What is Vaultbreakers?
Vaultbreakers is a free-to-play fantasy co-op ARPG by BetaDwarf, published by Square Enix. You raid vaults for loot with up to two friends, and on the PvPvE difficulty a bad run costs you your gear.
Vaultbreakers is a free-to-play fantasy co-op ARPG from BetaDwarf, published by Square Enix. You pick one of the Vaultbreakers, drop into a hostile region with up to two friends, take on quests and raid the Vaults buried in the world - then try to leave with everything you found. The full release date is still to be announced, but the demo is live now, so this page sticks to what is confirmed in the build you can play.
What you actually do on a run
A session in Vaultbreakers follows a loop that the whole game is built around:
- Prepare in the Haven. Between runs you live in a shared hub with NPCs, crafting benches and the Command Table you use to unlock upgrades. Players join Haven hubs of up to ten people, so it doubles as a social lobby.
- Pick a region and a difficulty. Missions take place across regions like Wolfswood and the Refinery, and every mission starts with an Adventure, Core or Breaker difficulty choice.
- Run quests and raid Vaults. Vaults are the set-piece dungeons - the demo ends on your first Vaultbreak, and later tests add Vaults three and four.
- Extract with your loot. Loot leaves the region with you: gear, materials, keys and recipes. Extraction portals are shown on the map through unexplored areas.
An ARPG with extraction stakes
If you know extraction games, the risk loop will feel familiar: you bring gear in, you try to bring more out, and a bad run costs you. On the Breaker difficulty - the PvPvE mode - dying means you lose everything you were carrying, with only a few bonuses surviving the trip. On Adventure and Core, the same loop runs without other players in the equation, at lower stakes and slower progression.
Who makes it
BetaDwarf is the Copenhagen studio behind the Vaultbreakers project, and the game was known as Project F4E before the January 2025 reveal. The timeline matters because the community has been playing public tests since before the name existed:
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| January 30, 2025 | Project F4E is revealed and renamed Vaultbreakers |
| January - February 2025 | First playtest draws over 35,000 players |
| July 2025 | First gameplay trailer; Square Enix investment announced |
| July 2026 | PvE playtest with the Adventure and Core difficulty split |
| October 8, 2026 | Free demo launches with the Square Enix Collective publishing deal |
| October 15-21, 2026 | PvPvE Alpha Test |
Still to be announced
The release date, the price structure beyond free-to-play, and everything past Vault 4 are unannounced. When BetaDwarf publishes details they land in the patch notes timeline, and this page gets updated with them. For a quick status check instead, see the release date page.
