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A shooter built inside a lab

AE//LAB is a cross-platform multiplayer arena shooter. The whole game is also a testbed for machine intelligence, and you play inside it.

Overview

Fast matches, real stakes

Drop into a facility arena, pick up weapons, and fight to the objective. Matches are short and readable. Cover, sightlines and spawns are authored, not generated.

  • Team objectives including capture the flag
  • Weapons picked up from forges around the map
  • Custom networking for live multiplayer, not Godot's default
  • Bots and players share one match and one pool
An overlook across the Data Core Alpha hub, with catwalks and a reactor column
DATA CORE ALPHA/Hub — environment render
Reinforcement learning

Opponents that learn to play

AE//LAB's bots are trained, not hand-scripted. A Python reinforcement-learning stack produces ONNX policies that run inside the game engine.

  • Policies observe the match and act, frame by frame
  • Trained by playing, so behaviour comes from learning rather than rules
  • Run in-engine as ONNX, so a bot can fill any seat in a match
  • The training stack, the runtime and the engine are all first-party
A glass reactor core surrounded by catwalks in Data Core Alpha
DATA CORE ALPHA/Reactor chamber — environment render
How you play

The systems behind a match

Aim & fire

Projectile and hit-scan weapons with real damage and range. Aim reads a world-space marker, and hits are confirmed at the source.

Objectives

Capture the flag and arena objectives decide the match. The score is the objective's tally.

Weapon forges

Six forges per map hand out the arsenal, so position matters: holding the forges shapes the fight.

Respawn

Fall in the fight and respawn back into it, so matches keep moving.

Any input

Keyboard and mouse, gamepad, or on-screen touch with a virtual joystick, from one build.

Replays

Matches record to a compact .aerx format and play back frame-for-frame, so the same input gives the same result.

The arena

Data Core Alpha

The first finished map: a research facility of reactor halls, mezzanines and spans. Three more arenas are in development.

A symmetric reactor hall in Data Core Alpha with glowing ceiling rings
FACILITY/Environment render
8Spawn points
6Weapon forges
2Flags · CTF
8Weapons
Arsenal

Eight weapons, distinct handling

Each has its own range, cadence and role. Pick them up around the arena.

Bolt rifle

Reliable mid-range workhorse

Marksman rifle

Long-range precision

Pistol

Fast, dependable sidearm

Mortar

Arcing area denial

Lance

Committed forward strike

Blade

Close-quarters finisher

Spike

Direct piercing shot

Bouncer

Ricochet off geometry

Play it yourself

It's a real, signed release, free for Windows, Linux and Android.

Download the game See the arena