is the one the store pages disagree about. The developer's official progress answer is written about the Steam and Gaijin.Net versions: shared progress is available only between them. The purchase module on the game's own site says progress is shared across all platforms, which contradicts it, and both statements are published here and on the crossplay page, where the comparison lives. What no page checked for this batch describes is whether a player is asked to link an account at first launch; the Gaijin Store requires a login to purchase, and Steam requires agreement to the game's own licence, but neither is a description of an in-game linking step. This page therefore does not describe one.

The free Steam copy for early buyers

The developer's launch announcement states that a buyer of the early version on the Gaijin Store can get the Steam edition at no extra cost until 23 November 2026. That is the wording, with its end date. What happens after that date is not described on any page checked here, and this page does not speculate about it; a reader who bought the early version should treat 23 November as the deadline that is documented.

What the launch-week updates changed

Two builds landed around the release. The 14 September build reduced the cost of fusion, of replication restoration for rare items, and of repairing helmets and armour plates. The 17 September build covered performance, animations, bug fixes, and interface and sound work. Both are the developer's own summaries. The store also commits to a detailed post-release roadmap within a couple of weeks of release, and at the time of this check that document had not appeared.

Small print that matters to a buyer

The developer's own website is linked from the listing, and the official FAQ on it is the source of most of the long-lived rules quoted across this site — the crossplay pools, the progress restriction, the Deck and Linux support, and the language list. Where this page and that FAQ ever disagree, the FAQ is the first-party source and this page is the summary of it, with the check date under the heading as the marker of when the summary was last compared against it.