Veyra: The First Landing is a new sci-fi strategy game for Windows from our sister studio, CraftingPanda. Anyone who grew up on Age of Empires, Command & Conquer or StarCraft will feel at home within a minute: fog to scout, resources to gather, a base to grow and an enemy that will not leave you alone. But it is not a copy of any of them. Here is how it compares, and who it is for.
A note up front: CraftingPanda is our own sister studio, so read this as an honest introduction rather than an independent verdict.
The premise
Earth is dying and its people have fled in ships. Yours is the first to land on VEYRA, a red planet of mesas, craters and lakes. You start with the ship, a drone station and a depot. Scout the planet, mine it, build a colony, invite the families still waiting in orbit, and keep it all alive while the alien hives out in the fog grow bolder.
What it shares with the classics
- Scouting the fog. As in every classic RTS, the map starts dark. Scout drones fly out to reveal it, and what they find decides where you expand.
- Gather, build, expand. Age of Empires has villagers and Command & Conquer has harvesters. Veyra has collector drones for the first loads and heavy haulers for the bulk, feeding a base that grows outwards.
- Power runs the base. Fans of Command & Conquer will recognise it: build more than your power can carry, and things stop working.
- Defend, then strike. Towers, turrets and anti-air hold the line first. Later, war robots built at a factory take the fight to the enemy.
- Classic controls. Box-select units, double-click to select every unit of a kind, attack-move, and send groups wherever you click.
Where it goes its own way
The colony matters as much as the army. In StarCraft your base exists to make units. In Veyra your colony is the point. Settlers need homes, water and food, and a content colony grows. That puts it halfway between a classic RTS and a city builder, closer in spirit to Age of Empires’ slower economic game than to StarCraft’s race.
Roads are a real decision. Haulers only drive on roads, so every mine you open needs a road out to it, and roads also carry power along them. Where you lay roads shapes your whole colony, something no classic RTS asks of you.
The enemy grows with you. Instead of an opponent building up on the other side of the map, the alien hives react to you. Raids start small and grow as your colony does, aimed at your drones, roads and farms. Expanding fast has a cost.
You set the pace. There is no clicks-per-minute race. You can pause the game or speed time up whenever you like. It plays like a calm, thoughtful game until the aliens arrive, and then it is a fight.
A new planet every game. Every game is a random planet, or you can share a planet seed and play the same one as a friend.
At a glance
| Classic RTS (Age of Empires, Command & Conquer, StarCraft) | Veyra: The First Landing | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Defeat the opponent | Build a colony, then free the planet |
| Economy | Workers or harvesters gather | Drones, mines and haulers on roads you lay |
| Base | Exists to make an army | A colony with settlers, water and food |
| Enemy | An opponent racing to build up | Alien hives whose raids grow with your colony |
| Pace | Fast, rewards quick hands | Your pace: pause and speed up at will |
| Map | Hand-made maps | A random planet every game, or a shared seed |
| Players | Campaigns and online multiplayer | Single player only |
| Price | Paid | Free, with an optional one-time add-on |
What is missing
Being fair: Veyra is single player only. There is no online multiplayer and no story campaign of missions; each game is one long colony on one planet. There is one side to play, not three distinct factions as in StarCraft. If ranked matches against other people are what you love about the genre, this is not that game.
Free, with Veyra Pro for the war
The whole colony and its defence are free, on Easy and Medium, with a guided tutorial for your first landing. Veyra Pro, a one-time add-on, brings the full war: a war factory with troopers, lancers, breakers and howitzers, attack drones, the nuclear power station and Hard difficulty. Only robots can destroy alien buildings, so Pro is how you clear the hives and free the planet. Like every CraftingPanda game it has no ads, needs no account and plays offline.
Veyra: The First Landing
Earth is dying, and the first ship lands on an alien planet. Scout it with drones, mine it, lay roads for heavy haulers, build a colony for the people still in orbit and hold it against the aliens. Free to play on Windows 10 and 11, with an optional one-time add-on, Veyra Pro, for the war. No ads, no account, works offline.
Who it is for
Veyra is for the player who liked building the base more than the rush: someone who enjoyed laying out a town in Age of Empires, or keeping the power up in Command & Conquer, and would rather grow something and defend it than race another player. It is also a gentle first step into strategy games, with a tutorial, easy settings and no pressure to be fast. It runs on Windows 10 and 11 and works on ordinary laptops with integrated graphics.
Veyra: The First Landing is free on the Microsoft Store. The trailer, screenshots and full details are on its page at craftingpanda.com.
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