# FOXFIRE — Stages (Index)

> Plain-text version for AI agents and machine-readable consumers. Mirrors https://getfoxfire.com/game/stages/.

## Facts

- Stages planned: 5
- Steam demo scope: Stage 1
- Early Access scope: Stages 1, 2 and 3 complete
- Full release (1.0) scope: all five stages
- A "run" = a single attempt at a single stage. Stages launch individually from the hangar as separate missions; a run is not a gauntlet through all five.
- Stage unlock chain: Stage 2 unlocks on beating Stage 1; Stage 3 unlocks on the first Stage 2 boss kill. Locked stages display as classified.

## The stage design contract

Every main stage must be strong in two dimensions before it ships:

1. A mechanically distinct mission and encounter structure.
2. A distinct navigation or spatial problem.

Narrative is supporting and cannot substitute for either.

## The five stages

| # | Stage | Setting | Navigation problem |
|---|-------|---------|--------------------|
| 1 | Asteroid Belt | Deep solo recon into the Kepler belt | Destructible solid rock that blocks, breaks and pays |
| 2 | Viridian Storm | Low orbit over an abandoned jungle/hive planet | A drifting safe zone (the eye) inside a lightning field |
| 3 | Ark Heist | Pirate stronghold inside an ancient Ark wreck | Room-and-door topology; crossing bulkheads spends the escape budget |
| 4 | Void Rendezvous | Deep space that should be lifeless | Darkness, mirrored space and unreliable perception |
| 5 | Return to Eden | The ancestral home (Earth) | The homecoming is not what the fleet was promised |

### Stage 1 — Asteroid Belt
18 minute solo recon. Asteroids are foreground gameplay: they block movement, take weapon damage, split when destroyed, persist for the run, and can drop salvage. Full guide: https://getfoxfire.com/game/stages/asteroid-field/

### Stage 2 — Viridian Storm
FTL jump into low orbit; the storm front has already arrived. The stage clock does not start at launch, it starts on entry to the eye: a drifting, breathing, periodically unstable pocket of calm. Lightning targets the ship's projected position rather than its last known one. Runs longer than Stage 1. Currently the hardest shipped stage.

### Stage 3 — Ark Heist
Room-based heist for the navigation charts to Eden. The macro map is fixed and learnable (room positions, door connections, landmarks) while interiors reroll each run. The jump drive is a budget spent by crossing bulkheads rather than a meter that fills. Map intelligence (discovered rooms, landmarks, secret walls) persists across attempts.

### Stage 4 — Void Rendezvous
Three escalating regions that attack the player's trust in perception: a lightless trench (forward-facing illumination cone only; some beacons are lures attached to larger creatures), a fractured mirror plane (reflections displaced, delayed or early), and a final region where reality fails to render correctly.

### Stage 5 — Return to Eden
Earth as a cracked wasteland rather than salvation. The origin of the animal fleet is revealed here, along with the creator responsible.

## What carries vs what resets

- **Resets on death:** the in-run build. Level, experience, weapons, passives, in-run credits.
- **Carries:** banked credits, ship unlocks, wingmates, boss trophies, permanent hangar upgrades, flight-sim medals.
- Permanent progression is deliberately finite and bounded. Its purpose is unlocking breadth, ships and build variety, not an endless stat treadmill. A fully upgraded expert finding the standard game easy is the intended outcome; the Heat ladder (stacking optional challenge modifiers) is the long-term mastery path.

## Difficulty design

Stages scale through authored stage parameters (run length, spawn-rate ceilings, enemy caps, environmental pressure, boss rules) rather than bespoke per-stage code paths. Boss requirements differ: Stage 1's boss is optional and the ship escapes without it; Stage 3's boss jams the FTL drive, so defeating it is the only path to a stage clear.

## Build status (as of September 2026)

- Stage 1: complete; ships in the Steam demo.
- Stage 2: playable, in its polish tail. Built but not fully balanced; known work remaining on the boss.
- Stage 3: in active production. Procedural rooms, traps and the escape chase are running; enemy population and the final boss are not yet complete.
- Stages 4 and 5: designed and written, no runtime. Narrative completeness is not runtime completion.

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Related: game hub https://getfoxfire.com/game/ · ships index https://getfoxfire.com/game/ships/ · weapons index https://getfoxfire.com/game/weapons/ · Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/4714090/FOXFIRE/

Last updated: 2026-09-16