A⁷ : Gateway Guardians
Team up as elite Protean freelancers - Pros: guarding Aten7’s bustling orbital Terminal. Rescue crowds of panicked civilians, strategically repel mysterious creatures, and uncover the secret behind the chaos
ActionStrategyRPGAdventure
N/A
VGDB Score
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Overview
Summary
Team up as elite Protean freelancers - Pros: guarding Aten7’s bustling orbital Terminal. Rescue crowds of panicked civilians, strategically repel mysterious creatures, and uncover the secret behind the chaos
Description
About This Game
Gateway Guardians is a 1–5 player tactical co-op action RPG where your mission isn’t just killing enemies — it’s saving people. Your goal is to protect crowds of civilians, evacuate them, and coordinate as a team against escalating threats.
One of our In-game characters, our character artists are from Diablo 4, Infinity Wars and others ❤
Key Gameplay Features:
Rescue-Driven Combat – Evacuate civilians, shield them from attacks, and manage chaos as much as combat.
Dynamic Crowd AI – Up to thousands of civilians react with fear, panic, or a range of emotions. They aren’t props — they’re part of the battlefield.
Scaling Escalation – Each round introduces new threats across the Gateway Terminal. Enemies grow deadlier and crowds harder to control.
Team Play, Diverse Roles – Coordinate gear, abilities, and tactics with friends to survive rising chaos.
Artwork is from the lovely One Pixel Brush ( we very much value our real artists!)
Immersive Aten7 Universe
Set in the richly detailed artificial asteroid Aten7, Gateway Guardians is the first module in a massive hard sci-fi transmedia world.
Written by a single creator with 20+ years in film & games
Inspired by Iain M. Banks and Douglas Adams (and a bit of Adrian Tchaikovsky)
Backed by authentic hard science, with lots of biomimetics, living with AI, next-gen humans, stupid great hair, big guns and a helping of moral ambiguity.
Your character and progress will persist into future Aten7 modules, keeping your story alive across new adventures.
Aten7 sits atop a high-capacity space elevator in GEO over the Pacific.
What Makes It Different
Not Just “Kill Everything” – Your challenge is to manage crowds and chaos while under 'problemmatic conditions'.
Grounded in Science – Weapons, systems, and mechanics are built on real physics and engineering. No magic hand-waving, just super detailed nerd heavy tech.
STEM Infusion – Gameplay subtly integrates scientific principles into strategy. You’ll absorb them naturally while playing (without edutainment vibes). Get smart while playing 'cause why not right?
Free TTRPG Coming Soon – A licensed tabletop RPG (with GM guide, Player handbook, and Encyclopaedia) expands your journey beyond digital play.
We particularly like the cooling radiator on this CDL-22 design from Daniel Solovev
Development & Community
The worldbuilding of Aten7 is the result of 7 years of obsessive creation, crafted with a lifetime of RPG experience and love for science fiction. Our indie team is committed to delivering truly original mechanics, high production values, and an evolving universe that rivals AAA ambition.
We’re currently in the midst of development and will launch our first public playtests soon. Your wishlist and feedback directly shape development. Please note that our current environment and some elements are unfinished and will be replaced soon with our detailed build, the current version is for testing during development.
Some art from our TTRPG books, illustrated by Tano Bonfanti
Stay Connected
A trailer is coming soon — but you don’t need to wait.
Wishlist Gateway Guardians today to follow our journey
Be first in line for playtests and community sessions
Help us shape the future of tactical, strategic co-op RPGs
Check out our website for an interactive pre-history story!
A Deep Dive Note from the Creator
I’ve been building worlds and writing games since I was a kid, wrote my first small adventure game at 11, DM'd a tonne of D&D and designed my first LARP in high school, you could say I'm a little obsessed with RPG games. After 'a few' years in both the games and film industry, and a lifetime playing and designing RPGs, I wanted to create something that pulled everything I care about into one project.
Aten7 has been my obsession since 2018. While we have an awesome small indie team, the entire world and game system is a solo affair. It’s a labour of love: a hard-sci-fi world that takes biomimetics, AI, and real science seriously, that plays out the repercussions of technology and culture 100 years from now - but also embraces humour, weirdness, and the kind of extreme role-playing depth I love to see. I like super deep worlds, worlds I can dive into and not see the bottom, so I have spent 7 years worldbuilding this so you can explore it for a long time.
This is more than just a game system to me. It’s designed from the ground up to give players flexibility: to choose the playstyle they want, and to grow not just in the game but in themselves. At its core, the game system is designed to infuse STEM thinking into play. No lectures, no edutainment, just mechanics and some neat tricks that make you smarter while you’re having fun. We’re surrounded by shallow content that dulls us down, so I wanted to build the opposite: a kind of “reverse brain-rot” effect where you leave the game more curious and capable than when you came in.
I’ve also built this with artists in mind. Too many are losing work to AI scraping and unfair systems. In our world, professional artists can sell directly to players. Supporting real creative people is part of the DNA of Aten7.
The CRPG game you get here is also the same system as the free TTRPG system we are releasing alongside it, there are a set of books, including GM guide, Players Guide, Menagerie and World Encyclopaedia. You can explore the world at your leisure through the books in the knowledge the games are the same.
Gateway Guardians is the first module of many, we have another in production now (Ring Racer) and a third slated for next year (Midian Blue), and we want your help shaping all of it. We’re still early, and your feedback means everything.
If any of this speaks to you, please wishlist, join the playtests, follow us on socials and tell us what you think. I'd love your feedback on our development and we all look forward to sharing more with you!
best,
-Sylvan
